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comment by MrDr
MrDr  ·  3584 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts

Because of the nature of rrrrr's rebuttal, it's safe to assume he started reading the comment, didn't care to finish, and jumped to the conclusion that I'm some asshole who hates anyone that doesn't have the same opinion as me. So I decided to put something that might make him take a second look at my comment. But there's no point in doing that if he's just going to ignore that too, so I formatted the first line identical to his in an attempt to catch his attention.

Granted, calling the author of the link retarded isn't the best way to open an honest critique of his argument, but high profile bloggers who post flawed arguments with long words and sensationalized phrases irk me.





Quatrarius  ·  3584 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Whatever you call it, it is overly harsh. It puts any person on the other side at unease.

MrDr  ·  3584 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I suppose it does. On Hubski, are cat pictures an acceptable form of diffusing situations, or is some other furry creature required?

Quatrarius  ·  3584 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I do not have the ability to speak for rrrrr, but I assume that an apology would be good enough. Frankly I am very happy with a cessation of the argument.

MrDr  ·  3584 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Alright, I accept rrrrr's apology through proxy. lol.

And I think when the thread reaches a point where the sole discussion is about refs giving people the business, any remnants of bitterness are long gone.

rrrrr  ·  3583 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Fair enough, I was a little hasty to jump on that. I had been primed by coming from a discussion on reddit where they were calling the writer similar things because he is a moral realist. I was expecting another "moral realism is obviously stupid" response and that coloured my reading of your post. Yes, you have a fair point that these definitions have to be simplified as a teaching tool for young kids, so perhaps we shouldn't be taking them quite as an expression of the educators' deeply held philosophy. But it is so easy to tilt people's thinking by the way we frame the debate through terminology that I'm still a little wary of these definitions and of the exercise that requires children to decide whether something is an opinion or a fact. Such an exercise could be valuable as a way of starting a discussion but if it suggests to kids that this is a judgement we should be able to make just by looking at the statement, before engaging in debate about the statement's content, then that's an insidious pernicious effect.