Why you can't trust your values

(A continuation of my basic principles, inspired by this discussion)

In general, if everyone from group A (women, the poor, immigrants etc) just happens to violate seemingly coincidental and objective value B then:
(a) It really is a coincidence
(b) They're just inferior in general
(c) There's something skeevy going on with the way your values are contructed
(d) You're not applying your values consistently
( And no, you don't get to just assume it's b... )

On cultural intolerance

(A follow on from Speaking about bad ideas...atheism and race! since a lot of the same arguments came up in the comments)

Why I see cultural intolerance as racist: VERY few people in polite modern western society are explicitly racist in the "I hate everyone with dark skin" way. I tend to use "racist" to mean any tendency in society which consistently and unfairly discriminates against people of a particular ethnicity, even though most of these justify themselves using cultural rather than explicitly racist ideas. If you scratch the surface, a lot of the time these ideas are being applied arbitrarily or inconsistently and it really is about race after all.

I covered the basic ideas in Why you can't trust your values, so this is just a "few" *cough* extra things.

I mean you can't help but have values and judge other people by them, and since you don't grow up in a vacuum chances are you're going to end up seeing people from your own culture as being (on average) better since they follow your values more closely. But you have to be very careful about thinking about where those values come from, and if you're applying them fairly, and what consequences you bring from them.

Short version:
It's ok to say "I don't understand why more americans don't oppose the death penalty, though I guess I can see how it ties in with the emphasis their society tends to place on justice"
It's not ok to say "All christians are a bunch of bloodthirsty savages, just look at the bible and the way they all support the death penalty"
( Read more... )