Philosophy Now Forum

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Greta wrote:(to Kayla) Are you really going to waste everyone's time pretending that you don't understand the coercion involved between Islamic men and women?

Actually you do not either.
Most of what we have is second hand shite from the media, and I have heard arguments on both sides.

The only way forwards is to give freedom to those who want to choose; not impose dress codes that fly against personal freedoms for those that want to dress the way they see fit.
The law should act against compulsion, not be a compulsion.

Law is always a compulsion, Hobbs. Yes, of course the media is manipulative, but the oppression of women by men in Islam is significant and problematic on many levels, and the burqa is one small part of that. A woman wearing burqa walking behind a man is essentially a watered down version of dog being walked on a lead by its master - a visible display of a human's ownership and responsibility of a subhuman being.

Greta wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Greta wrote:(to Kayla) Are you really going to waste everyone's time pretending that you don't understand the coercion involved between Islamic men and women?

Actually you do not either.
Most of what we have is second hand shite from the media, and I have heard arguments on both sides.

The only way forwards is to give freedom to those who want to choose; not impose dress codes that fly against personal freedoms for those that want to dress the way they see fit.
The law should act against compulsion, not be a compulsion.

Law is always a compulsion, Hobbs.

No, no, no. Laws can act against compulsion. Try and use your imagination!

Yes, of course the media is manipulative, but the oppression of women by men in Islam is significant and problematic on many levels, and the burqa is one small part of that. A woman wearing burqa walking behind a man is essentially a watered down version of dog being walked on a lead by its master - a visible display of a human's ownership and responsibility of a subhuman being.

What is the difference between the Father of a Muslim girl making her wear a Burkah, or the French government arresting a Muslim woman for wanting to cover up her own body.
Compare that with a law that ensures a woman has a right to choose her own outfit and makes it illegal for her father to make her wear a burkah.

Greta wrote:A woman wearing burqa walking behind a man is essentially a watered down version of dog being walked on a lead by its master - a visible display of a human's ownership and responsibility of a subhuman being.

Again, this is about how individual's think about someting--the meaning they assign to something like that.

If you're telling us that that's the meaning you assign to it, that's fine, but it doesn't imply that everyone, including the people involved, assign the same meaning to it.

Terrapin Station wrote:

Greta wrote:A woman wearing burqa walking behind a man is essentially a watered down version of dog being walked on a lead by its master - a visible display of a human's ownership and responsibility of a subhuman being.

Again, this is about how individual's think about someting--the meaning they assign to something like that.

If you're telling us that that's the meaning you assign to it, that's fine, but it doesn't imply that everyone, including the people involved, assign the same meaning to it.

I suspect that if it was men being oppressed by women you may feel differently. As I say, some put greater emphasis on cultural tolerance than women's rights.

Greta wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:

Greta wrote:A woman wearing burqa walking behind a man is essentially a watered down version of dog being walked on a lead by its master - a visible display of a human's ownership and responsibility of a subhuman being.

Again, this is about how individual's think about someting--the meaning they assign to something like that.

If you're telling us that that's the meaning you assign to it, that's fine, but it doesn't imply that everyone, including the people involved, assign the same meaning to it.

I suspect that if it was men being oppressed by women you may feel differently. As I say, some put greater emphasis on cultural tolerance than women's rights.

'Tolerance', another buzzword adopted by the PCSJWs to beat rationality into submission. Funny that they are so concerned about 'freedom'-- when it suits them. The rest of the time they are hammering free speech. A weird and destructive lot indeed. And yes, it's really none of males' business--like abortion.

http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/swedish-rape ... ys-silent/

Of course, the PCSJWs will say this is all lies, and it isn't happening at all. We should also allow 'honour killings' because it would be culturally insensitive not to.

Greta wrote:I suspect that if it was men being oppressed by women you may feel differently. As I say, some put greater emphasis on cultural tolerance than women's rights.

Which I take rather insultingly, as if my philosophy of meaning is some poorly thought-out, perhaps off-the-cuff, self-serving thing rather than being the result of many, many years of philosophical study and focused work on just what meaning is and just how it works.

vegetariantaxidermy, do you keep thinking that I'm pro PC/SJW or something? Lord knows why you're thinking that. I couldn't be further from PC/SJW views. I hate both movements, and both movements constantly do just what I was railing about regarding meaning.

Terrapin Station wrote:

Greta wrote:I suspect that if it was men being oppressed by women you may feel differently. As I say, some put greater emphasis on cultural tolerance than women's rights.

Which I take rather insultingly, as if my philosophy of meaning is some poorly thought-out, perhaps off-the-cuff, self-serving thing rather than being the result of many, many years of philosophical study and focused work on just what meaning is and just how it works.

Hardly an insult. We don't always see our own biases. It's an issue for everyone.

Greta wrote:Hardly an insult. We don't always see our own biases. It's an issue for everyone.

Likewise insulting. Part of it is that you'd think that in years and years of work on philosophy of meaning I wouldn't have considered every at least commonly conceivable type of scenario and encountered every at least commonly conceivable objection.

Terrapin Station wrote:

Greta wrote:Hardly an insult. We don't always see our own biases. It's an issue for everyone.

Likewise insulting. Part of it is that you'd think that in years and years of work on philosophy of meaning I wouldn't have considered every at least commonly conceivable type of scenario and encountered every at least commonly conceivable objection.

Terrapin, what then is your ethics criterion?

Mine is like Greta's. It's the primacy of the human rights of persons. 'Persons' including so-called 'minorities' such as children, women, and I also want to include the great apes as persons.

I'd remind you Terrapin that cultural relativism is not a moral stance it's an epistemic one.

Terrapin Station wrote:

Greta wrote:Hardly an insult. We don't always see our own biases. It's an issue for everyone.

Likewise insulting. Part of it is that you'd think that in years and years of work on philosophy of meaning I wouldn't have considered every at least commonly conceivable type of scenario and encountered every at least commonly conceivable objection.

Okay, potential hidden biases are an issue for the other 7,448,543,850, but not you.

Greta wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:

Greta wrote:Hardly an insult. We don't always see our own biases. It's an issue for everyone.

Likewise insulting. Part of it is that you'd think that in years and years of work on philosophy of meaning I wouldn't have considered every at least commonly conceivable type of scenario and encountered every at least commonly conceivable objection.

Okay, potential hidden biases are an issue for the other 7,448,543,850, but not you.

Why would my ontology of what meaning is and how it works change just because it's something that I take to be directed towards me or personally?

For example: I took the last couple comments as insulting or disrespectful--that's my interpretation of them.

Would that make me think that meaning/interpretation isn't subjective? How would it work, exactly, that it would affect my ontology of meaning, especially given that I've done work on the same for decades and I've gone through countless scenarios a la "Well, how about is this happens?" "How about if that happens?" "Can I account for this phenomenon under my theory?" etc.?

What you're doing is similar to this simpler example:

Joe says, "I'm against the death penalty."

Pete says, "You'd not feel that way if your wife/one of your kids were murdered."

Pete is assuming that Joe has formulated his view on the death penalty without thinking of situations where we'd be talking about a crime that affects him as personally as one can. That seems to me to imply that Pete believes that Joe hasn't thought about the issue very much at all, that Joe doesn't know how to philosophically approach thinking about an issue, or that Joe isn't very intelligent since he can't even imagine such a simple "difficult scenario" challenge to his view.

Belinda wrote:Terrapin, what then is your ethics criterion?

Mine is like Greta's. It's the primacy of the human rights of persons. 'Persons' including so-called 'minorities' such as children, women, and I also want to include the great apes as persons.

I'd remind you Terrapin that cultural relativism is not a moral stance it's an epistemic one.

Well, first, it's important to note that my comment was about meaning and how it works. It wasn't at all about ethics. So if people are reading the comment in question and thinking about ethics, then they're not at all understanding the comment.

Why is meaning and how it works important? Well, people are formulating views based on views about what something means, and they're not doing so based only on what something means to them. They're assuming that x means M more or less to everyone, or that it's a fact that x means M. But that's not how meaning works. If we're formulating views based on faulty beliefs or assumptions, that's a problem (well, or at least it can be a problem; I wouldn't say it always is, since, for example, I'm an instrumentalist on many things, including that I believe that science tends to work instrumentally, especially with the modern focus on mathematics . . . that's a completely different can of worms though).

At any rate, re ethics, someone just asked on another forum that I participate in "What are your normative ethical views?" This was my answer:

"I don't subscribe to any established 'school' or approach to ethics.

"For one, I'm no longer of the opinion that any sort of overarching principle-oriented approach is a good idea. Those approaches always seem to lead to what I consider ridiculous stances.

"Trying to be less difficult, though, you could probably say that my ethical views tend to follow a combination of ideas related to existential authenticity, a kind of loose, minarchist libertarianism, and some socialist ideals. --As if that's less difficult, haha.

"Basically, though, I approach each situation on its own terms and try to reach what seems to me like a reasonable conclusion that errs on the side of permissibility, or that errs on the side of not instituting grossly disproportionate punishments/retribution. Again, I don't think that principle-oriented approaches tend to do that."

Also, re relativism, I am a relativist, but I wouldn't say that it's primarily an epistemic stance (even though I am an epistemological relativist, too)--it's rather an ontological one. Epistemic relativism is an upshot of ontological relativism.

Terrapin Station wrote:

Greta wrote:Hardly an insult. We don't always see our own biases. It's an issue for everyone.

Likewise insulting. Part of it is that you'd think that in years and years of work on philosophy of meaning I wouldn't have considered every at least commonly conceivable type of scenario and encountered every at least commonly conceivable objection.

So you don't have any actual opinion of your own. How pathetic. But then, you are a 'relativist', the most annoying people on the planet. This is the trouble when people label themselves, they feel obliged to abide by whatever it is they've loced themselves into, instead of using logic and reason (either that, or 'relativists' are just lazy idiots who want a fancy title).

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:So you don't have any actual opinion of your own. How pathetic.

Your reading comprehension problems are hilarious.