Simon Paynton

People can dislike the breaking of norms just because they are norms.  I guess it’s because groups are run using norms, and to break a norm threatens to rupture their moral order.

But most norms aren’t random, they have connection to things like benefit and harm, and respect.  This one is a case of respect.  Some people will dislike it, even if…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
Who’s going to mind? That is the crucial question.

It depends very much on the moral system that you are using.

I’m curious as to which other people could be involved, under different moral systems.  I would have thought it’s a question of simple reality.

Davis wrote:
upsetting people alone is not enough of a reason to not do something.

It depends on the reason why they are upset.  We tend to see “disrespecting your dead” as a sacred no-go area, while “disrespecting your beliefs” we understand as fair game.

Who’s going to mind?  That is the crucial question.

• the cemetary owners.
• the relatives of the deceased.
• onlookers.

In the last two cases, you could be accused of disrespecting the dead.  Is that what anybody wants?

Davis wrote:
I think the possibility of hurting or upsetting other people is significant enough to make an easily avoidable pointless activity one I wouldn’t do.

You’re talking about upsetting people (i.e., causing harm) for intangible rather than tangible reasons.  Sometimes this seems acceptable, sometimes it doesn’t.

Kristina wrote:
relying on norms to govern behaviour has some questionable utility. I am sure there are cases where it is valuable, but I can also point to cases where it is causing harm. I would suggest that erring on the side of caution would be to rely on such norms as sparingly as possible, or at the very least to invest more in keeping…

[Read more]

Kristina wrote:
But when it’s being posed as an ethical hypothetical, I do think it is important to not pander to normative values too much.

But what if it’s a potential reality?  There would be no transgressive benefit in having a picnic on someone’s grave, it wouldn’t benefit anybody, except that the people having the picnic would have a ni…[Read more]

The point of the article is that. as you say, religious and non-religious people process incongruent information, under experimental conditions, in the same way (the Stroop test).

Furthermore, it may be (in fact, it seems very likely), that the kinds of cognitive conflicts elicited by the Stroop test differ greatly in nature and severity to those…

[Read more]

lol

I wouldn’t sit on somebody’s tomb and have a picnic, unless it was about 2000 years old.

Simon Paynton wrote:
others hold us to account.

Collaborative partners hold each other to account because they are each taking a risk by depending on the others.  We take this claim on us to be legitimate.  But I can’t quite figure out why each partner would see the claims of the other partners upon them to perform well, as legitimate.

Maybe i…[Read more]

Michael Tomasello says that we follow rules and ideals because we approve of them – we feel they are legitimate, so why would we not try and follow them?

I think it’s all about the collective self-regulation of the group, whereby we carry out our responsibilities for the good of others and ourselves.  At the same time, othes hold us to account.