I’ve been reading discussions of Haidt on blogs all over recently, and Levin’s commentary keeps coming up, and I’ve been dissatisfied every time I’ve seen it, but haven’t had the time to really sit down and figure out why, and here you come and do it for me.

I’ve been reading discussions of Haidt on blogs all over recently, and Levin’s commentary keeps coming up, and I’ve been dissatisfied every time I’ve seen it, but haven’t had the time to really sit down and figure out why, and here you come and do it for me.

This is meaningless without specifics. We are better off with the changed views about discrimination based on race. But are we really better off with the current consensus that sex outside of marriage is acceptable, even something to be celebrated? Well, adults who like indulging their sexual urges have more fun, but the large numbers of children without two parents, and the teenagers pushed into sexual activity before they are emotionally ready, aren’t really better off. It’s fatuous to claim that all changes in moral consensus are beneficial.

This is meaningless without specifics. We are better off with the changed views about discrimination based on race. But are we really better off with the current consensus that sex outside of marriage is acceptable, even something to be celebrated? Well, adults who like indulging their sexual urges have more fun, but the large numbers of children without two parents, and the teenagers pushed into sexual activity before they are emotionally ready, aren’t really better off. It’s fatuous to claim that all changes in moral consensus are beneficial.

I don’t think Levin or Kass want to “defend the shudder” in the sense that they reify the “shudder” into some sort of moral imperative. They merely want us to pay attention when there is widespread instinctive resistance to some novel behavior. The idea that there is no good answer to the question “what’s the difference between the ‘shudder’ some people feel towards cloning, on the one hand, and towards touching the Dalits, on the other, is preposterous. The same rational argument applies to both: human beings are ends, not means, by virtue of their rational nature, and therefore should be treated accordingly. In the case of human clones, this means not creating them merely to destroy them, or merely to fulfill the will of the person creating the clone in the case where the clone is brought to full term. In the case of the Dalits, it means that the Dalits are the same type of moral, rational being as the upper castes, and therefore ought to be treated the same. In the former case, the shudder points to a moral truth that can be rationally defended; in the latter, it points to a moral falsehood.

I don’t think Levin or Kass want to “defend the shudder” in the sense that they reify the “shudder” into some sort of moral imperative. They merely want us to pay attention when there is widespread instinctive resistance to some novel behavior. The idea that there is no good answer to the question “what’s the difference between the ‘shudder’ some people feel towards cloning, on the one hand, and towards touching the Dalits, on the other, is preposterous. The same rational argument applies to both: human beings are ends, not means, by virtue of their rational nature, and therefore should be treated accordingly. In the case of human clones, this means not creating them merely to destroy them, or merely to fulfill the will of the person creating the clone in the case where the clone is brought to full term. In the case of the Dalits, it means that the Dalits are the same type of moral, rational being as the upper castes, and therefore ought to be treated the same. In the former case, the shudder points to a moral truth that can be rationally defended; in the latter, it points to a moral falsehood.