Thread by @runthinkwrite

Because we’ve discussed it here before, I hope @RogerPielkeJr will not mind me saying a few words about his statement that the argument about the fairness of LH in the female category is “100% a subjective argument”🧵

https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/1421324743563636737

1/ First, note that no one really makes the statement he’s denying. Certainly, I don’t say: LH’s inclusion is unfair *and that’s 100% an objective fact about the world* (It’s not clear to me what a 62% objective argument would look like, either).

2/ Instead, I think, and say, that LH’s possession of male advantage is a fact about the world, and I think and say that the point of the female category is to exclude male advantage.

3/ When @RogerPielkeJr is pressed on this, he refers to the Scottish philosopher David Hume, who argues in his Treatise of Human Nature that you can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. It’s in Part 3 of Treatise of Human Nature: ‘Moral Distinctions Not deriv’d from Reason’

4/ It’s important to understand Hume’s point to see why it is no help to Roger. On Hume’s account, even the most obvious factual statement about the world must be attached to a value premise to help us get to an ought. Consider some obvious claims: (TW)

5/ i) Child torture is the infliction of young humans of unnecessary pain
ii) Inflicting unnecessary pain on young humans is wrong
Therefore Child torture is wrong.

6/ Hume’s point is that you need the second premise here, as well as the first, to get the conclusion. Roger has to say that the second premise (ii) is ‘100% subjective’ which, in a way, it is. (some psychopaths disagree with (ii))

7/ Hume’s point, (if it is right) applies to any and all ethical statements. 'Humans ought to be treated with dignity', 'persons are of equal moral worth' 'humans have human rights,' 'FGM is wrong' and so on.

8/ It is possible to say of all these statements “that’s only your opinion” or “that’s 100% subjective”

9/ In teaching applied ethics – about punishment, or abortion, or vaccine passports, or the rules of war, or anything at all, there is often someone who says “that’s only your subjective opinion”.
(This can be slightly annoying, but I've got over it)

10/ And, when they say that, it’s a cue for a helpful teaching point about the relation between facts and reason. Mostly, what we are looking for are *reasons* and *consistency*.

11/ It’s inconsistent to say that we *ought* to have a female class that excludes male advantage, and then to say we *ought* to let people with male advantage compete in that class. Here, I move from an ought to an ought. And I can give reasons for the first ought.

12/ Someone can, of course, say that we ought to abolish the female class in sport, and this route is open to @RogerPielkeJr . But they need to give reasons for this view.

13/ What isn’t open (in my view) is to cite Hume, say that moral statements are ‘subjective’ and leave it at that. We can be clear about ethics in sport. We can give arguments, examine reasons, look for coherence and contradictions in the statements made by IFs and the IOC.

14/ Saying ‘it’s all 100% subjective” can then sound like an attempt, from on high, to stop that critical examination. To the extent that it’s true, it’s entirely beside the point, because it applies to every ethical discussion about everything.

15/ The point of all this is that to reassert that there is *no* clever philosophical argument out there that shows that it is fair for LH to compete in the female class at Tokyo.

It isn’t fair. That's it.

(end)