We're mostly divided by ethical paradigms, not value differences

On ethical conflict and why disagreement is baffling as well as frustrating

In Youna’s paradigm cyclists and joggers are prey

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Sometimes I puzzle over why my political/moral intuitions are so different from those of other people who are intelligent and with whom I share many personal values.

These things burn much oxygen and energy in our lives and relationships. Someone close to me just spent a whole week avoiding certain topics because she was with people who become agitated over them. We all know that feeling.

Why is it like this? Why do I feel uneasy about just chatting with so many people about what's going on in the world?

Like many problems it has its roots in some mistaken assumptions.

It's not differences in personal values, evidence or intelligence

We all have different moral intuitions and most of us could probably articulate our personal 'values' in a way that feels and sounds coherent.

But differences in personal values aren't sufficient to explain how you can end up disagreeing.

Shared values can still end in ethical asymmetry.

It's naive to say that difference arises because of 'evidence'; that you have 'better' evidence or more evidence.

Evidence helps you to reason in a certain direction, but the reasoning still has to start from somewhere. Evidence justifies a position but doesn't produce it.

Some people think it's just about intelligence or 'thoughtfulness'. But this is to treat moral principles as both a priori (known by reason alone - thereby advantaging more intelligent people) and a posteriori (known through experience - ie evidence).

People with the same values, evidence and intelligence can still occupy incommensurate positions.

Unless you want to fall back on a theory of 'ethical intelligence' (ie some people are just ethically more/less 'intelligent' than others, independently of general intelligence) something else is going on.

Abortion and Gaza

I first noticed this tangle and confusion during the kerfuffle over abortion in the US a while back. And it has returned to trouble me with the Gaza situation.

It was when I began thinking that political (moral) disputes are often structured like this:

Adeimantus: "Blue is good !!!!"

Thrasymachus: "No !!!! Ab minor 7th is better"

Adeimantus: "Nonsense. I will show you Rayleigh scattering. There, that proves it"

Thrasymachus: "But what about the emergent waveform of A♭–C♭–E♭–G♭"

This goes on until each suspects that the other is stupid and/or corrupt.

Whether you're an anti-abortion activist publishing pictures of mashed up foetuses that were previously healthy and viable or calling the Gaza situation 'genocide' and demanding that Israel stops trying to disarm Hamas, the evidence you offer is not seen as evidence by certain others.

Mutilated baby corpses represent something awful in the world. But it's a mistake to assume that someone who is not persuaded to the same ethical standpoint about the actions that produce them is evil.

This is where paradigms matter more than intuitions, values and evidence.