I was summarizing arguments from the article, I was referring to someone who would normally find meat immoral, but because they really like meat and don’t want to admit they’re being immoral they rationalize meat eating as being moral instead.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that anyone eating meat is rationalizing it.
I think the only hypocrite was ethicist #2. Ethicist #1 acted immorally by their standards but was completely honest about it while ethicist #3 simply changed their definition of morality to fit whatever they wanted to do.
Of the three ethicist #1 is the only one who’s honest and giving you accurate ethical judgements.
But knowing that it’s unethical to feed trolls, you did it anyway, even while you told people not to do it, thus proving the article at the same time. Well played.
Well if one wants to sling feces while high-fiving their pals, some splattering is unavoidable.
Lately I notice that the same people that yell about “shills” (people who disagree with them) also holler about “trolls” (people who refuse to fight with them.)
What I notice about people is that they instantly latch onto qualities that they just heard about it. Describe “emotional intelligence” and “OMG, that is me exactly! I have emotional intelligence!” The same applies to pretty much any quality. Or give them a list of the 10 traits of a good leader and “OMG! I have every one of those qualities.” And each of those qualities is added to their list of triggers for their Berserker Button, so that any factual discussion of the topic will get shut down as a possible threat to their utterly amazing self image. Then we start reading fluff pieces from business consultants who have gotten these concepts entirely wrong, and the commentors “oooh” and “aaah.”
And yet they are the shortest path to a psychotic episode.
Of course “identity” is a whole kettle of fish. Many people depend on their group for an identity, so that can shift dramatically depending on who they are hanging out with this year. Also, notice many people say “You … you … you …” because there is no “I.” Their “I” has no thoughts or opinions and often a very limited range of emotions.
I don’t need a path to psychotic episodes, because I am a trailblazer.
Gee… maybe because they are addressing you, the second person? Also a person’s opinions and emotions are often apparently obvious to their own self.
What I suspect is that, in a person, opinions and emotions occur spontaneously. There is no real “self” tying it all together. Rather, the organism creates an illusory sense of self to provide a feeling of continuity between these myriad states. Not unlike how the pattern recognition systems of eyesight and memory can fill in missing data with imagined details.
Or just nuke our major cities from giant flying saucers and stripmine the planet of all it’s resources because what the hell are ethics to them anyways.
This is something that comes up in couple/family/group therapy - that many people need to learn to say “I” as they begin to acknowledging that their “reality” has been mostly emotional projection and to start acknowledging that there are literal physical boundaries with other people.
I you wanted ethics done badly, you’d want the classic “anal sadistic” personality - people who love rules but usually have a weird irrational side, who can’t create, and who just shit on everything. Picture the systems administrator that everyone wanted to strangle - yeah that guy.
People like that don’t really try to be good people, they just intimidate other people into silence through intellectual filibuster or emotional coercion. Like I said, people know about good qualities, and, in their minds, that becomes synonymous with having those qualities. They read about mental health and they decide that they have mental health, they read about morality and they are convinced they are moral. An ethicist memorizes facts and principles, but that does not make them a role model. No doubt many of them seamlessly convince themselves they are highly ethical people, as do most people.
Don’t they taste like despair, parental disappointment, and student loans?
Prepare by marinating the ethicist in a 5% brine for 1 hour per pound. Pull out of the brine, rinse with cold water, and similar to eggplant really squeeze the bitterness out of the ethicist.
Roast at 325F till the center is 165F with bouquet garni, new potatoes, and leeks. Baste occassionally, and broil at 550F at the end to give the ethicist a hard, nigh unbreakable shell.
Enjoy with a bottle of Beaujolais and a pint of tequilla. And call your mother at the end.
