1 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
Huh, I asked a question about something like this a few weeks ago, and was told that philosophers are generally allergic to 'simplistic' character evaluations like that.
So what makes for a good or bad person? -- how can you tell? Like, what's the line between the two?
Comment by justanediblefriend at 09/09/2020 at 16:33 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You're confusing the assertibility/acceptability thresholds or conditions of two totally different contexts. In academic contexts, whether rightly or wrongly, acceptability is taken to be more or less consistent with believability. Let's make this distinction.
If we want to be precise, in a totally academic context, we can of course consider the fact that many cops are new, and were also raised in an environment that was epistemically insular. And among those cops, a few of them may be good. If I'm read literally as saying "there is certainly not a single LEO who is a virtuous person," then that seems a bit too strong. Doesn't it seem like *maybe* there's at least a single one? Aren't there epistemically poor conditions which would allow even a virtuous and diligent person to end up as a police officer? Can't those conditions continue briefly after starting their job?
And in an academic context, where I might be trying to graph the precise virtuousness of agents as a function of how long they've been cops or something like this, these questions make sense to ask!
But now consider the political context, wherein I must consider what actions are politically permissible and open to me. Do unicorns matter? Does it affect what I am obligated to do if there's a single cop out there in some small town I'll never go to that's a decent person?
Absolutely not. It's wholly irrelevant.
Consider as well the risks and rewards that come with various judgments. For instance, if a ladder falls into lava when someone climbs it four out of ten times and is stable six out of ten times, you'll of course believe that the ladder won't fall if you climb it. I mean, you're a rational person, you can see it's more likely to be stable. But you're going to act as if it will fall, since the risk is so great that you need the chance of the ladder falling to be miniscule, and the reward of climbing to be great, before accepting that the ladder won't fall and acting accordingly.
Or, on a jury, if you're 80% sure the accused is guilty, you'll believe they're guilty, but accept they're innocent.
Similarly, you have reason to accept that all cops are bad people. If you act according to the belief that some cop is a good person, and you're wrong, the costs can be disastrous. If you're right, there's really no benefit. But if you act according to the belief that some cop is a bad person, and you're wrong, the costs are much less and the benefit of being right is significantly more.
I generally think it's a bad idea to try and apply the assertibility and acceptability conditions of academia, philosophy *or* science, to live, political contexts like this. Scientists and philosophers in the lab are doing something very different, with very different practical concerns, than those actively resisting oppression.