henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Oct 15, 2022 3:57 am
Then you have no grounding, no argument at all.
I've got many arguments, but they are not the basis for my hatred of slavery. I don't know how you are using 'grounding', but put me in front of a slave owner and I am grounded, very grounded, and have as much grounding as any one else on this earth.
Stop slavin'!
Why?
Because I don't like it!
Well, you can point out that the slave owner is a partial person and some other things, but I'm just being honest as far as I can tell. Moral realists, it seems to me,....it's like they are Knighting themselves.
They approach the slaveowner, in their minds, and Knight themselves with an imaginary sword. I dub myself Sir Right about my preferences so you have to listen to me. And this does not make the moral realist more effective or Sir Right. But hey, if they don't like slavery, more power to them. I certainly hope they see slavery in all its forms, few do, moral realists and moral non-realists alike. And I will happily ally myself with moral realists, happens daily.
And yes, it would be silly, unless I was king, to approach a slaver that way. But I don't. And I know I am not King.
I'm no salesman or diplomat.
Neither am I.
*
Sure, fire away.
Hey, you, slaver! Stop slavin'!
Why!
Cuz it's wrong.
Sez who?
You.
Come again?
You wouldn't submit to bein' leashed, right?
Of course not!
Of course not. If someone were to try to leash you, what would you do?
Kill them!
Yes, me too. And we'd be right to.
Damn straight! I, *Legato Staccato, am no slave!
Sure. Me neither. And neither are all those women, children, and men you got penned up.
Well, hold on stranger...
Hold on what? You will not accept the leash, but you expect them to. You see the problem, yeah?
Ah, but they are not like me.
How so?
I have the might, they do not.
You got might, but you got no right.
My might gives me the right!
No, it doesn't. You will not accept the leash. Why? Becuz, in your bones you know it's wrong you should be slaved. Why? Becuz you know your life is yours and no other's. You are yours. These folks you have leashed, each hates your friggin' guts. Why? Becuz each, like you, knows he is his own. Each knows his life belongs to him and no other.
No, stranger.
No what? If you know you are yours then you know each of them people you got locked up is his own. And if, on the other hand, you believe none of them folks belong to themselves then you admit you are not your own. There's no other coherent options.
Here's one, stranger. I will leash you and have your tongue cut out!
Oh, shut up, Staccato. I'm writin' this exchange. You ain't gonna do diddly.
I am enraged, stranger! Enraged! I cannot defeat your logic and I cannot leash you! I'm am impotent!
Will you stop slavin'?
No, of course not!
Of course not. Becuz you're an evil man. In the real world, there's not much I can do about garbage people like yourself, but in this lil story I can do whatever I like. Bye, Legato.
Wait...something is wrong...I feel strange...my god, I am transparent!
Yep, slow fade, fade to black.
No! Stranger! Stop this! I beg you!
Too little, too late, fella. You had your shot, you blew it, you're done.
NOOOOOO....!
*name I pulled out my keister
If that works, great. I doubt it will have much effect on the sociopaths and those who down to the bone think Might is Right and those who are also moral realists and....there are other types of slaveowning minds that will not break down when faced with your approach. Not that there is any truly effective assault on the slave owner mind. And I like parts of the approach and would use them myself in many instances. That said...
It seems to me you are, yes, neither a diplomat or a salesman but as far as this is concerned a fantast. And that's true for all of us in different ways. And further, I am rooting for you. You could of course have found some other metaphor for what someone is who uses a variety of attacks: a warrior, for example. If someone attacks me in my kitchen, I will use any tool: a chair, a gun, a knife, a potato peeler, fresh coffee....I find myself in a conversation with a slaver online say, I would use any verbal tool also. That doesn't make me a diplomat or a salesman.
If we look at the people in the CAR who own child slaves for very dangerous fishing work...providing those owners with other ways to earn money or outlawing the practice, iow working at a societal level rather than tossing words at people with awful traditions and themselves having shitty lives would probably be vastly more effective than any word barrage. Just as a side note. And if you think I am saying: hey, they had to be slaveowners or we have no reason to be angry at them, that's just a hallucination. I'm not saying that.
Generally speaking I find the moral realist vs the not moral realist discussion uninteresting. I might take that tack with a slaveowner, however. And actually, in a way, other types of moral realists (types whose moral realism are not might makes right or not based on racism or other groupism, with take a moral antirealist argument against the slaveowner. It's part of your argument above. You want them to notice they have no justification going from might to right. Or tradition to right. Many slaveowners, but certainly not the sociopaths, will have some kind of moral realism justifying their practice. And in that case I may defacto attack them as a moral anti-realist on that issue.
But as a general topic, it doesn't interest me much.
