When it's OK to Argue with the Experts
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- Опубликовано: 2 ноя 2024
- In which JB draws a distinction between factual and technical expertise and policy or moral expertise. Some disciplines like medicine and engineering straddle the line, and expert opinion only has authority on one side of that line.
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There is a need to retain the reality of a discussion. If there isn't an agreement on MOST of the context being explored then most of the discussions/experiments are unlikely to enlighten in the way science should.
A way that helps center some of these discussions is one of my favorite axioms,
"The greater the idea, the simpler and clearer the language needed to express it."
This strikes me as a form vs function kind of argument.
An expert can understand the function, but the client, or patient or individual understands the form.
This also gets into a conversation around thought vs reality. While an expert understands the relative reality of a situation (if a happens, then b is likely to follow), the affected individual always has a thought of how the interaction, or treatment is supposed to occur.
The difference between form or thought vs the function or reality defines how much expertise the expert is perceived to have.
Trans rights are indeed important to keep discussing.
I think learning to discuss with someone you're disagreeing with can be a healthy thing.
Amen to that. JB
Replace 'Trans' with another, and the discussion continues.
While I agree with you in general, you can still have people who are experts on certain moral or ethical issues, having spent a lot of time considering the issue and its repercussions. This is where I find a lot of the "my opinion is just as valid as yours" arguments fail: your opinion was formed by watching a couple of videos and reading Twitter for half an hour. So yes, you should be able to argue with these experts, but you should do it with an awareness that they've (hopefully) spent a lot more time thinking about the issue than you.
That is an incredibly bold assumption to make. I mean, consider keynsians. They spent 4+ years thinking about something that was undeniably disproven almost two centuries ago. It's the economics equivalent of insisting that perpetual motion machines exist so long as you use the correct reference frame. Like yes, you can force the math to work out, but the problem is that you did the math wrong to make that happen.
The issue with morals and ethics is that there is no one single set of 'correct' ones. One can be an expert in a set (or sets) of morals and/or ethics but that does not necessarily mean that they are an expert in _your_ morals and/or ethics.
Doctors are a good example: they can tell you what you should do to maximize the expected value based on some set of morals and ethics but those might not match with your morals and ethics. A doctor could tell someone that they should not X for a healthy long life but that someone might think that life is not worth living without X.
This also applies to public policy: the morals and ethics are approximately an average of the morals and ethics of the people in power* but this will generally not be an exact match with any one person's morals and ethics. Experts in public policy are experts in this average (or something close to it). When you are arguing with them, you are most likely** arguing less about what action is the best but whose morals and ethics are correct. *approximately the average of the population as a whole in an ideal democracy **highly depends on what exactly you are arguing about
Of course, this is highly simplified since people make mistakes and it is very difficult to apply something as fuzzy as morals and ethics 'correctly', so not even experts are always right. However, the point is that experts do exists for such things as well, and not everyone's opinions are as valid, especially since the experts are likely to have spent quite a bit more time studying and thinking about it.
It is always OK to argue with experts as long as your statements are backed by facts and logic. It's just that most people arguing with experts aren't. This is especially true when it comes to problems of morals and ethics as most people just have an inherent sense of what is right and wrong without spending much time thinking about why or what they should be. Note that when arguing with a doctor, the doctor may or may not be an expert depending on what exactly you are arguing about. If you are arguing whether X is an effective treatment, they most likely are an expert. If you are arguing whether the positives outweigh the negatives for _you_, they are not an expert but they are probably still knowledgeable enough to have a discussion about it and possibly change your opinion (though I wouldn't bet on every doctor to be able to understand that maybe your values are different, so the discussion may be moot).
PS: Instead of directly arguing with an expert (or anyone, for that matter), ask questions. This gives the expert the benefit of the doubt while not coming off nearly as antagonistic. This also gives both of you the chance of changing your opinion without losing an argument. Furthermore, people are generally more receptive to a new point of view when it doesn't come off as antagonistic and/or when they arrive to the conclusion themselves (in this case, through answering the questions). Such tactic only really works when you can have a (possibly extended) discourse with someone, so it isn't always applicable.
There's some truth here, mixed with some fuzzy thinking. Are there any instances of universals? Such as don't torture disabled people for sport? Then there is a moral law that binds all conscious beings. Then the differences in personal and cultural morality is a matter of conscious beings badly approximating a true moral imperative. And that's what I think is actually happening here. JB
@@GoodandBasic Morality inherently relies on the concept of good and evil (or proper and improper) which is a subjective construct. Even if you somehow defined a moral system without the concepts of good and evil as the base, you need some other assumptions as your base (i.e. the moral system defines what good and evil are, not the other way around), and these axioms, in turn, would be subjective. Thus there is no true moral system. One can evaluate how 'good' a moral system is, e.g. by evaluating how much people agree with it on average, but even this method of evaluation is based on the axiom that everyone is equal. One could argue that the moral system used by one country should not be affected by the moral system of another (unless such interaction is in of itself part of the moral system).
Your example relies on assumptions such as "everyone is equal", "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "causing pain unto others for personal pleasure is wrong". The fact that you used "disabled people" instead of just "people" as an example implies that your moral system sees it somehow worse but in my view these are equally bad. Punching someone who can fight back is bad. Punching someone who can't fight back is equally as bad but also makes one a coward (assuming otherwise equal situations).
Very thoughtful
Any expert who is getting paid a lot of money to say what he is saying should be regarded as trustworthy and credible as a used car salesman. Attorneys have ethics ? WTF are you talking about.
😂
Total agreement.
Although there's no measurable "right" answer like in quantitative science, is it still possible to be more expert in morals/ethics through having wider experience to differing values? If you've only lived around people who value individual freedoms you may disregard the opinions of people who value social cohesion more highly
Yes, some moral opinions are better than others. I don't think it's primarily a matter of experience so much as it is of virtue, internal consistency, and insight. When those who are wise and virtuous speak, there is an authority there that we as listeners recognize. JB
Yeah. Most of the time we choose only what authority ( parents, teachers, experts, etc.) to accept as we build a personal worldview. We don't do the experiment ourselves. When we notice inconsistencies we might question the new information that created the problem. Imagine what it must have been like to be told the earth was not flat, and not the centre of creation.
As for these new questions surrounding sex and gender, we are back to choosing our authority to rely on. Homosexuality is easier to accept as a real thing if you know a few people who are living that experience. I think transgender people will fall into the same category.
What amount of uncertainty can you be comfortable with when new observations challenge your worldview? How long can you tolerate living that way?
When your opinion has the potential for harm, then maybe it has less weight than you think.
Let's look at a transwoman in sport.
Do they likely have an unfair advantage in some areas? Yeah.
Should we ostracize them?
According to the people that don't like it. Yeah. In fact many of them think they should be ridiculed.
This is in my personal opinion. Evil.
Do we need to know more? Sure. Let's bring it back to the maths and the verifiable.
But if you indirectly kill someone through ostracism makes YOU evil.
It was only a handful of years ago when writing left handed was evil.
We had a LOT of research in trans that was literally destroyed by the nazis. (The book burnings weren't random.)
We've known about Trans people for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
The hatred for them is new.
Why are there no woman-to-man trans in men sports if there is no unfair advantage?
I say, make a trans division in sports and if people want to watch it, let them watch it. Do not hold down female athletes who trained their whole lives.
@@isatche There are. And lots of them.
Some quick examples in male dominated sport (Rugby):
Jordan Blackwood
Verity Smith
At present, it's a really dicey spot in how we deal with it.
I believe trans-men are men, and trans-women are women.
BUT I also have to acknowledge that a person that transitions later in life will have biological advantages in some areas. (Both ways! Think. Trans-woman in gymnastics)
I don't know the answers, but we can't just make a blanket rule.
If a person starts transitioning pre-puberty, then the advantage in either direction is pretty much non-existent.
They would be for all intents and purposes the other gender if given appropriate treatment/hormones etc at the time.
Post puberty however. It's hard. And I don't know the answer. I'm not an ethicist.
While I agree with most of the video, I don't like your example of trans people. The whole thing is pretty cut and dry. Treatment is transition, failure to treat can have terrible consequences, and in the first place, it's trans people's own bodies, and regardless of whether it's necessary, everyone should be allowed to modify their own bodies as they damn well please.