Dr. Retard

Some of the worst harms we inflict are purely mental. Humans are constantly assaulting each other's emotions and sensibilities, doing things that make others feel miserable, angry, fearful, sickened, 'offended'. Here are some examples:

* I call you, my son, "a worthless idiot". You take my insult to heart, and begin to question, and ultimately, loathe yourself.

* I call you, a creationist forumer, "a worthless idiot". You take my insult to heart, and begin to question, and ultimately, loathe yourself.

* I maliciously refer to you as a "cripple". You become outraged at my insensitivity to handicapped people.

* I jokingly refer to myself as a "social cripple". You, again, become outraged at my insensitivity to handicapped people.

* I remark, "Goddamn, this is one sweet-ass hamburger!" You are mortified by my coarse language.

* I am dating someone from a different race, and I introduce the two of you. You are scandalized by this, the mixing of races.

* I observe a man blowing bubbles while rollerblading and wearing a top-hat with a playing card in it, and remark, "That is the gayest thing I've ever seen". You become outraged by my insensitivity to homosexuals.

* I make out with my girlfriend on the bus. You're very lonely and this makes you feel miserable; you have to try to ignore it.

In all these cases, something I do calls forth disagreeable feelings in you. I don't physically contact you, and cause pain the old-fashioned way. I just do something that, because of your emotions and sensibilities, elicits mental distress.

Now, sometimes, it looks like my behavior is wrong. I should be more considerate of other people's feelings, and stop engaging in this behavior. Perhaps I should rein myself in around others. Or perhaps I should try to rid myself of the motive that drives me to do it. But I'm the one who should change. Maliciously calling a handicapped person a "cripple" looks like a case in point. The n-word provides countless other examples.

But other times, it looks like my behavior is innocuous, and you're the one who needs to change. If my behavior makes you feel bad, you need to just get over it. You need to grow up, and change your attitudes. I don't have any responsibility to tiptoe around you, just because you have these sensibilities. Interracial couples who scandalize bigots look like a case in point; the bigots need to get over it, and it's simply 'tough shit' for them.

So my question for discussion: when is it OK and when is it wrong to do something that, due to others' personal emotions and sensibilities, calls forth disagreeable feelings? Alternatively: when should the offensive person change his ways, and when should the offended person change his attitude? Who should yield?

(Maybe some cases are "toss-ups". Perhaps there are cases where no one should yield. People can keep their attitudes, and others can keep up their behavior, and there is no good reason to 'take sides' in the inevitable disputes.)

((That, dear reader, is as far as you have to go -- the rest of this post is just gravy))

Now, here are some proposals about how to make this judgment call. I hope people agree that these issues are damn complicated, and most every factor cuts both ways.

(1) Foreseeability of harm. Like all harm, mental harm is sometimes completely unforeseeable. "How was I to know that he prefers the term 'differently-abled'? How was I to know that she's deathly afraid of clowns?" When so, the offender is more-or-less 'off the hook'. Familiar issues of risk and negligence also arise. I think this simply parallels standard harm, so I won't talk about it.

(2) Comparing the costs of having changed. Sometimes the offensive person's behavior is very valuable to him; he doesn't want to change and give it up. The same goes for the offended person's attitudes; some people greatly value their personal attitudes. So when you propose a change, you're proposing that people give up something they value. And this usually goes for both parties.

Note that, when we think the other guy ought to change, we tend to neglect his personal values. Our moral opinion distracts us away. So we neglect the possibility that someone really likes calling handicapped people cripples, and that bigots really value their negative reaction to interracial couples -- they think it's highly appropriate. Again, both parties usually value the way they are.

In any case, this calls for interpersonal comparisons of utility, which are at best a little dodgy, and at worst hopeless. Of course, there's no market pricing mechanism in place, and Coasean 'transactions costs' are way high (offensive people and offended people don't care for each other's company). It just looks like a case of table-pounding over who values their personal status-quo the most.

(3) Comparing the 'transition costs' of yielding. How easy is it for the offensive person to change his ways, and how easy for the offended to change his attitude? Note that attitudes are usually harder to change than behavior. We have more control over how we act, than over what we like and dislike, than over our emotions and sensibilities. And this seems to go for most everyone; maybe this common fact about human nature can license our overlooking the problem of interpersonal utility comparisons, and stipulating that the person who has to change his attitude is usually giving up more than the person who has to change his behavior. This has ethical implications. Ceteris paribus, we should encourage behavior-changes rather than attitude-changes. After all, it costs less.

But remember that some attitudes are easier to change than others. When an attitude is prevalent and admired, it's more difficult to change. When an attitude is largely despised by others, it's easier to change. Social norms influence these transition costs.

(4) Comparing the 'social value' of the behavior and the attitudes. Some behavior makes society a worse place for everyone, and some attitudes do the same. We would all be better off if nobody acted or felt that way. So if the behavior is socially harmful, then maybe the offender should change. And if the attitude is socially harmful, then maybe the offended should change. Same goes, mutatis mutandis, for socially helpful behavior and attitudes.

(5) The social consquences of yielding, as a policy. Each time we yield, we give the other guys an inch -- and they might take a mile. If homosexuals agree not to kiss in public, out of respect for bigots, then hand-holding or hugging might be next to go. If we agree to tolerate some mild slur, the n-word might be next. And some yielding is simply idiotic. Anyone who expects us to discard the phrase "crippling lumbago" is stupid, and likewise for anyone who expects us to cheerfully tolerate Rev. Fred Phelps (who pickets funerals, telling bereaved parents that their homosexual child is now burning in hell). If yielding on this point tends to move us dangerously close to yielding on that point, then perhaps we should rethink our stance on this point, and refuse to yield, as policy.

There can also be personality side-effects. If everyone begins to yield to you, this will affect you. You might begin to think yielding is due to you; you might begin to neglect other's interests in such matters; you might begin to change your behavior or your attitudes -- inventing new values that others must yield to. When the offended consistently 'wins', he might start to 'get upset' over new things, to become hypersensitive to his personal values, but indifferent to everyone else's, all in order to dictate others' behavior. When the offender consistently 'wins', he might begin to abuse others, to become cruel and insensible to others' feelings, to relish domination. Changing your behavior to suit others' attitudes tends to engender in them an insipid self-righteousness. Changing your attitudes to suit others' behavior tends to engender in them a cold thuggishness.

Now my untutored opinions:

When it comes to coarse language, I think the offended people should change. They should just get it over it. I concede that it's very easy for we offenders to simply stop using coarse language. But the same goes for them: we live in a vulgar culture, and it should be easy for them to rid themselves of their hang-ups. What's more, I think coarse language is socially valuable; it allows for fantastic and colorful language that brings us all the precious gift of laughter. I doubt there are many harmful side-effects for society. And, while some people might greatly value their 'taking a stand for decency', I personally find coarse language invaluable. A contest of personal values won't settle this one.

When it comes to slurs, I think it depends on the slur and its history. The n-word is so obviously associated with racial oppression that a strong anti-n-word attitude seems to have a lot of social value. Certain contexts probably render the word's use OK, but even then, an offended person is driven by a reasonable attitude; such cases look like a toss-up to me. Most other slurs look fine to me, and I think the offended people should get over it. I doubt that the words have any harmful side-effects, and their use fosters much hilarity among the offenders. Moreover, I think that current American society is constantly flirting with idiocy with such words -- e.g., people are sometimes expected to give up the word "disabled" in favor of "differently-abled". It looks like the offenders, especially in universities, are almost uniformly expected to yield. Refusing to yield one's behavior can be justified by the cumulative effects of doing so -- helping to counter perverse social norms and expectations that tend to dominate the culture.

(Of course, these opinions are no doubt influenced by the fact that I personally never get angry or 'offended' over mere use of words -- some element of malice or clear reinforcement of oppression has to be around. I see nothing wrong with my attitude, and I highly recommend it to all my friends.)

meritocrat

Offence is very subjective.

It's not feasible to cease any and all actions that may emotionally harm someone.

Dr. Retard

Yeah, I know. That's why I'm asking when the offender ought to cease the offending actions (and when the offended ought to get over it).

yguy

I don't use coarse language myself - at least by present standards - but I can see a value in it when trying to get the attention of some idiot who can't understand anything else.

As for being offended, I agree, I think, that it is mostly the offended party's problem. On another board, a guy under the impression that I was a religious hypocrite assaulted me with vile language every chance he got. I never responded in kind, and he ended up apologizing. He still talks that way to others, but practically never to me.

long winded fool

Shouldn't the offender, if at all possible, cease offending actions as soon as he or she realizes that they have become offensive? If my coarse language is offensive to another, it seems I ought to refrain from using it. If my satanic t-shirt is offensive to someone, I ought not to wear it around this person if I can. If my girlfriend of a different race offends a friend, I ought not invite him on any double dates or invite him over when she's around. On the other hand, the discomfort of taking offense to something is the problem of the offendee, not the offender. I can't relieve their discomfort, but if I care at all about human feelings, I will avoid provoking this discomfort whenever I can. The offender ought to "get over it" as soon as possible. Ideally he should never have taken offense in the first place, since being offended is an uncomfortable state to be in. This is not, however, an excuse for knowingly engaging in offensive behavior. It is irrational to be offended by the color black, but I still ought not to wear the color black around someone who is offended by it, unless I care more about how I look than how another person feels.

I think even in cases where your actions are non-offensive to most people, but offensive to that one hyper-sensitive person, you still ought not engage in this behavior when around this person. If you know that a person is lonely and will take offense to public displays of affection, you ought not kiss your girlfriend with him nearby. There is nothing wrong with kissing your girlfriend in a public place or in front of your friends. There is something wrong, IMO, of knowingly hurting someone's feelings. If there is no reason to suspect that an action will hurt someone's feelings, then there's no reason to suspect that you are doing anything offensive. The small child who pulls up her dress in public is not doing something wrong until she knows that this behavior is offensive and does it anyway. Likewise, kissing your girlfriend in public is not wrong until you know that seeing this specifically offends someone else.

Pyrrho

Let me propose (rather recklessly) an easy solution: If what you are doing would not offend a hypothetically "reasonable" person, than you may continue, but if what you are doing would offend a hypothetically "reasonable" person, then you should not do it.


Thus, when one considers that a bigot may be offended by one dating someone of a different 'race', you may morally ignore his or her offence, as it is based upon poor thinking. (I.e., the racist being offended is the result of the poor thinking of the racist.)

In the case of telling your child that it is worthless, since you are likely to have great influence on your child, you should be careful about what you say. What is your justification for saying that the child is worthless? If it is merely that the child has made some mistakes, you are making an unwarranted claim that is therefore unjustified, and you have no right to say it. The case of one's own children brings up many interesting and complicated issues, as one is obligated to provide for one's children, and to help them become the best people that they can be. And telling your child that it is worthless involves you failing in your obligation to help your child become the best person that it can be. Your obligation extends beyond providing mere food and shelter, but providing them with the best education that you can, as well as the best emotional support that you can. To give an extreme example (which is often useful as such examples can reveal important details): If I had a son, and kept him alone in a room with nothing (other than food and water), and never spoke with him or allowed anyone else to ever see or interact with him, and avoided physical contact as much as possible, but gave him all of the food and water that he needed, as well as making sure that his medical needs were adequately handled, I would be a monstrously bad parent.

As a side comment, many things that you suggest may be covered by some other moral rules, such as those regarding when one should tell the truth, etc. Many racist comments, for example, may very well be covered by an interest in telling the truth, and be morally prohibited.

I may add that it will be useful to avoid confusing moral obligations with legal obligations. Generally speaking, moral obligations should exceed legal ones. That is to say that one should not always be legally required to do or refrain from doing what one is morally obligated to do or refrain from doing. This, at least in part, is due to the impracticality and impossibility of regulating every minute portion of one's conduct in a system of law.

If anyone were to complain that my "solution" involves leaving many "gray" areas, I will only observe that this is not a unique problem to what I state, and that most ethical systems leave plenty of possible actions in a state of moral uncertainty.

Now, obviously, the above is not a "proof", as that would involve proving a system of ethics, which is not likely to ever be done here.

Dr. Retard

I completely disagree.

So let's take the interracial couple case. Suppose that the offended party is offended by the mere fact that you are dating her. In order to stop the offensive behavior, you have to stop dating her. (Maybe the offended party is a friend, maybe your mother, who knows). Is it your moral responsibility to break up? By your principle, the answer seems to be Yes, you ought to break up.

Now, what about using public forums? Suppose that you know that a public forum is being observed by people of greatly varying sensibilities. In particular, you know that some people are offended by the word "Goddamn". Unfortunately, you have a killer joke that uses the word, and you want to use the public forum to broadcast this joke. Should you call it off, and yield to their sensibilities? Should you refuse to engage in any behavior that, you know, will elicit discomfort in people (no matter how ridiculous or unreasonable the sensibilities of the people in question)? That seems absurd.

Dr. Retard

A straightfoward problem with this proposal: suppose your grandma is offended by the word "Goddamn", because your grandma has unthinkingly bought into religious fundamentalism. Your proposal says it's OK to ignore your grandma's sensibilities, because they're founded on poor thinking. But even I support yielding to Grandma.

Now, the "reasonable person" standard might be a correct answer. But it's not an enlightening one. This is because figuring out what counts as a "reasonable person" is just as tough as figuring out who ought to yield in cases of mental harm. It's like answering the question "What is the derivative of 3(x^2) + 4x?" with "It is the derivative of 3(x^2) + 2x + 2x". Sure, it's correct, but it's little progress in really solving the problem.

Well, I'm not talking about racist comments (though they could serve as further examples). I'm talking about 'racially charged' language -- language that uses slurs or stereotypes. Look at the comment, "Dagos are good people". There's nothing false about it; it's a nice enough statement. But the slur is apt to give rise to discomfort. Same goes for jokes about blacks and watermelons. After all, almost no one really believes that blacks eat more watermelons than non-blacks. When you make these jokes, you're not lying, or even insinuating a falsehood. You're just appealing to a common stereotype -- a stereotype that makes people very uneasy. (And those who make the jokes might be trying to contribute to an atmosphere of disrespect for blacks, or they might be trying to capitalize on the inherent comedy of discomfort -- e.g., Holocaust jokes).

I agree with you here. I only meant to be discussing moral obligations. Of course, mere morality has its own kind of enforcement -- social pressure. But no one gets to use guns or prisons.

long winded fool

I don't think it's absurd at all. If you tell a joke with the word "Goddam" in it knowing that it will offend a listener or reader, then you are essentially saying that the desire to tell the joke is more important to you than the reader's feelings. Yes, it is true that the reader's desire to not be offended is more important to him or her than your feelings in this scenario, but two wrongs don't make a right. Is it justified to hurt someone else's feelings because they hurt yours? While I don't think one should necessarily make rules against something so trivial as telling jokes, I think, morally speaking, you still ought not tell the joke if you know it will offend another person. I think telling the joke, on a very minor level of course, is selfish and inconsiderate. The fact that it is a very trivial thing that most would look past wouldn't logically change the fact that it is still inconsiderate.

And in the interracial case, breaking up with your girlfriend because it offends your friend is essentially breaking up with her because she is not a member of the right race. In this scenario, your friends' racism has rubbed off on you, at least in her eyes, which would obviously offend your girlfriend. Since you can't help whether or not your friend thinks about you with her, it is not your responsibility to prevent him from thinking about this. Because you can, for the most part, prevent him from seeing you two together, you ought to avoid this if possible. There are always those offensive things that can't be helped. If my breathing offends someone, I'm not going to stop breathing, however I will move away from this person the first chance I get. Likewise if my wife of a different race offends my friend, I will refrain from mentioning her when he's around. (And depending on who I have the closer relationship with, I'll logically have to spend less time with the other.)

You're right in that there are always going to be those countless no-win situations. You can't please all of the people all of the time, however you can do your best to pay attention to how others are feeling and respond in ways which will minimize their discomfort. (You don't HAVE to, but I consider this to be "moral" behavior.) Deciding to tell a joke using a word you know to be offensive to many people on a public forum is not doing this. I'm not saying that those who do ought to be subject to personal judgment, understand. I'm as guilty as anyone else of immoral behavior. I'm just pointing out that it is technically a wrong/immoral action. No one is perfectly moral, I'm just analyzing an example of a technically immoral behavior that many people engage in. I don't judge people who knowingly offend others, I let people who mistakenly think that this is not an immoral behavior and that there is nothing wrong with it know that it is immoral and wrong. (Both words used as objective labels without the negative societal connotations. Nobody say that rape and murder are wrong/telling a dirty joke is not. Being wrong by a thousandth of a decimal point may be considered "less wrong," but it is still not right.)

Dr. Retard

You seem to suggest that it's always wrong to hold your values to be more important than another's values. I don't see why. I think the value of telling a joke can, in some cases, be more important than the value of some milquetoast's feelings. What about an anti-racist joke? A joke at the expense of bigotry? These jokes will offend bigots. But they will also contribute to a healthy attitude of disrespect for bigotry. Are you saying that it's immoral to tell such jokes?



I don't know what "essentially" means there. The motivation for breaking up is that your relationship offends your friend. To break up would be to follow your rule about the immorality of offensive behavior. It would, rather plainly, not commit one to racism (I really don't get that suggestion!).

Your rule was, I thought: it's immoral to engage in any behavior that you know will offend someone. That straightforwardly implies that it's immoral to continue the relationship.

Now, being circumspect about the relationship would indeed help matters. But the mere fact of your relationship would offend your friend. So, by your rule, it's immoral not to break up.

Your rule also means, if your breathing is offensive to someone, it's immoral to continue breathing. And if someone else finds it offensive that you stop breathing, then no matter what you do, it will be immoral (by your rule).

So you seem to say that it's not always blameable to be immoral. Sometimes, immoral actions should not bring discredit to their agent. I think this is a pretty skewed conception of morality -- usually, "P's performing A is immoral" analytically entails "P is the proper object of blame, on account of having performed A". But, no matter, you're welcome to your own personal vocabulary. I can ask my question again, without recourse to talk of immorality: when should we exert social pressure on the offender (to change his behavior), and when should we exert social pressure on the offended (to change his attitude)? And when neither?