39 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Philosophical takes on cancel culture
I'm not sure about any philosophical works on this specifically but there is the principle of charity[1] which several philosophers like Quine have written about. One could argue that in online discussions, especially in social media spaces like Twitter where one can only write so much in a tweet, the principle of charity is completely lacking. I think the philosophical question here should be "What attitude should we have towards those we disagree with?"
Should we have an attitude that judges the character of your interlocutor? What are the consequences of holding that attitude? Consider an example I've given before. Consider a woman who lives in a predominantly Christian town in say the 1950s. If this woman believes that abortion should be morally permissible, is it okay for the Christian townsfolk to accuse her of her being pro-choice *only because* she wants to murder babies? It doesn't seem helpful to convince her how she's wrong while also slighting her character or intentions behind her pro-choice belief. It seems more helpful to listen to her arguments and provide counterarguments.
Of course it does seem controversial to use the principle of charity against views that seem obviously racist like the views held by someone like Richard Spencer. When the views of someone like him are obviously abhorrent, it seems difficult to want give them attention and charitably understand their position. I believe this is where many people online are today. There might be a failure to understand that without a doubt, there are views people hold that are flat out immoral and wrong but there are also views on moral/political issues that do not appeal to say something like bigotry. There's now a question of "Should we charitably interpret all arguments?". If the answer is no then we are now tasked with discerning between which arguments deserve to be interpreted charitably and which don't. I do think there are arguments in favor of an affirmative answer to this question though.
Comment by YourW1feandK1ds at 20/06/2020 at 12:31 UTC
13 upvotes, 0 direct replies
There's a word for "acceptable ideas". It's called the overton window. The question is how wide should that window be. And furthermore, how should we treat ideas outside the overton window/
Comment by [deleted] at 20/06/2020 at 10:27 UTC
16 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Thank you for pointing out that people also did not like stuff in the 1950s.
In fact, I believe that people have always not liked some stuff. When people have not liked some stuff, they have voiced that opinion. In some cases, not liking stuff literally kills people.
Socrates was saying stuff, and the stuff that was said a lot of people didn't like. So they cancelled Socrates. Since Socrates believed so strongly in his stuff, he drank hemlock and died which made the cancellation effectively permanent until other people showed how powerful a personal, permanent cancellation can be and this cancellation had the inverse effect.