Alicorn comments on Absolute denial for atheists - Less Wrong

39 Post author: taw 16 July 2009 03:41PM

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Comment author: pjeby 17 July 2009 01:08:50PM 14 points [-]

Well, it's probably at least the same chance that Cosmo's covers are going to stop discussing men's love and commitment as "objects that can and should be attained under the right circumstances". ;-)

Or of course, we could just assume that when people talk about doing things in order to attract a mate, that:

  1. This has nothing to do with "objects" or "attainment",
  2. That any such mates attracted are acting of their own free will, and
  3. That what said consenting adults do with their time together is really none of our business.
Comment author: Steve_Rayhawk 18 July 2009 02:25:05PM *  2 points [-]

pjeby: Can you subjectively discriminate brain states of yours with high medial prefrontal cortex activity and brain states of yours with low medial prefrontal cortex activity? What behavior is primed by each brain state?

Alicorn has intuited that brain states with low mPFC activity prime rationalization of oppression and collusion in oppression. Alicorn also intuits that that signals of social approval of intuitively distinguished brain states characterized by low mPFC activity, as well as absence of signals of social disapproval of intuitively distinguished brain states characterized by low mPFC activity, are signals of social approval of oppression and of willingness to collude in and rationalize oppression.

Also, Alicorn did not express these intuitions clearly.

(Also, on this subject: I think utilitarian moral theorizing and transhumanist moral theorizing are two other brain states that are, by most people, mainly intuitively distinguished as characterizable by low mPFC activity. This makes not signaling disapproval of utilitarianism or transhumanism feel like signaling approval of totalitarianism and slavery.)

[edit fix username capitalization]

Comment author: Alicorn 18 July 2009 05:15:41PM -1 points [-]

Can I really be said to have intuited something that makes less than no sense to me?

Comment author: Steve_Rayhawk 18 July 2009 09:03:04PM *  6 points [-]

I think you intuited that there are some states of mind that cause oppression of women when they are socially tolerated and approved. I also think you intuited that, if women see men in a forum saying things that might be expressions of those states of mind, and see that those things are tolerated, it will cause the women to feel uncomfortable in that forum. I think that your intuition does refer to a real difference between states of mind that can be objectively characterized. (I don't mean to say that you intuited that mPFC measurements were part of that objective characterization.)

Comment author: Alicorn 18 July 2009 09:07:45PM *  -1 points [-]

I think you intuited that there are some states of mind that cause oppression of women when they are socially tolerated and approved.

I think you're mistaken. I'm not a consequentialist! I can complain about some thing X without necessarily thinking it causes anything bad, and especially without thinking that X is a problem because it causes something bad. I think objectifying people in thought, word or deed is wrong. I can still think that the "thought" and "word" varieties of objectification are wrong even if they don't lead to the "deed" kind, so it's not at all necessary for me to have intuited the leap you suggest. That doesn't make it false, it just means you're reading your own views into mine.

Comment author: Steve_Rayhawk 19 July 2009 12:34:40AM *  6 points [-]

But... if objectification never caused oppression, would you still want to complain about it or think it was wrong? Causally? In that world, what would be the cause of your wish to complain about it or think it was wrong?

Comment author: Alicorn 19 July 2009 12:50:05AM 1 point [-]

My ethical views are based on rights. I think that people have the right to be thought of and spoken about as people, not as objects. Therefore, thinking or speaking of people as objects is a violation of that right. Therefore, under my ethical system, it is wrong, even if it really never went any farther.

Comment author: Steve_Rayhawk 19 July 2009 01:02:42AM *  5 points [-]

But... if violations of rights never caused oppression, would you still want to complain about them or think they were wrong? Causally? In that world, what would be the cause of your wish to complain about them or think they were wrong?

Comment author: Alicorn 19 July 2009 01:11:56AM 1 point [-]

Want to? Maybe not. There are other demands on my time, after all, and it's already annoying enough being the only person who (locally) catches these things here in the actual world where the objectification is more hazardous. (It was never my ambition to be the feminism police or the token girl on the site, I assure you.) I would still think it was wrong, but you keep emphasizing causality and I'm just not sure why you think that's an interesting question. I guess for the same cause as the (beginnings of) the development of my ethical theory to start out with, which aren't even clearly memorable to me.

Comment author: Steve_Rayhawk 20 July 2009 06:23:46AM *  4 points [-]

. . . you keep emphasizing causality and I'm just not sure why you think that's an interesting question.

This is hard to explain.

What makes it an interesting question for me is your disagreement with my causal explanation of your motivations (that I gave to pjeby, so he would understand your motivations and not dismiss them).

When I said,

I think you intuited that there are some states of mind that cause oppression of women when they are socially tolerated and approved.

which could be reworded as,

I think the cause of your being motivated to object to objectification is that you intuited that objectification is a state of mind that causes oppression of women when it is socially tolerated and approved.

you said, intending it as a counterargument,

I think you're mistaken. I'm not a consequentialist! I can complain about some thing X without necessarily thinking it causes anything bad, and especially without thinking that X is a problem because it causes something bad.

This means,

I think you're mistaken. I'm not a consequentialist! If I am motivated to think that objectification is a problem generally, and complain about instances of objectification, it does not necessarily mean that I think it causes something bad.

But to counterargue what I had meant, and what I had thought I had said, you would have had to say:

I think you're mistaken. I'm not a consequentialist! If I am motivated to think that objectification is a problem generally, and complain about instances of objectification, it does not necessarily mean that I ever intuited the emotional association that objectification or toleration of objectification could sometimes cause situations (such as oppression) that I and other women would, reasonably, want to avoid being in.

But if that is true, then how could you be caused to be motivated to think that objectification is a problem generally, and to complain about instances of it?

If the cause of your motivation to think that objectification is a problem is that it is a violation of a right, then what was the cause of your motivation to think that objectification is a violation of a right? Would you also say:

I think you're mistaken. I'm not a consequentialist! If I am motivated to think that objectification is a violation of a right, this does not necessarily mean that I ever intuited the emotional association that objectification or toleration of objectification could sometimes cause situations (such as oppression) that I would want to avoid, even though the ways I would want to avoid those situations would be the same ways that I would want to avoid the situations (such as oppression) that could sometimes be caused by other violations of rights or by toleration of other violations of rights.

But if that is true, then how could you be caused to be motivated to think that objectification is a violation of a right?

I think there is human-universal psychological machinery for intuitively learning subtle differences between states of mind in other people that might be advantageous or disadvantageous to oneself or one's allies, and for negotiating about those states of mind and the behaviors characteristic of those states of mind. "Objectification" and "depersonalization" would be two of these states of mind. I think the cause of your being motivated to think that objectification is bad, and the cause of your being motivated to think that objectification is a violation of a right, is that in your mind this machinery intuitively learned that "objectification" is a state of mind in other people that might be disadvantageous to you or people you cared about, and the machinery made you want to negotiate about objectifying states of mind in other people and the behaviors characteristic of those states of mind. (I think the concepts of "rights" and "dignity" are partly ways to talk about intuitions like that.)

If I am mistaken that this is an essential part of the cause of your motivations, then what is the cause of your motivations? What is the alternative that makes me mistaken?

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