We recommend<\/strong>: Doing Nothing. Shoji Morimoto Offers Professional Services of Doing Nothing<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Similar reflections can be found in John Stuart Mill\u2019s On Liberty<\/em> (1859), written 85 years later. Kant and Mill start from different ethical premises. Kant required rational reflection preceding action, believing that ethics operates in the realm of intentions. An act is proper when it fulfills two moral imperatives: that the principle of an act could become a universal law, and that everyone, including oneself, should always be treated as an end, never merely as a means. Mill, on the other hand, was a utilitarian, assuming reflection on the anticipated consequences of an act. According to the English philosopher, an act is morally right when it brings the greatest happiness<\/a> to the greatest number of people, which also includes the maximum possible reduction of suffering.<\/strong> Unlike earlier utilitarians, Mill assumed that types of happiness differ not only in intensity or frequency but also in quality. Personal development and the pursuit of truth belong to his \u201chigh-quality\u201d types; therefore, \u201cit is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The reflections in the On Liberty<\/em> essay relate precisely to this dimension of utilitarianism. Mill writes, among other things, that \u201cHe who lets the world, or his portion of it, choose his plan of life for him has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation.\u201d Only by making individual choices do we learn what ethics is about. According to the philosopher, \u201cThe world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral?\u201d However, persisting in independently developed opinions can also have negative consequences. Well, \u201che who knows only his side of the case knows little of that.\u201d What, then, does this thinker recommend as developing for the individual and society?<\/strong> Exactly the same as in Kant, \u201cmaking public use of one\u2019s reason at every point,\u201d, that is, not only having one\u2019s own opinion but also participating in discussions when one has something to say or when one has arguments against the prevailing opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both Kant and Mill considered dangerous uniformity of the views imposed by the state and religion. This stemmed from the fact that public opinion in the 18th and 19th centuries looked quite different than today. Views that violated the prevailing consensus included, for example, atheism or feminism, advocated by Mill, as well as cosmopolitanism, expressed by Kant. The philosophers were not aiming to impose these ideas, but to allow for their expression \u2013 for freedom of speech<\/a>. Today\u2019s \u201charlequin bells\u201d confuse actions with words, demanding that words be subject to what is right only about actions.<\/strong> Words can be wrong and even should be if we are to learn to think and discuss, while actions should be right because their consequences, unlike words, are irreversible \u2013 what is done cannot be undone. If this swap was applied to Kantianism, one could not say anything that could not become a universally binding law, while utilitarianism based on this swap would have to prohibit views that cause distress to a large group of people<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We recommend<\/strong>: Is Feminism Anti-Motherhood? Debunking Myths<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s ethics, standing in opposition to freedom of speech, assumes a specific kind of equality \u2013 equality of recognition. Certain identities should be particularly protected from words that may hurt them, evoking reminiscences of past mistreatment. These identities include inhabitants of formerly colonized countries, ethnic and religious minorities in America and Europe, as well as women, especially those not conforming to stereotypical patriarchal scenarios. Added to this are transgender individuals who were not recognized at all before the second half of the 20th century. Therefore it is difficult to say that they were harmed by contemptuous words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to avoid inappropriate words toward the first of these groups? Clearly, by avoiding statements that people of a certain origin or faith are subhuman. However, this is not enough today, and one should refrain from any terms referring to one\u2019s origin or faith. \u201cThe situation of women in the Islamic countries is harmful,\u201d \u201cblack men in the United States are often imprisoned,\u201d and \u201cin Far Eastern countries, fertility rates are very low,\u201d \u2013 these statements are considered stereotypical, despite being factually accurate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Treating words like actions equates such formulations with something akin to refusing someone employment based on religion or ethnicity, or even inciting violence against them. Consequently, one cannot even offer a compliment referring to ethnic difference \u2013 such as \u201cI like Arab cuisine\u201d or \u201cAfro hair feels nice to touch\u201d \u2013 without offending the guardians of the new morality, who are most often\u2026 white and affluent Most people from the mentioned minorities do not want to be protected through censorship<\/a>; rather, they care about freedom of speech for… themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exactly, the same applies to women.<\/strong> We are all tired of the sexism that has seeped from high and low culture, as well as from table conversations and social events, since our childhood \u2013 regardless of how long ago that was. Mocking women and reducing the female sex to physical attractiveness should be consigned to the dustbin of history, alongside theories of Jewish conspiracies and the slave nature of black people. However, this does not mean that women do not differ from men or that the word \u201cwoman\u201d cannot be used in the context of the sexual dimorphism of the homo sapiens<\/em> species, that is, the most important, real division of people into men and women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet the new censorship demands precisely this. It aims for a form of common language, in which we will all be neutral \u201cpersons,\u201d not old-fashioned \u201cwomen\u201d and \u201cmen.\u201d Here too, it is mainly women, including feminists, who oppose the proposed neutrality. For feminism, and a realistic view of the world in general, femininity is primarily not a harmful social construct, but a material reality. One can overlay it with contemptuous stereotypes, or even reduce it to them. However, one can also describe it adequately, as one of two equivalent forms of human existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Understanding transsexualism as an oppressed identity, harmed by any mention of the biological nature of sex, is a continuation of this enforced blindness to sex. It finds expression in referring to everyone as a \u201cperson,\u201d and in the case of women \u2013 \u201cperson with something\u201d or \u201cperson in some state\u201d (\u201cwith a uterus,\u201d \u201cmenstruating\u201d). Men are almost never described in \u201cinclusive\u201d newspeak by their prostate or their role in fertilization. When a male identifies as a woman, we are forced to refer to him as a \u201cwoman\u201d and \u201cshe,\u201d not as a \u201cperson with something\u201d or even a \u201ctrans person.\u201d Those who do not speak this way are accused of \u201chatred toward trans people,\u201d and sometimes even of \u201copposing their existence.\u201d<\/strong> How to proceed in such circumstances? If we treat \u201cpronouncing\u201d as a courtesy, we can speak to trans people as they wish. However, if we mean to strictly refer to facts, we should not speak this way, as it is inconsistent with them. This is precisely where the weakness of this ethics becomes apparent, as the realization of what it considers good is at odds with truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We recommend<\/strong>: Being Honorable: Does It Even Mean Anything Today?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In his essay On Liberty<\/em>, Mill criticizes a particular paradox of Victorian law: the prohibition of atheists from testifying in court. It was assumed that people who did not swear on the holy book had no reason to tell the truth, as they did not fear posthumous punishment for perjury. This way, English courts forced non-believers to lie about being believers in order to give (truthful) testimony at all. Here we have something very similar. In order to be credible as \u201cinclusive\u201d individuals, worthy of participating in discussions among enlightened people, we must lie that sex is irrelevant to being a woman or a man. Is this not the best example of anti-Enlightenment, the \u201charlequin bells\u201d that require us to treat speaking untruth as a moral imperative? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, \u201cinclusive\u201d ethics like to invoke diversity that is allegedly denied by gender \u201cessentialism\u201d of sex derived from biology (rather than stereotypes or self-identification). By prohibiting opinions contrary to the accepted one, even if they were absurd \u2013 and in this case, the accepted one is evidently absurd! \u2013 one denies diversity rather than expressing it. In this context, it is worth recalling Mill\u2019s perhaps eternally relevant statement that \u201cmankind speedily becomes unable to conceive diversity when they have been for some time unaccustomed to seeing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, one more issue is worth discussing. People criticizing \u201cinclusive\u201d censorship are often accused not only of \u201chatred\u201d towards groups about whom they said nothing bad but also of irony or mockery.<\/strong> I myself constantly face such accusations, usually in the context of discussions with opponents who believe they need not adhere to any rules because, firstly, they are right, and, secondly, they are combating views unworthy of existence. For them, too, I have a quote from Mill that perfectly applies to the current state of discussion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion \u2013 namely, invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like \u2013 the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment of them against the prevailing opinion; against the unprevailing they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use is greatest when they are employed against the comparatively defenseless; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions. The worst offense of this kind which can be committed by a polemic is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men. To calumny of this sort, those who hold any unpopular opinion<\/a> are peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and uninfluential, and nobody but themselves feels much interested in seeing justice done them;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n As one of those few and powerless non-conformists, I cordially greet all who would like to exclude me from the discussion! <\/p>\n\n\n\nPursuit of Truth: \u201cHigh-Quality\u201d Happiness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Freedom of Ideas. The Courage to Think Boldly<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Freedom of Ideas: The Right to Be Wrong<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Shielding the Marginalized: The Ethics of Restricted Speech<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Words and Actions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Freedom of speech and the new censorship<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A New Moral Imperative to Lie<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Freedom of Ideas and Unwelcome Voices?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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