Comment by BoorishBears | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BoorishBears | Hacker News Reader

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I didn't say you're pro-slavery so please don't martyr yourself.

I said you bucked this person's assumption of "all people with morals believe a slave is bad"

Otherwise you could obviously moralize the more complex concept of slavery based on objective reality by observing "more slavery == more slaves"; slavery is bad QED

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Morality is concerned with examining if something is good or bad. So if all people with morals (regardless of what those are) find a concept to be either good or bad... then it might as well exist outside of the purview of morality for the purpose of debate. That's the metaphorical "floor of morality"

My point is normally you need nuanced examples to prove that things "on the floor" can still be moralized, like murder vs murder in self-defense.

What you proved is that there are also people willing to moralize concepts as simple as "slaves are bad" (vs "slavery is bad")

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In doing so you demonstrated why when someone tries to moralize things that I assumed to be "on the floor", or universally bad: I just discard their opinion without consideration.

If you ask me "why do you think slaves are bad", I'll mostly say "I just do, and I don't wish to entertain arguments otherwise". I see it as being pragmatic, but some may consider it fragile.

It's just, I'm a fairly introspective and have had a varied enough life that I trust my intuition that anyone who can't reach the floor of my morality is not worth convincing.

Trusting your intuition and blocking out people is great for you, personally, the owner of your space.

That attitude would harm the public space, where standards to discuss current and new issues would be really helpful.

You also think the choice of slavery is proof of people falling below your personal moral floor. To me, and I think to the OP, it's proof that even questions with obvious moral answers are beyond empiricism. Which is the point you're missing.

So we need to know on what basis we arrive at the obvious answer slavery is bad, because the we can use that basis for more complex matters. Shutting each other down just for talking is authoritarian, and the thing about that is if the guy on top is your guy that's great, but you have no control over who the guy on top is.

> That attitude would harm the public space, where standards to discuss current and new issues would be really helpful.

Actually there's more evidence that the public space could not exist without some sort of floor:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/evolution-morali...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...

MFT is highly debatable in terms of if it's the right definition of the floor, but it logically tracks that for society to evolve to the point where you can have useful discourse at all, individuals must be arrive at some floor for themselves.

> You also think the choice of slavery is proof of people falling below your personal moral floor. To me, and I think to the OP, it's proof that even questions with obvious moral answers are beyond empiricism. Which is the point you're missing.

You're confusing slaves and slavery: Slavery is complex enough that I will engage someone who wants to moralize it (after all, is it modern or historical? specific race? is debt-based slavery included? what about war? etc.).

But a slave is "a human owns another". I arrogantly consider it not worth my time to convince someone whether "a human owning another" is good or bad.

> So we need to know on what basis we arrive at the obvious answer slavery is bad, because the we can use that basis for more complex matters.

Nothing I said precludes logic to examining slavery: "Slavery increase the number of humans owned by other humans, so slavery is bad"

From there one might logically say: "Well what about economic cases, where technically I don't own you?", and then the logical next step might be to consider "at what level of penalties for a debtor does it start to become owned by the creditor?"

I'm a curious enough person that I'd accept discomfort to ensure my floor is low enough to allow deeply messy moral debate... but on the same coin, that reinforces my confidence that the precious few conversations that do get swept under it were probably not valuable. As always ymmv...

> Shutting each other down just for talking is authoritarian, and the thing about that is if the guy on top is your guy that's great, but you have no control over who the guy on top is.

Deciding not to convince someone of my point of view isn't shutting them down. This feels like a very messy attempt to force some sort of pro-authoritarian projection onto me :/

Like I said, there's no issue with that on a personal level. The authoritarianism is in the context of that attitude in the public space, because the public space is where morality is talked about to make policy decision. Choosing not to convince someone, in a position of power, is authoritarian.

It doesn't matter how low your floor is, or what you specifically think is above or below it. You have to be able to explain how you set this floor in the first place to join the public discussion.

Please learn what authoritarianism means if you insist on continuing to use it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authoritarian

Unless you think convincing people of your personal morals is a replacement for respecting their freedom, you can stop clumsily forcing that angle...

Overall you seem lost. You think people owe you unendingly deep explanations to their personal morals to earn a place in public discourse and to argue policy, which is probably the first authoritarian take shared in this thread.

Engaging in discussions about morality necessitates sharing the underlying reasoning. It appears your approach is rooted in conformity to popular opinion, though that could justify practices like slavery if widely accepted. Consider delving deeper into your beliefs; by establishing reasons for opposing slavery, you might uncover contradictions with other political stances, fostering genuine self-reflection on your overall political outlook.

> It appears your approach is rooted in conformity to popular opinion, though that could justify practices like slavery if widely accepted

If it appears like that you should read what you replied to a little closer...

You're confusing not wanting to dissect the most basic tenants of your morals, with not being willing to dissect morals: I'll gladly debate the trolley problem with you, which involves killing people. But if in isolation you just ask "why do you think killing is bad", I'm not going to engage unless you have some complicating factor. I consider something that basic as an amoral (not immoral!) concept.

Similarly I'll debate the complex topic of slavery, but not the isolated basic concept of "a human owning another is not good". That still leaves room for someone to claim "well yes slaves were bad but the benefit was X and that outweighed the bad", but now we at least have some basic floor that we can start having infinitely more thought provoking discussion.

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What I just described is why you're more likely to grow as a person with a moral floor.

Instead of getting trapped debating concepts we all have the most sense of self attached to and least mental plasticity on, you can have meaningful debate on higher level subjects of morality underpinned by those concepts. With dialectic thinking you're able to independently consider not just the opposing argument, and what underpins that argument.

So now you considered the opposition to your underpinning, but you've done so with none of the inherent emotion and ego that would have been attached to directly debating that underpinning.

Not being willing to outwardly debate is not the same as not being willing to think on if you have strong dialectic thinking skills, and _that's_ where people need to start focusing on to get past the widespread division growing in society.

Not an unending explanation as much as it is just an explanation. Not a semantic circular explanation like slavery is bad because it creates more slaves which is bad.

Absent total anarchy/libertarianism, freedoms will be limited in some form, including the freedom to poison a lake, and the freedom to own explosives, and the freedom to drive drunk.

These limitations must be able to be discussed and consensus formed. If one party refuses to engage in discourse then their only avenue is power.

>"slaves are bad"

It's the slave OWNERS I consider bad, not the slaves.

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