The Really Big Questions Don't Matter

Great Debates
1

I heard an interesting viewpoint. The viewpoint contends that the really big questions that we fight about and debate don’t matter at all.

Abortion, pro-life or pro-choice?
Should we have invaded Iraq?

Things like that. I’m talking about the questions that get the really heated debate on both sides, the kind we torture ourselves over.

They simply don’t matter.

Here’s why:

The fact that very strong arguments can be made in both cases suggests that the expected marginal superiority of one argument versus the other is going to be minimal.

Therefore we shouldn’t waste our time torturing ourselves about them we should just pick a direction and move on.

We should instead be spending our time on the smaller clear cut decisions which we often ignore or neglect because they seem small.

This philosophy applies both to countries and individuals.

Right or wrong?

2

You are clearly right.

There was recently a heated debate on an issue. Very strong arguments were made in both cases. In the end the issue was only resolved through war. That certainly suggest to me that the expected marginal superiority of one argument versus the other was minimal.

Oh, the issue? That would be slavery.

Global warming likewise. Very strong arguments be made in both cases. Yet the one thing that both sides agree on is that the wrong decision will lead to millions of needless deaths, at the very least.

Clearly we shouldn’t waste our time torturing ourselves about issues such as slavery or climate change. We should just pick a direction at random and move on.

Agreed?

3

Well…if we do what you suggested regarding abortion…haven’t we essentially made our position pro-choice then?

I thought the whole point of being on one side or the other of that debate was that you wanted the other side to see it your way and be legislated into obeying it. So by making your choice and moving on, and recognizing that the other half of the debate is making their choice and moving on, you still have each side expecting the other side to fall in line. There really is no “agree to disagree” with that is there?

And most people feel that way about all the big questions, hence the never ending arguing. It’s not about making up your own mind and moving on, it’s about changing other’s minds.

So I can see maybe just tossing those arguments up into the air and no longer thinking on them, THEN moving on to the smaller decisions. But I can’t see “picking a direction and moving on”. I just don’t see that working logically. You need everyone to stop giving a crap simultaneously, about all the “big things”.

And I can see that posing greater problems than having the never ending debates.

ETA: What **Blake **said.

4

Try telling this to a pro-lifer who sees the ongoing practice of abortion as resulting in millions of murdered babies.

5

That was a quick debate.

6

Should I start a poll asking how many of us have ever changed their mind on one of those questions?

I would rather spend my time on dog forums where there people looking for help and may accept my answer. Tons of agenda driven people there too. Ones that judge a dog food by the size of the company making it.

7

Yeah… I don’t feel inclined to shrug off an issue simply because it is big.

8

I honestly could not imagine a worse guiding philosophy.

9

Eh? Sure you could! How about, “Heroin for everyone!” Much worse! The human imagination is all but limitless!

Well…I have, for one. And of all things, it was the gun control debate! I had a particular opinion (ain’t gonna say what!) and was politely and rationally talked out of it. It wasn’t a full 180-degree reversal, so it might not count. But my opinion was modified – and moderated – by intelligent debate.

One thing that would be nice: if people could “pair” the way Senators do. I’ll promise never to discuss abortion (say) if another member of the boards, holding view opposite to mine, promises also. If we could just allow antimatter opposites mutually to annihilate, whatever remained would probably be a lot more worth listening to!

Trinopus

10

Does the OP itself qualify as a “Really Big Question”? If so, this thread should be closed.

11

You’re wrong. You and I have equally valid opinions. I’m willing to let random.org generate a number, odd you’re right, even I’m right.

22

Satisfied?

12

If you play tennis versus a brick wall, you’re unlikely to win. You might get better at tennis, though.

13

Expect that “really strong arguments” can’t be made for both sides. The anti-abortion and pro-Iraq war positions are based on bad arguments and lies, as well as outright greed & malice respectively. They are both one sided arguments where the “left wing” positions are clearly superior both morally and factually.

For that matter; the Right in this country has become so collectively corrupt and psychotic that for pretty much any argument the Left Wing position is going to be stronger, simply because the Right Wing position is so far off the deep end. The positions of the modern Right are virtually always unethical and dishonest, and usually outright delusional or ignorant.

14

The really big questions matter a lot, but it’s possible that the OP has mangled a perfectly adequate position. Fighting against abortion is arguably fruitless , because abortion opponents don’t have arguments that will sway the other side: they are too weak. Attacking GWBush for Iraq is pointless, since these costs are sunk: sending him and Cheney to the Hague for war crimes won’t get us back our $3 trillion of costs, ~5000 American lives, ~50,000 Iraqi lives. Politics is the art of the possible: we should focus on things that can be accomplished, not on symbolism.

As for individuals… well actually the big questions are small questions. Big questions about the meaning of life, the existence of a supreme Deity and who we should vote for pale besides the controversy about whose turn it is to do the laundry. The latter has concrete and immediate costs after all. Our opinions on the former make little difference, at least individually.

15

:rolleyes:

16

I have never heard an argument against all abortions that didn’t rely on sentimentality or the assertion of souls or supernatural entities that didn’t like it.

Those arguments are drivel. Conversely, there are very good arguments for allowing abortions under some circumstances.

So that big issue isn’t magically even. Anyone who throws their hands up and says that both sides of a complex issue are perfectly equal isn’t exactly doing heavy lifting.
As for invading Iraq, the argument on that issue is so one-sided that arguing for it is simply an exercise in partisanship.

17

Seriously?

The single most common argument against abortion is that it is murder and everyone agrees that you shouldn’t be able to commit murder because the victim inconveniences you.

There is no sentimentality or assertion of souls or supernatural entities whatsoever in that argument, and it is the single most common argument against abortion. If you put “arguments against abortion” into Google, all the results on the first page list that as the prime argument against abortion.

So if you have never heard this argument you aren’t exactly doing heavy lifting.

Of course we can *challenge *this argument, but to assert that every single argument relies on sentimentality and the supernatural displays the grossest ignorance of the actual arguments presented by right-to-lifers. I find that degree of ignorance particularly ironic when it’s presented in a post that accuses other people of not doing sufficient work in researching the arguments.

18

Of course it does; the only way you can classify killing a fetus as "murder’ is by arguments that rely on “sentimentality and the supernatural”. For that matter, most of the people who make those arguments clearly don’t even believe it themselves; they certainly don’t act like they think that abortion is a matter of “millions of murdered babies”. They act like it’s a way they can harass and humiliate women and in general make their life hellish without taking any great amount of effort or risk on their part.

Let’s be realistic; if those crowds of protesters really believed that abortion was killing babies and they actually cared about it, unless there were heavily armed guards 24/7 they’d sooner or later storm the building to stop it. They don’t, because they are a bunch of liars.

19

Wrong

No. The fact that strongly held opinions exist on both sides is a fair (not perfect) indicator of the importance of the argument. Important decisions cannot be resolved by arbitrary choice.

Only the side on which the fallen coin happens to favour will be happy with the decision - the other side won’t just shrug and walk away.

20

I think the more interesting issue is: with those Big Questions, is there an underlying, objective fact of the matter that we only need to find out? And what if there isn’t?

Take abortion, for instance. Is it the case that there exists an objective moral judgement attached to it? Is it objectively either right or wrong to terminate a pregnancy, and we just have to find out which one it is? Or is it the case that moral judgements are created, rather than discovered?

If there is such an objective judgement, it seems clear that we need to continue debating until we manage to find it – perhaps eventually, somebody comes up with the true killer argument that makes the other side falter and acknowledge the superiority of we all secretly already think we have. Then, the debate will eventually come to an end, with the discovery of a truth.

But what if there isn’t? Then, the debate will go on and on – with no side being objectively any more right than the other. Quite to the contrary, rather than finding the right judgements, the debate creates those judgements – and always on pain of revocation. But what, then, is the status of that debate? It’s clearly necessary, if we are to arrive at any judgements at all – but it also seems somewhat vacuous: if you enter the debate with any sort of preconceptions, as we all do, there can never be sufficient reason within the context of that debate to change those preconceptions, as the other side is no more objectively right, no closer to any sort of fundamental truth, than you are. So why debate?

It starts to appear a little like connoisseurdom: people can become great connoisseurs on just about anything, from fine wine to, I don’t know, pictures of Joe Biden eating sandwiches. There are people who can’t stand wine, people who’ll drink anything, and people who have spent years and years studying into the appraisal of wines from all over the world that shudder at both previous positions. And neither of them are objectively right; yet debates extolling the virtue of one wine, condemning the flaws of another are held with great vigour. So it appears that people also become connoisseurs of particular points of view, if there’s no objective fact-of-the-matter kind of thing to them, and become deeply learned regarding that subject, condemning others for their ignorance on it like the wine lover condemns the cheap grape guzzler, or worse yet, those having the gall of preferring pinot noir to their clearly superior favourites.