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Alicorn comments on Absolute denial for atheists - Less Wrong
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I really have no clue what you're talking about in the first bit. Do you think that having ethical opinions is useless because if one didn't have them it would save one a headache? Do you think being repelled is not an appropriate response to detecting an ethical violation? Are you even trying to understand what I'm typing?
Second bit:
"If I were rich, I'd have a nice house and a sports car and girls falling over themselves to be with me." -> "If I were rich, I'd have a nice house and a sports car and real silverware and crystal dishes."
What I was saying was that I think considering people's words and thoughts (as opposed to their behaviors) about their goals and opinions as having ethical weight is ludicrously unuseful.
I also think repulsion is not an appropriate response to "detecting an ethical violation", since that emotion motivates signaling behavior rather than useful behavior. For example, it encourages one to communicate one's beliefs in a judgmental way that communicates entitlement, and discourages co-operation from others.
So, how do you arrive at this substitution? You keep removing the part that only a person can do, so if that rule is applied consistently, you end up with any statement being objectification.
Words are verbal behavior. If you don't think people can be held ethically responsible for verbal behavior, I'm sure I could come up with some persuasive examples, but I'm no longer sure this discussion is worth my attention, as you're very persistent in missing the point.
Please reread:
Sure, there are unethical verbal behaviors. Truthfully expressing opinions or discussing one's goals are not among them, however.
Even if somebody opines that their goal is to do something awful to me, then if that is a true statement, it is actually ethically good for them to give me advance warning! So considering someone's (truthful) verbal behavior about their goals or opinions as unethical is simply not useful to me, regardless of what opinion I may hold about what behavior may result from that opinion or goal.
But what if somebody, in opining that their goal is to do something awful to you, solicits ideas on what awful things to do and how to accomplish them, and encourages others to do awful things to you themselves?
I think that situation is closer to what Alicorn is objecting to.
People can phrase things in many ways. There is a difference which may be ethically relevant between:
"So-and-so is a [profanity] and I'm going to lose it and [threats of violence] if he doesn't leave me alone!"
and
"I don't like so-and-so and I wish he'd go away. I might do something really regrettable if he doesn't; he just gets on my nerves that much."
Even though the goals and opinions might be just alike. That is verbal behavior that goes above and beyond just truthfully stating things.
How so? If the first one is what the person actually means, then blowing smoke up my ass about it doesn't help me.
AFAICT, you are still arguing a bottom line: that truthful verbalization about one's internal state can be ethically bad. I won't claim that NO such verbalization can exist as a mathematical absolute, but I haven't yet seen you offer an example that's bad by anything other than your own definition of "ethics" -- i.e., what makes you feel bad.
So, how can something be wrong that has no bad results, probabilistically OR actually?