3 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
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Just one minor detail that I havent seen here
Shoudnt answers actively say that their answer is just one of other alternatives in the literature? And reflect that anything past "one group of philosophers say" is pure personal opinion?
I mention this as I have seen answers that in a way reflect the opinion of majority the experts on the literature, alright then, but many times this majority is in no way big enough to justify not mentioning that this is just *one* answers of an ongoing debate.
To give a pratical example years ago when I started browsing this sub without any knowledge of philosophy I kept finding answers that made me have a mistaken impression about the field. When seeing a PHD or a graduate providing an answer to a question without mentioning alternatives, or that it was just one position in the literature, I mistakenly thought that this answer was just the definitive consensus of the entire field, when in fact it could have just been the main position by a small percentage, and sometimes not even the mainstream position. I got the impression that philosophy was a field much less broad than it actually is, and that some issues were already completely solved. Luckly I started reading sources and the SEP and so on, and the reflection of the field that those things give is *vastly* different than this sub gives, and I personally think is for the reason I mention.
This also seems like a good solution to avoid bias by the commenters.
Some areas of philosophy especially have less consensus than other fields, and philosophy does not care only about the results, like some other fields might, it also cares about the process of arriving in this result, which I think is another reason to enforce this rule even in cases where the comment reflects the opinion of the majority of philosophers. Surely I can agree with a commenter that Thomists are wrong, and so would most ethicists, but the fact that there are serious philosophers who believe it and keep writing about it is enough reason to mention it and not to assume or imply that is wrong. "Reflecting the agreement of the literature" then, imo, is not enough.
This rule, if already exists, does not seem to be enforced consistently, and can be observed to be ignored when a commenter feels strongly about some particular area
To put a pratical example, when someone asks " is this action wrong? " an answer like " Yes, it seems to be clearly wrong " should be deleted even if most ethicists would say so, even if is common sense and even if the commenter is a regular a professional and an expert on the area and can expand on why if asked so. An appropiate answer should be something like " some philosophers would say that is wrong based on (insert deontological reasoning or whatever) but others might disagree [...] "
I am not sure if realistically though this is too demanding, but in priori it doesnt seem so.
/u/mediaisdelicious /u/tychocelchuuu
What do you think?
Comment by TychoCelchuuu at 08/11/2018 at 14:38 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Unfortunately since you can find a philosopher to disagree with everything, this would not be a helpful procedure. Nobody would ever get a straight answer. Moreover, lots of people come here to have their suspicions confirmed, not to learn anything, so if you just present a smorgasbord of options they'll just pick the one that lets them believe whatever they thought before they came here. Often if you want someone to learn you need to challenge them with a point of view they do not already accept, and you can't do that if you also present an option that they find very tempting, so tempting that they can just ignore the challenge.