RE: Ben Shapiro vs Neil deGrasse Tyson: The WAR Over Transgender Issues
January 28, 2025 at 11:54 am
This is a lot like people who say that the extinction of humans would be bad. Or that the reverse, that humans flourishing would be good. While the number of humans may increase or decrease, and that can be determined objectively, whether either is good or bad cannot be determined objectively. But for some people, it is a base assumption that humans are good. Thus any measures which objectively increase or decrease the prosperity of humans inherits the value judgment, and its vector, from this subjective assessment. Thus they derive that human extinction is bad and that global warming is bad, refusing to ever consider whether or not the basis of such claims is sound. This type of blindness is not particularly uncommon. I'm sure I have a similar blindness regarding some things. But blindness it is, nonetheless.
One might even build a bridge between the two. "Losing a finger is bad because it's harm -- it objectively diminishes me." But why is diminishing you necessarily bad? Where did that axiom come from. If I diminished all humans by killing them, that would certainly be bad in the eyes of said humans, but the cows and chickens might rejoice. One can ask the perennial question, Cui bono? If it is a question of who loses and who gains, then it is going to be inherently subjective. Objective reality cares not whether I do or do not lose a finger, whether I do or do not lose a life, whether the world does or does not lose a species.
I suspect that any value judgment, that something is either good or bad is inherently subjective. I think I've talked to Nudger about such before. He just changes the subject or evades any question posed. I suspect this is an artifact of a desire to prove oneself right, over and above a desire to know what's true, but that is mere speculative psychologizing, so I will not assert it as necessarily the case.
One might even build a bridge between the two. "Losing a finger is bad because it's harm -- it objectively diminishes me." But why is diminishing you necessarily bad? Where did that axiom come from. If I diminished all humans by killing them, that would certainly be bad in the eyes of said humans, but the cows and chickens might rejoice. One can ask the perennial question, Cui bono? If it is a question of who loses and who gains, then it is going to be inherently subjective. Objective reality cares not whether I do or do not lose a finger, whether I do or do not lose a life, whether the world does or does not lose a species.
I suspect that any value judgment, that something is either good or bad is inherently subjective. I think I've talked to Nudger about such before. He just changes the subject or evades any question posed. I suspect this is an artifact of a desire to prove oneself right, over and above a desire to know what's true, but that is mere speculative psychologizing, so I will not assert it as necessarily the case.
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