Thursday, September 24, 2009

Rushing To Judge

Readers interested in how easy it is for us to be quick to usher judgments should see the comments to the posting Francione on Moral Schizophrenia.


Suppose that I stated that the benefits of human slavery in the U.S. were largely delivered to the consumers of cotton products, and not slave-owning farms. That is a simple result of competitive markets explaining how the world works, but does not make any ethical judgments about slavery itself. Would readers then leave comments suggesting that I argued it is ethical to own slaves? Based on the comments to Francione on Moral Schizophrenia, yes, they would.

Can I not explain human behavior without being accused of condoning those behaviors? Come on people...if you stay in attack mode like that all the time how will you make new friends :)