Can you separate an author from his or her work?

billd91 said:

Indeed, you have a point. Studies have even indicated that evidence contrary to held beliefs seems to have either no effect on those beliefs or intensifies them. This is one reason internet arguments and political arguments almost never convince anyone to change their views.

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There's also some other science that indicates that a person's actions are initiated in the emotional part of the brain, before the "rational" part kicks in. The effect is like your body reacts to a situation, and then your brain rationalizes a chain of logic of what the response will be, despite it already being determined earlier. Based on our present understanding of brain functions, that ain't logical thinking going on. Of course, it may also turn out that they got the parts of the brain labeled wrong...

This is of course a big fork from the OT, but I think there is a relationship. People who hold stupid views (assuming you oppose those views) are kind of stuck that way. And if they're not good at keeping those views to themselves, all sorts of conflict arises.

The actions/views of writers/artists should be separate from their works. Or do we think about the actions/views of the person who's packing your groceries or flipping your burgers? Should we give them our money... That way lies madness!

Things like child abuse, rape and even murder are enraging. And people should be punished for them harshly (I feel that anything short of a tortuous death is getting of light in this regard, but I disprove the death penalty, go figure), but income from legal activities should not be further punished by the public imho. You can make a choice whether you want a product by person X or not.

A further problem is regarding 'famous' people and accusations, the fame surrounding them makes them a better opportunity for attention seekers to make false claims. Don't get me wrong, not every accusation is false (far from it), but I'm always skeptical especially when 'famous' people are involved.

The folks spewing hate, racism, etc. I just find sad, as long as they don't do do the other horrible things, if they get in my face they might have a demonstration of fist meets face, face meets ground. When dealing with such people I always think "When making something foolproof, they keep making better fools!". Things are different when these kinds of people start moving into public office...


As for the people living together (of the same sex or not) who aren't romantically (or sexually involved), these are perfect solutions for combining resources, companionship, mutual support, etc. The (single) guy living with his mom... Hits close to home ;-) I am that 38 year old single guy that rented a house and invited his parents along, not because I was financially bad off, but because my parents needed support (after all the medical stuff my dad went trough he's now the $6,000,000 man, we can rebuild him!) and after having worked 45+ years the pension my dad build up wasn't exactly luxurious. Having worked a day in an 'old folks home' 25 years ago I can say I truly don't wish that on my parents. My mom still cooks, cleans and does the groceries, any attempt to change that is thoroughly shot down by said mom. I pay the bills, do the heavy lifting (something I somehow have to enforce, sometimes they still act as if they are still 18 or 45) and provide technical support ;-) This arrangement is beneficial for everyone involved, although you sometimes get those stares from people that say "He still lives with his parents!", I have a thick skin ;-)

Edit:
Changing people's views isn't as hard as it is made out to be, but it requires manipulation. It can be as simple and innocent as "Take an umbrella." vs. "Take an umbrella, because it's going to rain cats and dogs according to the radio.". People just don't change their view because "I said so!", they need reasons. And some people need a lot more manipulating then a reference to today's weather report... But honestly, a lot of it just isn't worth your or my time, because it's a bottomless pit, on the other side everyone else is also manipulating the same person. People are gullible...

Janx said:

If Mr. Card doesn't think he's wrong, he's not going to update his software.

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I know. I already noted that he won't do it. The point was that when considering ethics, we need to consider responsibility - so the cases of "cannot" and "will not" need to be considered.

It is entirely possible that there exists one deity that founded Mr. Card's religion and that it defines certain behaviors as a Sin. Now aside from the initial response of "I don't respect a superior entity that defines behavior in a way I disagree with", lets consider the holy crap, nobody allowed for that possibility and here it is actually.

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I said I considered him wrong on some things, and did not specify what those things were - I was being intentionally vague. I generally don't consider such non-falsifiable things in such matters. Card is on record about some specifics of action and results within society, more specific than just "it is a Sin" - stuff that we can (and in some cases do do) actually have some sociological data and statistics on. I think he is wrong about those.

I will again, leave out specifics, as I don't want to cross the politics line.

Though we disagree on how roboty the meat is, you may be right in the actual application of it. I don't doubt that you were free to post this. What I simply acknowledge is that deeper under the hood, a chain of chemical and electric reactions engaged for you to make that decision and that you don't have full control over that chain.

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Full control? No. But if the chain(s) of electrical and chemical reactions are fully deterministic, then consciousness and free will are illusory, and all this talk of ethics and morality is pointless - that way lies nihilism. We might as well be hunks of granite as a human being, if that is the case, for there is no moral or ethical difference between us.

If, however, some of that chain is not deterministic, then I have the potential for choice and free will. Only then does the discussion have any meaning.

Umbran said:

Full control? No. But if the chain(s) of electrical and chemical reactions are fully deterministic, then consciousness and free will are illusory, and all this talk of ethics and morality is pointless - that way lies nihilism. We might as well be hunks of granite as a human being, if that is the case, for there is no moral or ethical difference between us.

If, however, some of that chain is not deterministic, then I have the potential for choice and free will. Only then does the discussion have any meaning.

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That's one way to look at it. rather an extreme end from my view.

To me, if we are all moist robots, then the point of ethics and morality is to program our children to function in a positive way in a community. Moist robots that have unethical software are disruptive to a community. Ethics and morality are sort of the measuring sticks by which we determine what moist robots are misbehaving on the factory floor.

Janx said:

That's one way to look at it. rather an extreme end from my view.

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The idea that free will is required for there to be morality goes back to Kant, at least. He and other philosophers have covered the topic better than I can expect to do here. Call it extreme if you like, but it comes down to this - there is no moral or ethical value or character to a thing following inexorable, inviolable physical law. Take a ball bearing rolling down an inclined plane - it has no moral character. It just is. A thunderstorm is not good or evil - it just is, the result of natural processes in action. To quote Hamlet, "There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so." But, if it is all just stimulus -> deterministic response, then there is no *thinking*, except in the same sense that your laptop "thinks".

If you are a moist robot, following programming in a deterministic way, then you are not in any meaningfully way different from a rock rolling down a hill. Or maybe we can say you are a clockwork machine, like a mechanical watch. Wind you up, and you go. You have many parts, complex, but the parts interact in a completely predetermined way. Moist robots are... arbitrary mechanisms. Complicated, perhaps, but arbitrary.

To me, if we are all moist robots, then the point of ethics and morality is to program our children to function in a positive way in a community.

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"Positive" in this context is a moral judgement. But, if those people are no more than rocks rolling down hills, or wristwatches, there is no positive, nor negative. Their interaction has no intrinsic meaning or value, as they are but objects. What does it matter if a collection of windup toys is disturbed?