You Evil Parents!

[seer]

I don't really get what the issue is here. Sam is correct. All Swift is doing in this article is what all philosophers do. Taking things that we consider "common sense" and breaking them down into little bite sized pieces to be examined independently. All good philosophers do this. It seems to me that Swift's conclusion is that family bonding offers children advantages not accessible to children from broken homes. Its an obvious "no duh!" for us, but philosophers like to play around with these things and figure out why they're "no duhs". Swift doesn't seem to be seriously advocating that children should no longer receive family bonding (quite the contrary), he's just forwarding that idea as a philosophical hypothetical. A sort of "if we wanted to level the playing field, this would do it".

I've found that this forum has a really hard time with hypotheticals, and I don't really get that. Why is it so hard for some people to get their heads around the idea that someone may be playing devil's advocate, but not actually be the devil?

I don't know. Maybe I'm missing something here.

Yes, you are missing the fact that liberals never stop at hypotheticals. If reading to your kids or or sending them to private schools is really unfair then eventually the liberal will want to rectify that wrong. Here is Swift in his own unambiguous words:

What we realised we needed was a way of thinking about what it was we wanted to allow parents to do for their children, and what it was that we didn’t need to allow parents to do for their children, if allowing those activities would create unfairnesses for other people’s children’.

What we want to ALLOW parents to do or not do? They just can't help themselves A drift...

[Paprika]

Why is it so hard for some people to get their heads around the idea that someone may be playing devil's advocate, but not actually be the devil?

I don't know. Maybe I'm missing something here.

I'm going to go with the explanation "the author is trolling to draw attention to his non-groundbreaking work, and is getting the angry attention he wanted".

[Zymologist]

I just reread the article. Would someone care to clarify these two paragraphs?

"It seems that from both the child’s and adult’s point of view there is something to be said about living in a family way. This doesn’t exactly parry the criticism that families exacerbate social inequality. For this, Swift and Brighouse needed to sort out those activities that contribute to unnecessary inequality from those that don't.

‘What we realised we needed was a way of thinking about what it was we wanted to allow parents to do for their children, and what it was that we didn’t need to allow parents to do for their children, if allowing those activities would create unfairnesses for other people’s children’."

He seems to be saying that things that confer "unfair advantages" need to be examined, and if their benefits don't match up to some standard, they should be restricted. For example, elsewhere in the article Swift seems to clearly say that private schooling should be restricted because doing so won't harm the family unit, and because it would level the playing field.

[Paprika]

He seems to be saying that things that confer "unfair advantages" need to be examined, and if their benefits don't match up to some standard, they should be restricted. For example, elsewhere in the article Swift seems to clearly say that private schooling should be restricted because doing so won't harm the family unit, and because it would level the playing field.

Author: though bedtime reading is creates great inequalities (even more than private schooling) by egalitarian principles it should be abolished, yet activities like it are crucial for creating certain key family goods, so what do you know, we shouldn't abolish bedtime reading after all.

Me: You don't say.

[Zymologist]

Author: though bedtime reading is creates great inequalities (even more than private schooling) by egalitarian principles it should be abolished, yet activities like it at crucial for creating certain family goods, so what do you know, we shouldn't abolish bedtime reading after all.

Me: You don't say.

Yeah, pretty much my response too.

[Sam]

You said, "As Swift argues in the source article, many unfair advantages are integral or beneficial in other ways that justify the unfairness." That sounds like unfairness such as reading to your children needs to be justified. I wonder: what other "unfair advantages" that some children have should be justified?

The way the original article, and you, are framing this is just bizarre.

Edit: Now I'm wondering, if someone else were to come into this thread and argue that bedtime stories should be banned because of their inherent "unfairness," what you would say.

I would say that it would be wrong to prohibit bedtime reading, as it is an important aspect of family bonding and child development and its prohibition would not serve any competing good.

Swift appears to be coming from the perspective that systemic or structural unfairness ought to be ethically justified, otherwise society should seek to mitigate or eliminate the unfair advantage, if feasible. I think this is a very reasonable proposition and one that most people would agree to, given a less contentious scenario.

For example, would it be fair if the Dallas Cowboys were to find a billionaire patron and proceeded to fill its roster with the All-Madden team, while other teams (let's say the Chicago Bears) could not afford more than one or two A-listers? Would we call Cowboys/Bears a fair match-up? If not, is there a sufficient reason to impose fairness among the league by, say, imposing a salary cap? Some people might argue that the governing board shouldn't meddle with the teams at all and who cares about fairness but I believe most people would start to see this kind of unfairness as unnecessary and detrimental to the league itself.

That's all we're dealing with here: are some unfair advantages unnecessary or, on balance, detrimental? Are those unfair advantages worth preserving? Could we even theoretically construct a society where these competing goods are maximized? That's pretty normal framing for a value/ethics discussion in philosophy. And, of course, other philosophers are free (and almost always willing) to challenge the basic assumptions of the theory (e.g., "Do we need to justify unfairness?" "Does personal freedom overrule societal equality?")

[Adrift]

I was thinking maybe Sam was playing devil's advocate as well. It's why I asked. Maybe I don't get a lot about philosophy (never really studied it that deeply), but isn't most philosophical points start from something grounded in reality? I guess that is the problem I am having. I am not real sure how reading to children or private schooling could inherit any type of advantage/disadvantage just by existing.

I don't think philosophical ideas need to be grounded in reality, no. I mean, there are whole branches of philosophy that do nothing but ask, "what is reality?" A lot of the time all that philosophy is attempting to do is examine why the obvious seems obvious to us.

[Sam]

Hey Sam,

Is this a philosophical view you share, or are you playing devil's advocate?

I think Swift is starting his questions from a justifiable framework and his ideas (at least those expressed in the article) are completely rational. It's a good question to ask whether private schooling unfairly advantages certain children and whether such unfairness would be better off prohibited. I'm not sold on that particular idea but I could pretty easily see how a decent argument could be made.

The problem here is that folks haven't even been dealing with Swift's ideas on their merits. It's mostly been a sideshow about how either Swift/liberals are secretly planning to implement Fahrenheit 451, Goodnight Moon Edition or how even asking the question about justifying social policy on the basis of competing goods is ludicrous, despite those questions being pretty much the first thing you get introduced to when studying philosophy.

I had to suffer through Hegel many years ago. This sort of thing, to me, is only slightly more bearable.

[Jesse]

I don't think philosophical ideas need to be grounded in reality, no. I mean, there are whole branches of philosophy that do nothing but ask, "what is reality?" A lot of the time all that philosophy is attempting to do is examine why the obvious seems obvious to us.

What branch do you think Swift is coming from? From what I am reading, he seems to be trying to make a specific point. So the way he is going about it with mentioning these advantages/disadvantages seems nonsensical to me.

[Sam]

I just reread the article. Would someone care to clarify these two paragraphs?

"It seems that from both the child’s and adult’s point of view there is something to be said about living in a family way. This doesn’t exactly parry the criticism that families exacerbate social inequality. For this, Swift and Brighouse needed to sort out those activities that contribute to unnecessary inequality from those that don't.

‘What we realised we needed was a way of thinking about what it was we wanted to allow parents to do for their children, and what it was that we didn’t need to allow parents to do for their children, if allowing those activities would create unfairnesses for other people’s children’."

He seems to be saying that things that confer "unfair advantages" need to be examined, and if their benefits don't match up to some standard, they should be restricted. For example, elsewhere in the article Swift seems to clearly say that private schooling should be restricted because doing so won't harm the family unit, and because it would level the playing field.

I'd substitute "should be examined" for "need to be examined" but I believe that is the thrust of what Swift is arguing, yes. But this is being tackled from a professional ethicist's standpoint. "Should be" and "need be" are clauses dealing with what we can ethically claim and justify. Some propositions might end up working their way into culture or policy but these are ethical choices that society has made since the dawn of governance. I'm reminded of the "head of household" rules that came from welfare reform and the deleterious effect they had on low-income family units in the 1990s. This is a policy that had the consequence of unfairly disadvantaging some children and did not facilitate familial goods. I'm assuming that, under Swift's ethical framework, such policies would be avoided or rescinded.

Point being that these aren't crazy questions to mull over a bit from time to time and certainly not a symptom of liberalism run amok. Socrates was chatting this stuff up a long time ago (although, to be fair, he was forced to drink hemlock for "corrupting the youth of Athens" ...) and these kind of decisions already permeate our culture and our policies. It's worth drilling down into 'em.

[Jesse]

I think Swift is starting his questions from a justifiable framework and his ideas (at least those expressed in the article) are completely rational. It's a good question to ask whether private schooling unfairly advantages certain children and whether such unfairness would be better off prohibited. I'm not sold on that particular idea but I could pretty easily see how a decent argument could be made.

The problem here is that folks haven't even been dealing with Swift's ideas on their merits. It's mostly been a sideshow about how either Swift/liberals are secretly planning to implement Fahrenheit 451, Goodnight Moon Edition or how even asking the question about justifying social policy on the basis of competing goods is ludicrous, despite those questions being pretty much the first thing you get introduced to when studying philosophy.

I had to suffer through Hegel many years ago. This sort of thing, to me, is only slightly more bearable.

Okay I see. My question though is, how would these hold any type of advantage/disadvantage by merely existing? Does philosophy take into account statistical data? Or is it mostly hypothetical?

[Sam]

Okay I see. My question though is, how would these hold any type of advantage/disadvantage by merely existing? Does philosophy take into account statistical data? Or is it mostly hypothetical?

Depends on the philosophy and whether the philosopher holds to correspondence theory (the tying in with reality that you mention), coherence theory (it just has to not contradict itself), pragmatic theory (it just has to work) ...

Private schools don't merely exist: they have economic and social effects. I was sent to the local public school until 5th grade, for example, after which I attended a private school through 8th grade. While I was given a substantial advantage, some money and potentially a lot of attention was deprived the local public school. If, hypothetically, children had to attend the local public school, the parents who might otherwise expend their time, money and effort to place their children in a private school would have to direct that attention to the public school and, potentially, improve it for all the children, not just their own.

Again, I'm not sold on this idea. I'd want a lot of empirical research done before the proposal even came up for serious debate as policy. And I'm on the team that holds pretty dearly to correspondence theory and thinks that the coherentists and the pragmatists (looking at you, Feyerabend) are a little nuts and probably just trolling the rest of us.

[Adrift]

Yes, you are missing the fact that liberals never stop at hypotheticals.

Is Swift some sort of politician? Does he have any actual power to put his hypotheticals into practice?

If reading to your kids or or sending them to private schools is really unfair then eventually the liberal will want to rectify that wrong. Here is Swift in his own unambiguous words:

What we realised we needed was a way of thinking about what it was we wanted to allow parents to do for their children, and what it was that we didn’t need to allow parents to do for their children, if allowing those activities would create unfairnesses for other people’s children’

I think you're misreading what Swift is saying when he uses the word "allow". As far as I can tell, Swift didn't go into someone's house, nor is he advocating going into someone's house, and telling a parent "You are not allowed to do this, you are not allowed to do that". Unless my reading comprehension is entirely off, it seems to me that he's talking about the process of the hypothetical. In his mind he had to examine what would happen if he mentally allowed or disallowed parents do to do things with their children in order to get the results that they were looking for. He's not actually advocating that we disallow people doing things. It's a mental exercise. A hypothetical test devised by him and his colleague. Even his statements concerning private schooling seem to follow this mental exercise routine. It doesn't seem to me that he's saying that private schooling is evil, and ought to be stopped, but that we can't use the "familial relationship good" to justify it. Which seems true enough to me.

I don't like how Swift couches his premise with terms like fair/unfair, and advantaged and disadvantaged, but I think we can look at his work and that of his colleagues and say, hey, look, a healthy family contributes to healthy children (as common sense as that is to most of us), and if we really want to level the playing ground focus should be on helping people from disadvantaged areas come to that realization. We can say, "hey, sending your kid to a private school isn't going to help them as much as having a loving family environment!" This seems to me to line up with Christian thought on the family structure, and the importance of teaching and training our children in the ways that they should go. There are Christians out there that do just that by going out there and helping people where they are at.

[Jesse]

Depends on the philosophy and whether the philosopher holds to correspondence theory (the tying in with reality that you mention), coherence theory (it just has to not contradict itself), pragmatic theory (it just has to work) ...

Private schools don't merely exist: they have economic and social effects. I was sent to the local public school until 5th grade, for example, after which I attended a private school through 8th grade. While I was given a substantial advantage, some money and potentially a lot of attention was deprived the local public school. If, hypothetically, children had to attend the local public school, the parents who might otherwise expend their time, money and effort to place their children in a private school would have to direct that attention to the public school and, potentially, improve it for all the children, not just their own.

Again, I'm not sold on this idea. I'd want a lot of empirical research done before the proposal even came up for serious debate as policy. And I'm on the team that holds pretty dearly to correspondence theory and thinks that the coherentists and the pragmatists (looking at you, Feyerabend) are a little nuts and probably just trolling the rest of us.

Thanks. That is what I was trying to understand. Which one of those theories do you think Swift holds too? It seems to me that if we are talking about reading to children or private schooling, there needs to be empirical research provided as a base for the philosophical musings he is engaging in. I don't think everything needs that type of research, but these two seem to be in that category. It's why it seems so out of place to me.

[Adrift]

What branch do you think Swift is coming from? From what I am reading, he seems to be trying to make a specific point. So the way he is going about it with mentioning these advantages/disadvantages seems nonsensical to me.

I don't know anything about Swift outside of this one article, so I couldn't really tell you. All I know from my reading of philosophers (even Christian ones) is that examining things that I would normally consider nonsensical seems par for the course.