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wedrifid comments on Knox and Sollecito freed - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (114)
I disagree strongly with both your argument and conclusion. Self delusion is not a get-out-of-ever-being-immoral free card. (Unlike most of the rest of this whole conversation tree) this point is a hugely important one to me and does not rely on idiosyncratic definitions.
If you are considering a species which is capable of constructing sincere but false beliefs for pragmatic purposes basing a morality entirely around whether individuals 'believe' they are doing something wrong is outright absurd!
I don't see how the second sentence supports the first. I certainly wouldn't declare that self-delusion is a "get-out-of-ever-being-immoral free card" either, though the word "moral" is such a fast-moving target that I don't think I would even use it in the first place.
I'm certainly not doing that. Again the disagreement proves ephemeral. From the beginning I was simply clarifying that you and JoshuaZ were interpreting the two key terms differently ("disgraceful" and "evil"), which led to a fake disagreement.
This conversation was originally about whether their behavior was "disgraceful" and "evil" (which it was under your definitions but wasn't under JoshuaZ's), but now you've switched to arguing that self-deluded, socially destructive behavior is in fact nevertheless immoral. Well I guess I would agree with that, and I don't see why JoshuaZ wouldn't either.
So you agree their behavior is immoral but not that it is "evil"? Isn't this just a matter of degree?
I actually wasn't taking sides on which definition of "evil" to use. I usually try to avoid that word anyway because of its propensity to stir emotion.
It could be a matter of degree. Indeed, wedrifid seems to be using it that way. But JoshuaZ seemed to be interpreting it differently: to mean that the Kerchers didn't in fact sincerely believe that Knox and Sollecito murdered their daughter.
In other words, to wedrifid "evil" describes the act and its potential consequences, but to JoshuaZ it connotes their state of mind. The whole "disagreement" is nothing more than a miscommunication. Or so I have been arguing.
But now wedrifid is talking about an entirely new term: "moral". I have no pet definition for this term, and he seems to be making a good point in saying, "considering a species which is capable of constructing sincere but false beliefs for pragmatic purposes basing a morality entirely around whether individuals 'believe' they are doing something wrong is outright absurd", so I agreed.
I interpreted Wedrifid's usage of the term "evil" as roughly, "very, very immoral". I would be surprised if anyone would disagree that one has a moral duty to know as much as possible the true facts of a matter before going about destroying someone else due to those facts. So in so far as the Kerchers have failed to know what is going on (completely failed) they have (completely) failed to be moral.
I agree with all that.