But deciding that nothing can possibly have an obvious moral answer is a short road to the Chidi Problem. And I feel like "should I set my friend's stuff on fire?" belongs in the narrow band of This One Is Actually Obvious.
Hmm... I think the thing for me is that I can agree that there exist moral questions that have a single right answer (provided you accept certain basic premises about the rights of other people), without thinking that it follows that no remotely decent person should ever have to think it through carefully or have that answer explained to them. Which is a distinction I never put into words before just now, so hey, thank you for prompting to more closely examine my own beliefs here!
That's my read on it too -- it's not active malice. But it's not all down to "he's not the brightest bulb in the box," either. There's a level of callousness involved.
Ohh, so we do agree on the non-actively-malicious part, that's cool!
I think I'm going to have to agree to disagree about the callousness part -- not that I don't get what you're saying or that I think his behavior, e.g. towards Janet, is always fine, but to me he just so strongly resembles, I don't know: an adorable kitten who perceives that you complain when sharp claws and teeth enthusiastically attack your hand, but is so baffled as to why this could possibly be that the information never sticks. There's absolutely no obligation to like a living being that acts that way, though, and clearly Jason is a character who elicits a range of responses.
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ninetydegrees
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on Monday, March 19th, 2018 02:42 am (UTC)Hmm... I think the thing for me is that I can agree that there exist moral questions that have a single right answer (provided you accept certain basic premises about the rights of other people), without thinking that it follows that no remotely decent person should ever have to think it through carefully or have that answer explained to them. Which is a distinction I never put into words before just now, so hey, thank you for prompting to more closely examine my own beliefs here!
Ohh, so we do agree on the non-actively-malicious part, that's cool!
I think I'm going to have to agree to disagree about the callousness part -- not that I don't get what you're saying or that I think his behavior, e.g. towards Janet, is always fine, but to me he just so strongly resembles, I don't know: an adorable kitten who perceives that you complain when sharp claws and teeth enthusiastically attack your hand, but is so baffled as to why this could possibly be that the information never sticks. There's absolutely no obligation to like a living being that acts that way, though, and clearly Jason is a character who elicits a range of responses.