Thread: Parent's Rights, where do you stand?

Originally Posted by Nick2.1

Yeah cause every time I go to costco(or anywhere for that fact) and see horrible little children abusing their powers over their parents cause it isn't social acceptable to give them a love tap doesn't give me any hint. I've meet plenty of parents who keep telling me how they can't gain any control sometimes and when I mention spankings or whatever they get scared and talk about social services taking their children away if they did that.

Yep, anecdote, just as I suspected.

In order to draw meaningful conclusions about human behavior on a large scale, you need meaningful evidence, which is going to be produced by research in fields such as sociology, behavioral psychology, and so forth. In order to support the particular conclusion you are trying to advance here, you would need evidence establishing, or at least suggesting, a causal link between parents' willingness to slap/smack their children, and good behavior. It isn't enough to just say "When I'm in costco I see kids acting horrid and I conclude that it's because their parents won't smack them". That's baseless conjecture. You are presuming, without reason, that the poor behavior of the kids is a result of their parents' unwillingness to smack them, and could be rectified if that unwillingness went away.

Originally Posted by Syme

Yep, anecdote, just as I suspected.

In order to draw meaningful conclusions about human behavior on a large scale, you need meaningful evidence, which is going to be produced by research in fields such as sociology, behavioral psychology, and so forth. In order to support the particular conclusion you are trying to advance here, you would need evidence establishing, or at least suggesting, a causal link between parents' willingness to slap/smack their children, and good behavior. It isn't enough to just say "When I'm in costco I see kids acting horrid and I conclude that it's because their parents won't smack them". That's baseless conjecture. You are presuming, without reason, that the poor behavior of the kids is a result of their parents' unwillingness to smack them, and could be rectified if that unwillingness went away.

Not unwillingness, if you are unwilling to discipline your kids in anyway, then in my opinion you aren't strong enough to be a parent. Social acceptability is what I'm looking for. Some people don't think it's ok, but I don't think it is any of their business. I don't condone abuse at all, there is a fine line you can cross when trying to raise you kids with that method. If you want to raise your child with verbal rather than physical discipline, that is up to you, but I believe that it should be acceptable either way.

Yes, this ties in with gwahir's "Rights Theory" thread in which I took on Syme's stance of morality is subjective to the culture and framework of which you were raised. There is no such thing as

Originally Posted by gwahir

It's generally agreed upon (by me as well) that morality, well defined, is not up for interpretation.

that is not up for interpretation. Yes, to us in Canada, the US, the UK or Australia who have vaguely similar cultures and laws think something like raping of a woman is non-negotiable immoral, but in some cultures that is completely moral.

Like I said in the other thread, we would view stoning a woman to death for having premarital sex to be terribly out of our moral range, but at one time the majority of people agreed that it was the perfectly right thing to do. All morality is completely subjective. I would bet in 3000 years, they may view some of the things we do now as outrageously immoral by their standards, depending if it is a ultra-conservative fascist but blissful utopia or a completely liberal society. Think about abortions, think about the death penalty, think about putting criminals in prison... or the fact that we even have criminals, who's to say that 10,000 years from now future humans (if we still exist) won't view our views on morality horrifically savage?

So pretty much they have taken the average parental role model and turned it into an amendment? I see this as a good thing general, but some conflicting issues. For example, a few years back a huge story (at least locally) was of a vegan family not giving their children enough nutrition and they were hospitalized. Now the parent has a right to raise the kid as they see fit, but now the kid is in apparent danger.

Who would this amendment give the most leverage too? The parents or the state?

Originally Posted by MrShrike

Syme, are you an obectivist, or a libertarian?

Objectivist--hell no (assuming, because this is the internet, that you mean Ayn Rand's objectivism; if you mean the other, earlier, philosophical objectivism, I'm not so sure). Libertarian--not really. I have a "libertarian", i.e. ultra-permissive or "classically liberal", outlook on some issues (abortion and reproductive rights, sexual issues, gun rights, drug legalization, freedom of speech and religion, etc.), but I wouldn't describe myself as a libertarian in general, because there are many other issues on which I have views that favor a strong role for the state, and would make "real" libertarians cringe. If you wanted to place me on a two-axis political spectrum like the Political Compass, I'd be pretty far towards the libertarian end of the social axis, but pretty near the middle of the left-right economic axis.

FWIW, I see the issue at hand (whether morality is objective or subjective) as unrelated to politics. Not that moral views don't inform political views (obviously they do), but I don't think that whether a person views morality as objective or subjective necessarily has anything to do with how they are going to view various political issues.

Originally Posted by gwahir

Syme, I'm curious.

If you think morality is relative, why do you have moral discussion? What do you hope to achieve, and how can you be outraged at any moral offense of someone else?

Just because I think morality is relative doesn't mean I don't have moral views of my own; I definitely do. It just means that I recognize that I have those views because I was socialized to have them and/or because I cultivated them myself, not because I have discovered some universal moral truth or law that the people who disagree with me haven't discovered. I recognize that the moral views of everyone else in the world were arrived at in the same way. All it means is that in a moral discussion, I have to try to actually convince someone that my view of morality makes more sense or works better than theirs (and hopefully thereby convert them!); I can't fall back on the crutch of claiming that my moral views are necessarily more correct because they more closely align with some universal moral truth, while my opponent's views are less correct, or more immoral, because they don't align with that truth. I can't say, "Morality means X, that's beyond debate, and my views are moral within that definition while yours aren't." Making that argument is usually not going to get you anywhere in a moral discussion anyhow. The actual reason that I have moral discussion is simply that I find it engaging and interesting to do so.

As for how I can become enraged or offended at behavior that doesn't square with my own moral views, it's simple: Because I'm human. Even though I recognize, on an intellectual level, that my moral views aren't objectively more valid than anyone else's, they are still deeply-held beliefs, and on an emotional level I can't help but be angry or upset when I see something that clashes with them. I'd be an emotionless robot otherwise. Socialization is a powerful thing.

I'll try to respond to your other post, the longer one, later in the day when I have a bit more free time (posting from work, don't tell my boss).

Well, since this thread has completely gone off topic and is now discussing a much broader and hazier issue (as internet threads are wont to do... err, that might be ascribing a "will" to a thread, but whatever...)

...I'm not going to try to get it back on topic and will go along with the current discussion.

I don't see how anyone can argue that morality is purely subjective. I would think it should be quite clear that there are some propensities to certain types of social behaviors that could be called moral behaviors, though just as anything else their expression is regulated by culture.

I think strong evidence for this can be seen in our mammalian cousins, especially those that function in social groups. Their is obviously some social code that governs their behavior which may be considered sort of proto-morality. If their expressions of social norms and of principles that govern their social interactions are not cultural (at least not purely), then humans should probably be no different.

Going along with this, a somewhat old model of the evolution of human social behavior is gaining popularity again amongst evolutionary anthropologists. I can't quite remember the name it goes by, but it's thought that groups of humans were competing with each other for resources, and those groups with individuals were disposed to cooperative social behavior won out against those groups which were not. In addition, these cooperative groups tended to reject and kick out individuals that did not have a disposition to cooperation, which caused the favoring of genes that encouraged cooperative behavior to be passed on.

Thus, this model could explain why humans seem to be predisposed to certain basic of moral behaviors, such as simply not killing every person they lay eyes on for fun. Again, however, there is merely an average tendency for this behavior over an entire population, and culture can greatly alter behavior. Just as with most other human behavioral characteristics, there is a complex interaction between genes, culture and environment that ultimately determines expression; it is not simply "nature" or "nurture."

Syme the question I asked you about your personal political philosophy was basically keyed into to trying to identify if you have a personal moral system that supports your political views.

I read your argument about this point, but I have to strongly disagree that politics is fundamentally disconnected from morality. This can only be true if you also assume that your (and everyones) personal moral system is completely arbitrary, which I find difficult to believe you do (although of course you may surpirise me ). Which would mean that all your personal views on Rights are actually based purely on your personal prejudices and education and have no real logical foundation.

My point being, that if you have a moral system, then either it is a) completely arbitrary (and thus, worthless), OR b) you must have (or believe you have) some reason for thinking that your moral system is founded somewhere in reality and the real world.

If the answer is b), then your views on the validity of moral relativism and your actual personal moral system are logically inconsistent.

Originally Posted by MrShrike

Syme the question I asked you about your personal political philosophy was basically keyed into to trying to identify if you have a personal moral system that supports your political views.

I read your argument about this point, but I have to strongly disagree that politics is fundamentally disconnected from morality.

Whoa there. I definitely never said that politics is "fundamentally disconnected" from morality. You are putting words into my mouth. In fact, if you read back over the thread you will find that I said this: "Not that moral views don't inform political views (obviously they do)". Of course morality is connected to politics. People form political ideas on the basis of their moral ideas, that's pretty much beyond debate. What I was saying is that I don't think that an objective view of morality is necessarily associated with one sort of political orientation while a subjective view of morality is associated with another; I'm saying that one's opinions on the objectivity/subjectivity of morality aren't necessarily connected to political orientation. That's very different from saying that morality and politics are "fundamentally disconnected".

Originally Posted by MrShrike

This can only be true if you also assume that your (and everyones) personal moral system is completely arbitrary, which I find difficult to believe you do (although of course you may surpirise me ). Which would mean that all your personal views on Rights are actually based purely on your personal prejudices and education and have no real logical foundation.

Yes, I believe that all moral beliefs are arbitrary insofar as there is no universal or absolute moral truth that they can be checked against. And yes, this includes my own moral beliefs, and the political beliefs that spring from them. My moral and political views are arbitrary, and no more or less objectively valid than anyone else's, in that there is no universal moral yardstick that we can hold those views up to and say "Syme's views match the universal moral yardstick more closely than MrShrike's views, therefore Syme's views are more correct". Yes, all my personal views on politics, morality, and everything else are based purely on my prejudices, experiences, education, upbringing, and so forth. And so are yours, and everyone else's. This is exactly what I meant when I talked about socialization earlier in the thread. In fact, again, if you read back in the thread, you will find that I have already admitted what you are trying to get me to say here.

Originally Posted by MrShrike

My point being, that if you have a moral system, then either it is a) completely arbitrary (and thus, worthless), OR b) you must have (or believe you have) some reason for thinking that your moral system is founded somewhere in reality and the real world.

"Worthless"? What is "worth" in this context? What makes a moral view (or political view) worthy or worthless? Why do you think that moral or political views are "worthless" if they don't reflect an objective moral truth? If moral views must reflect objective moral truth in order to have worth, then what are your moral views, and what objective moral truth do they reflect? How are they founded in reality? Please conclusively demonstrate the existence of this objective moral truth and this foundation in reality, if you believe in them.

I agree with Mr. E, arbitrary does not necessarily mean worthless. I agree that my moral system is arbitrary; everyone else's moral system is arbitrary too. Your moral system is arbitrary, no matter how reluctant you are to admit it. Gwahir's moral system is arbitrary, no matter how reluctant he is to admit it. That doesn't make any of our moral systems necessarily worthless, or necessarily worthy for that matter. I think that my moral system is exactly as worthwhile, or worthless, as anyone else's moral system--your system, Gwahir's system, anybody's. Morality systems are ideas, they are socially constructed, they don't have concrete worth. A morality system is as worthy or worthless as any other human idea, any other socially constructed concept. Worth itself is a socially constructed concept.

Originally Posted by MrShrike

If the answer is b), then your views on the validity of moral relativism and your actual personal moral system are logically inconsistent.

I assure you that my ideas about morality are consistent, if they are nothing else.


EDIT: I don't believe in objective moral truth for the same reason that I don't believe in God: There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe in such a thing, no matter how strongly we might wish there was. I'm an atheist because there's no proof of God's existence and I think that reasonable people don't believe in things without reason; and I'm a moral relativist because there's no proof of objective moral truth's existence and I think that reasonable people don't believe in things without reason. Don't get me wrong, I would absolutely LOVE for there to be some sort of objective moral truth that says, for instance, Rape Is Wrong. That would make things a lot easier. I really do wish that I could say that my view of rape (i.e., that it's wrong) is objectively correct, while the view of someone who doesn't believe that rape is wrong is objectively incorrect. But as far as I can tell, there is no such objective moral truth in the universe. And no matter how much I might want to, I can't bring myself to believe in something when I know that it's baseless and when I know that it's a fiction. It's self-delusion, it's not in my nature... again, that's why I'm an atheist too. It still baffles me that people who apply this reasoning to God, and are thus atheists (aren't you an atheist, gwahir?), will nevertheless steadfastly cling to belief in objective morality and refuse to apply the same reasoning to the idea of moral truth. None of this means I don't have moral ideas of my own; I do have my own ideas about morality, and I hold them dear. It just means that I don't try to pretend, to tell myself and others, that my moral ideas reflect or align with any objective, absolute, or universal moral truth--because there's no such thing.

And one more word on the topic of whether this recognition makes moral ideas "worthless"; as I already said, the very idea of "worth" is socially constructed and therefore subjective and arbitrary in it's own right. What's worthwhile or worthless to me may not be the same as what's worthwhile or worthless to you, and neither one of our ideas about worth/worthlessness are more valid than the others. But to me, my moral views are not worthless; they definitely have worth to me, because they are what I use to guide myself through life, to make decisions I can live with and respect myself for, and to evaluate the people around me and decide whether they're deserving of my respect or my friendship. That makes them worthwhile to me, no matter what you (or anyone else) thinks of the fact that I don't base them on some alleged objective moral truth.