Like fuck there are. The only innate physical difference that correlates with skin colour is skin colour.
No, they’re not. People whose ancestors lived in a certain geographic area are.
Yeah but that was before the 14th amendment was passed. So morality changed when the 14th amendment happened.
Thank you. I was wondering why that post was left hanging.
(Or maybe Riemann was only referring to eye color, hair color, and melanoma? If so, they should have said so, because as it is their post is pretty bad.)
I mean skin color correlates with certain physical differences. My family extraction is almost all British Isles on both sides, I am pale white and had lighter colored hair before it went gray. I have had several minor melanomas removed from my body since age 30. Low melanin content in the skin absolutely makes you more prone to this, and since it is genuinely related to lack of melanin, it is directly correlated with skin color.
The same lack of melanin leads to very easy sunburning (which directly of course, relates to skin color.) When I grew up I spent much of my time outdoors and then joined the military, I just let myself burn for many years, now I don’t go out without sunblock, but I did a lot of damage to my skin that, had my skin had more melanin in it, would have been lessened quite a bit.
If the original hypothetical was moved from 1858 to 1869, then yes.
~Max
Not even the first two. The last is a consequence of the melanin part.
Except it doesn’t. The two you list - melanoma and sunburn - are just a consequence of the melanin thing, not a separate difference.
I think you misunderstand me. I’m not bound by the agreeableness of a shitty agreement, but by the force that backs it up.
~Max
I mean but your skin color is essentially a function of how “much” melanin you have, right? I don’t think it is possible to be light skinned and have high amounts of melanin, or vice versa? My understanding is there is basically only one selective advantage to light skin (and many disadvantages)–that you absorb UV radiation better due to less melanin, which, when my ancestors actually lived in the high latitudes they inhabited when this trait was selected for, had some benefits for vitamin D synthesis and calcium production etc, but in modern times just makes me less equipped to be outside without a thick layer of sunblock than someone whose ancestors have skin that wasn’t evolved for high latitudes.
True, not even these things (hair and eye color) are inherently bound to skin color — they’re just partially correlated (looking at the current world population as a whole) due to the accidents of human geohistory (i.e., no more remarkable or interesting than saying “most people in Ancient Greece wrote with letters borrowed from Phonoecian”).
A hijack, anyway, that ends here.
or is it this?
Yes, “skin colour” (light to dark) is the same as saying “skin melanin content” (low to high).
Exactly.
The most moral course would be to rat her father out after the abortion so the state can’t unlawfully force her to carry the child to term.
~Max
Yeah, I mean I took Riemann’s comments to essentially be talking about things consequent to that, if he meant something else I guess that would be incorrect, he’ll have to clarify.
Both. It is wrong to be a party to an illegal act due to the consequence of breaking the law; the duty to follow the law corresponds to the consequences of breaking it.
~Max
Max. We are talking about morality, not the realpolitik action you end up taking.
Turning in the slave is wrong. If you are so terrified of the tyrannical authorities that you feel like you have no choice, that has no bearing on whether the act of turning the slave in was a moral one or not. It may mean you made an amoral decision for an unserstandable reason, but it doesn’t change the underlying morality of the act.
I take it you disagree with that?
You always have a choice. I don’t get to cop out of moral responsibility for some atrocious action just because a gun is being held to my head.
~Max
They why would you refuse to help the escaping slave? You’re losing me here
Sorry, see edit.
I don’t get to cop out of moral responsibility for some atrocious action just because a gun is being held to my head.
~Max