Why MUST they be 'corrected'?Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:10 pmOK. Is it so useful that you have to treat them as different discrete categories; or will a continuum suffice?Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:14 amYes, I did draw the distinction. Or redrew it.
I think it's useful to distinguish between what gets called immoral behavior from mistakes
There's a fuzzy line on the continuum where certain mistakes are serious enough that we must do something about them e.g they must be corrected; and norms enforced. Where other transgressions can be overlooked as unimportant.
And, in what WAYS can they be 'corrected'?
But that ALL DEPENDS ON the 'error', correct?Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:10 pm To me it's a question of strictness (which is also a sliding scale). You can let everything slide if you so choose. You can be a sanctimonious p**** and be strict about any deviations from any standards. Go be a Grammar Nazi if that's your thing.
Hence the point that the transgression is only a difference in severity but not in kind. An error is an error is an error. It' carries negative connotation - a failing on our part. Not positive. Not neutral. Negative.
But NEITHER necessarily MAKES them, NOR the future, ACTUALLY BETTER, AT ALL.Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:10 pmSo why do you call it a "mistake"? The word contains the connotation of something being "wrong".Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:14 am , even if a meritocracy may conflate the kids in math class, though generally only at the ends of the bell curve. I play sports with people of different levels. I see and it seems even like a norm to see a difference between cheating and making mistakes.
When we say that somebody is incorrect/wrong about something there is always the connotation that they OUGHT to have done otherwise.
Now, you are welcome to sub-divide oughts into moral and non-moral, but the is-ought gap doesn't pertain to moral oughts. It pertains to all oughts.
Every judgment of error (moral or otherwise) comes from a place of an imagined counterfactual reality in which the error wasn't made.How is driving a motor vehicle, which is polluting the air future human beings NEED in order to live, making the future BETTER, EXACTLY?Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:10 pmAll I am hearing so far is that people ought to have done better (N.B better, not just differently) by you. With the fine print that some oughts are more serious than others..Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:14 am Or fouling me and repeatedly dropping a pass. 1) someone who is a dick on the court, I generally find is dick elsewhere. It says something about how they treat other people. Generally not being good at the game doesn't say that to me. There can be overlaps. And someone who lacks hand-eye coordination I won't want driving a forklift at my warehouse. But it's much more specific for me. Behaviors that indicate stuff about what used to get called character (used to be called that mroe widely) I put more on the moral end. Which is different for me than skills, including skills around producing correct answers, especially if restricted to certain fields.
Morality isn't an intrinsic property to individuals. It's an emergent property of collectives. Don't take it personally.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:14 am My wife has a brain injury. It affects her memory for people's names, mainly, nouns to some degree in general. It's pretty regular. It has nothing to do with morals. She did not become less moral after her injury. That's nonsense.
If a doctor's capacity to heal people is diminished by a brain injury their morality is diminished. That doesn't make them immoral. Just less moral in practical terms - their capaity for goodness is diminished.
And that comes from a place where you wish that she didn't. Otherwise you wouldn't call them "mistakes."Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:14 am It wouldn't be nonsense to say that she makes a lot more mistakes.
It's just what your wife does. Why is it a "mistake"? Because it would've been better if she hadn't done that.
But we do treat them the same. We wish they didn't happen and we do what we can to avoid repeats. We do what we can to make the future better.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:14 am It's tricky with things like math class, yes. I have to avoid being put in the position of trying to defend society which has different values than mine. But even while society does punish people who fail math, it doesn't treat moral and skill/informational mistakes the same. And I think there are good practical reasons for this.
Be it by giving the kid extra Maths lessons; or sending the murderer to a corerctional facility.
In fact the past was BETTER back when maths did NOT even exist.
But WHO does?
If it is 'you', adult human beings, then would it NOT be BETTER that 'you', adult human beings, ACTUALLY ALREADY KNEW the ACTUAL DISTINCTION between what IS Right and what IS Wrong, in Life?
So, what is 'it', EXACTLY, which 'you', adults, are, SUPPOSEDLY, 'correcting' in relation to?
BUT JUDGING, PUNISHING, RIDICULING, and/or HUMILIATING "others" is NOT 'Morality', Itself.Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:10 pm Sure - one is more servere than the other but neither failure is treated with indifference.
Do that over thousands of years about multiple aspects of human affairs and you end up with compound interest in improvement in our circumstances. It's so deeply ingrained in who we are there even our words have positive and negative connotation!
That's how morality works.
HOW True 'Morality' ACTUALLY WORKS IS MUCH DIFFERENT.
Also, one could ONLY Truly 'Correct' "another" ONLY WHEN that one ACTUALLY KNEW what IS Right and Wrong, in Life.
Ah, now here is an IRREFUTABLY True STATEMENT and CLAIM, which, OBVIOUSLY, NO one could REFUTE.
SEE, I KNEW we WOULD get to the ACTUAL Truth of 'things' here.
Oh, and by the way, the VERY, VERY SLOW 'gradual and continuous corrections' being made COULD and WILL BE SPED UP, EXPONENTIALLY, SOON ENOUGH.
There is a LOT of truth in this.
The WHOLE PURPOSE of 'Life', Itself, and of 'you', human beings, is to MAKE Life, Itself BETTER, for EVERY one, as One.Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:10 pm If you strip away this moral connotation ingrained so deeply into our language then you can't even say that somebody is getting "better" at something! You can't even say that things are getting "worse"! You can't make any value judgments with respect to any change in any direction.
BUT it is a VERY NARROWED and VERY TINY VIEW and PERSPECTIVE of 'things', as it is ONLY ABOUT and IN RELATION TO 'you', 'human beings' ONLY.Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:10 pm Yeah, things are different now than they were 2000 years ago. We die less. We are more healthy. We are more educated. Less starvation. Less war. More equality. More justice. We are happier. Things are by all accounts changing in a particular direction. There's a definite historical trend.
YES in regards to SOME 'things', But NO in regards to OTHER 'things'.