>>Looking at the world in terms of ethics or other abstractions is a clear sign of education and distance from issues which matter to regular people.
I would be very interested in hearing this laid out in longer form. I may well be privileged, but it seems to me that 'ethics', broadly considered, lays at the heart of most conversations... and all of the important ones.
I think you and I are both privileged. Anyone who has the time and the inclination to mull these issues and bring history or deontology or formal logic to bear is probably above average in intelligence and not viewing public policy debates from the nakedly self-interested vantage point of a poor single mother considering food stamps, or a farmer considering agricultural subsidies.
Privilege has been so thoroughly demonized that it's basically an insult now, but (conditionally) EVERYTHING is privilege: work ethic, family-of-origin situation/education/values, intelligence, honesty... all of these things are largely determined by genes and environment and therefore most of their advantage is privilege. The original conception of our national polity was for decisions to be made by the privileged (who had also demonstrated their virtue and energy in other areas of their lives) and it's only now, as we fade from a republic into a democracy, that privilege is considered negative. Almost everything we actually value is privilege, though.
On political issues we should make a distinction between arbitrary privilege and instrumental privilege. Arbitrary privilege (sex, race, childhood family income) is one thing... the objectivity to see issues without needing money or benefits from the state and the education to see them in a complicated way, and the intellect to do it well, are all instrumental privileges and are net benefits for the thinkers and the debates in which they participate.
Again, I think it depends on what you mean by concern about ethics. I have worked with several single mothers, and a lot of their talk was about what was right, and what was wrong. Indeed, one of the reasons why they were single mothers was because of what they felt about the right and wrong of the man that made the baby with them.
>>Looking at the world in terms of ethics or other abstractions is a clear sign of education and distance from issues which matter to regular people.
I would be very interested in hearing this laid out in longer form. I may well be privileged, but it seems to me that 'ethics', broadly considered, lays at the heart of most conversations... and all of the important ones.
I think you and I are both privileged. Anyone who has the time and the inclination to mull these issues and bring history or deontology or formal logic to bear is probably above average in intelligence and not viewing public policy debates from the nakedly self-interested vantage point of a poor single mother considering food stamps, or a farmer considering agricultural subsidies.
Privilege has been so thoroughly demonized that it's basically an insult now, but (conditionally) EVERYTHING is privilege: work ethic, family-of-origin situation/education/values, intelligence, honesty... all of these things are largely determined by genes and environment and therefore most of their advantage is privilege. The original conception of our national polity was for decisions to be made by the privileged (who had also demonstrated their virtue and energy in other areas of their lives) and it's only now, as we fade from a republic into a democracy, that privilege is considered negative. Almost everything we actually value is privilege, though.
On political issues we should make a distinction between arbitrary privilege and instrumental privilege. Arbitrary privilege (sex, race, childhood family income) is one thing... the objectivity to see issues without needing money or benefits from the state and the education to see them in a complicated way, and the intellect to do it well, are all instrumental privileges and are net benefits for the thinkers and the debates in which they participate.
Again, I think it depends on what you mean by concern about ethics. I have worked with several single mothers, and a lot of their talk was about what was right, and what was wrong. Indeed, one of the reasons why they were single mothers was because of what they felt about the right and wrong of the man that made the baby with them.