. . . 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?