Fox Hunting is gay

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Why is arguing on precedent so wrong? We as a society have decided that Animals have certain rights. Why can that not be accepted as a given (which it is) in order to make an attempt to stay on topic?

Your entire post is a massive argumentum ad verecundium dressed up in camoflague. Why on earth should your personal belief framework (or lack of one) "be accepted as a given" for us to work inside? Its a rather cunning way of admitting that none of your opinions have any real arguments backing them up, but its not really fooling anyone.

The problem you have is that you seem to believe that political or ethical viewpoints can exist in a coherant manner outside of an entire politco-moral system. This is clearly nonsense in this case, since in order to have a rational viewpoint on foxhunting, you need both an opinion on animal rights, and an opinion on what justification the state has in upholding those rights (which will by closely conneted to your beliefs about the role of the state in general). Your personal beliefs on both of these issues together form the implicit framework which the entire debate is framed within, and will provide the ultimate foundations for any arguement you construct. Likewise, if you challenge someones opinion far enough, they willl eventually have to make an appeal to their framework, since that is what essentially supporting their beliefs. Youre essentially trying to put your . If you want to discuss foxhunting with people with whom you share a similar conceptual framework, you should probably find an internet debating forum where most people have similar beliefs to yourself. I doubt anyone here is going to listen to you if you request that they drop their beliefs and accept yours, "just because". Opinions dont exist in a vacuum mang.

Seriously, how can you possibly expect a debate on "Should the government ban people from killing animals?" to take place without someone asking a) Is it wrong to kill animals? and b) Does the state have the right to implement this ban in the first place? Trying to ignore these more fundamental questions causes the debate to degenerate into vapid shallowness, with one side having no foundation to their opinions other than "but animals are cute" and "I hate rich people/toffs", while the other side has the equally compelling arguments "but hunting is fun" and "the country life should be respected" . If I wanted to hear a debate framed in those terms, I'd just read a newspaper or turn on the television. I suppose we could imitate most people by ignoring the underlying issues and tossing a coin to see which 'side' we support, but this would simply send all political threads to the plateau of worthlessness currently occupied by "debate clubs".

If you want to understand where Dante and I are coming from, imagine this debate was taking place in Saudi Arabia, and was actually about homosexuals. One side is defending the status quo, and thinks that homosexuals are irredeemably evil and deserve to be burnt alive slowly and painfully, while the other side represents the more modern and liberal influences in the country, and believes that homosexuals are simply a bit evil and should be executed in a more humane manner (like being shot in the face). How could you possibly give an opinion on this matter, or contribute to the debate in a meaningful way, without challenging the entire foundation of the debate (ie that homosexuals are in any way evil, and that the State has the right to kill them)? It would be utter nonsense for someone to tell you that you should 'just acept their implicit premises for the purpose of debate' , and you would probably immediately recognise what they were doing as an attempt to elevate their deepest beliefs to a level of pseudo-divinity which is both beyond critisism and completely outside the terms of debate.

Basically, youre trying to sweep all the fundamental questions under the carpet with silly appeals to popularity. You know who else done that?

[queball]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

I doubt anyone here is going to listen to you if you request that they drop their beliefs and accept yours, "just because". Opinions dont exist in a vacuum mang.

I'm pretty sure it was a suggestion rather than an imposition. If you are explaining something to someone you speak in terms they understand. If you are arguing with someone you work inside their belief structure or whatever it's called.

Trying to ignore these more fundamental questions reduces the debate to shallow nonsense, with one side having no foundation to their opinions other than "but animals are cute" and "I hate rich people/toffs", while the other side has the equally compelling arguments "but hunting is fun" and "the country life should be respected" . If I wanted to here a debate framed in those terms, I'd just read a newspaper or turn on the television. I suppose we could imitate most people by ignoring the underlying issues and tossing a coin to see which 'side' we support, but this would simply send all political threads to the plateau of worthlessness currently occupied by "debate clubs".

Do you not have shallow nonsensical opinions of your own? You're asking him to accept your belief structure by arguing it is more fundamental. You haven't really shown that our threads are any less shallow or have more sense. You are basing your argument on slightly tangental concepts that ignore the phenomonological (hey, you used the word "politico-moral") status of rational debate. Hypothesis: in a situation where both parties have tangible aims, and have a stronger relation to each other than internet-friends, with more at stake etc, there wouldn't be this collapse to cold unpersuasive concepts like natural law. In the real world there is no hard formality. And the formality that people used to worship is now a trivial persuit in itself when it's based on not-quite-hard-enough concepts like sentience and morality. When an argument is seen as something dynamic, the political/shallow side of it seems to work a lot better.
If I was in some loser country, I wouldn't be so incenced that I lock myself in a tower and declare the world idiotic. Have you ever met anyone who roughly agreed on fundamentals?

[Bob The Scutter]

oooooh a thread with lots of writing, ill have to take the afternoon off work if im gonna be arsed to read all of this stuff

[lokken]

I still don't get it:

Why care about Foxes?

[Bob The Scutter]

they are vermin, utterly disgusting, nasty and diseased animals... but its still cruel to mame them like what happens when fox hunting. A lot of people also hate cats, and dogs and if thats a bad example what about lizards and stuff, but wed never allow anything to happen to those would we??

[Bob The Scutter]

they also help keeps rats out of places too

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by queball

I'm pretty sure it was a suggestion rather than an imposition. If you are explaining something to someone you speak in terms they understand. If you are arguing with someone you work inside their belief structure or whatever it's called.

Why?

Also

4 entries found for imposition.
im·po·si·tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mp-zshn)
n.

3. A burdensome or unfair demand, as upon someone's time: listened to the telemarketer but resented the imposition.

Originally Posted by queball

Do you not have shallow nonsensical opinions of your own?

Perhaps (no), but I dont ask that people appease me by requesting that they are held outwith the terms of debate, which was kind of my point.


The rest of your post made very little sense and I was unable to work out what you were trying to say

[queball]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Why?

Because that is the only constructive way to do anything in finite time. I believe.
"In a reasonable discussion, you can't communicate opinions, and you don't try
to, for each person's opinions depend on a body of unshared assumptions rooted
beyond reason. What you communicate is arguments, whose value is independent
from the assumptions. When the arguments are exchanged, the parties can better
understand each other's and their own assumptions, take the former into
account, and evolve the latter for the better."

Also

4 entries found for imposition.
im·po·si·tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mp-zshn)
n.

3. A burdensome or unfair demand, as upon someone's time: listened to the telemarketer but resented the imposition.

Ok but that's just your opinion. I'd love to, but I have complaints about the particular anachronistic aspects that Verm suggested.

Perhaps (no), but I dont ask that people appease me by requesting that they are held outwith the terms of debate, which was kind of my point.

You could if you liked. I do, I think. Not strongly.

The rest of your post made very little sense and I was unable to work out what you were trying to say

It was my version of an attack on fundamentals. I don't think I've appealed to natural law or liberal theory yet.

[Vermillion]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

Its a rather cunning way of admitting that none of your opinions have any real arguments backing them up, but its not really fooling anyone.

Way off base. My participation in the original argument of this thread was minimal, I certainly do not need to, nor have I ever needed to, resort to such tricks to bolster a case. Here I am trying to make a point about the decaying nature of debate on this board.

I have never said that debate cannot challenge precepts or take the majority opinion. Dante expressed a concern that I was trying to restrict the boundaries of debate, which is not the case. Certainly everyone should feel free to argue a point however they wish, using what arguments they wish, direct or indirect, specific or obtuse. My problem is that in most cases on these boards, every debate instantly leaps to its widest possible philosophical basis, leaving the issue actually undebated.

The problem you have is that you seem to believe that political or ethical viewpoints can exist in a coherant manner outside of an entire politco-moral system.

Again, off base, and I believe missing the whole point of my line of argumentation. Of course every political issue rests within the cradle of a pre-existing ethical/ moral/ philosophical norm or point of view, it is the nature of our system that it is so. I am also not arguing that these norms should not be a part of any debate or argument. What I am arguing is that some people seem so eager to debate the validity of the "political-moral system" as you call it, that they bypass the actual issue in an attempt to philosophise as widely as possible, thus making the same debate in various forms over and over again. It would be wonderful to see some people state about some argument (not necessarily this one) "You know, I think the political system that created this law is unreasonable and inappropriate, but for the purposes of this argument I will accept their legitmacy so that we can debate the morality of the law itself"

If you want to discuss foxhunting with people with whom you share a similar conceptual framework, you should probably find an internet debating forum where most people have similar beliefs to yourself. I doubt anyone here is going to listen to you if you request that they drop their beliefs and accept yours, "just because". Opinions dont exist in a vacuum mang.

So because thereare people here who hold widely divergent opinions on a variety of different things, then that obliviates the possibility of having a reasonable debate in this forum? Because opinions on several baseline issues do not align, peeople should stop trying to bring up intelligent debate about specific issues? That is rubbish, diverse opinions should not stifle debate, it should promote it. And as long as people are willing to make some logical compromises for the sake of debate (which should be a universal) then debate can prosper. In my original rant I was not referring only to fox hunting, but to 99% of all topic-specific debates started on this board. Within a page the original issue is lost and replaced by an oft repetitive argument about the same general issues which remain unresolvable.

Seriously, how can you possibly expect a debate on "Should the government ban people from killing animals?" to take place without someone asking a) Is it wrong to kill animals? and b) Does the state have the right to implement this ban in the first place?

Perfect example. The first issue, absolutely it should be brought up, and should likely comprise ONE of the basic tenants of the case. The second point however is irrelevant to the issue at hand, and is far too often used as an excuse to divert the topic to whatever political axe the current speaker has to grind. If every debate about the morality of specific legislation devolves to a debate on the legitimiacy of a particular form of government to pass any laws, then the issues themselves will be ignored. Is it so difficult to accept for one debate that the debate exists within a context?

If you personally do not believe that (for example) the British form of parlimentary democracy is legitimate, does that mean you can never get into a meaningful debate about the morality or logic of specific laws they would like to pass?

Basically, youre trying to sweep all the fundamental questions under the carpet with silly appeals to popularity.

That is not even remotely close to what I have been trying to do, and you know that very well.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

If you personally do not believe that (for example) the British form of parlimentary democracy is legitimate, does that mean you can never get into a meaningful debate about the morality or logic of specific laws they would like to pass?

This is why I don't get involved in half the debates that currently go on. No-one has any interest in discussing anything other than philosophical matters which are even themselves only tangentially related to the subject at hand. You never make any actual headway on the issue, because the issue itself soon becomes an irrelevance. (Take this thread for example.)

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

I have never said that debate cannot challenge precepts or take the majority opinion. Dante expressed a concern that I was trying to restrict the boundaries of debate, which is not the case. Certainly everyone should feel free to argue a point however they wish, using what arguments they wish, direct or indirect, specific or obtuse. My problem is that in most cases on these boards, every debate instantly leaps to its widest possible philosophical basis, leaving the issue actually undebated.

That's a philosophical viewpoint, ie pragmatism, itself though. Basically you're discounting the validity, or otherwise, of the original premises on which the argument is based and just arguing on points of internal reason and consistency and conclusions. The entire debate rests on two issues, is fox-hunting right or wrong and does the state have a right to enforce the decision it takes on this question (that's the nature of the proposition after all). Other areas such as employment, culture, history and cuteness are additional contingent justifications. Of course you're a pragmatist so you don't care about premises as long as they don't seem wildly off to you. Most people

If you personally do not believe that (for example) the British form of parlimentary democracy is legitimate, does that mean you can never get into a meaningful debate about the morality or logic of specific laws they would like to pass?

It sort of does in the abstract. Just in reality most people don't bother applying their professed philosophical beliefs and use common sense and simple reasoning which is what you seem to be supporting.

For example I have a number of different opinions on fox-hunting.

As a personal moral choice I believe fox-hunting is wrong as I can't understand how one can derive enjoyment in an activity that involves the pursuit and slaughter of animals.

As a political moral choice I believe that we cannot make these choices for other people and that due to the nature of human rights animals which one "owns" one should be free to (ab)use as one chooses.

As a completely political choice I believe people can probably be convinced to either affirm or reject fox-hunting as it appeals on a number of different levels and due to a general lack of factual information most people don't really have a ****ing clue what they're talking about (myself included). The amount of fuss people make over fox-hunting relative to that made over other far more serious issues is astounding for me and reinforces my opinion that most people are idiots who are content to debate over the smallest issues at the smallest possible perspectives and ignore the background upon which this debate is formed. Taken overall most Western groups or societies (as this is in miniature) never really debate philosophical issues. The fact that most of this board is composed of students attending university among whom there is an overall interest in philosophy means that these debates will always tend towards the areas which we are most interested in.

Plus we also have convergent opinions in many areas which are debated widely in modern society so when we get into areas where there's an actual chance for discussion on issues which are still controversial we all resort to type and descend to our basic arguments. For example I'm a member of a number of boards where the majority opinion is that homosexuality is evil and should be outlawed but I don't think I've met a single person who supported that idea seriously on here.

In my opinion the main problem is that most people would like to think that if they express their opinions clearly enough everyone else will suddenly realise the error of their ways and become a marxist/libertarian/capitalist/socialist/pragmatist/anarachist and work together to create a better society. Unfortunately in reality this just doesn't happen (either because of the nature of human beliefs or the fact we're all full of shit and haven't though up a really good system so far). So we end up repeating the same old points and wondering why nobody throws up their arms and cries out that they too "have seen the light".

In a political context the answer is pretty simple though, ~25% support total freedom to hunt foxes, ~40% support introducing licensing on the issue and ~35% support total criminalisation of fox-hunting. Pick the middle-ground, offer incentives to those who are reluctant, sideline the extremists and introduce licensing of some sort. Most people here (or rather the people of who you're speaking) would probably think that's an ad hoc solution and is papering up the cracks in the wall of a house built on sand.