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unspeakablehorrorOne thing that I think is incredibly vital before criticizing something is to have a clear understanding of it. On the other hand, we generally need to have opinions on things we won't have the opportunity to fully investigate. There simply isn't enough time or, I suspect, even the ability, for one person to learn everything they need to know to have fully informed opinions on everything important in the world. So the most any single individual can do is to try to balance the effort to listen and understand and the effort to speak and act as well as they can.
I've often had the problem where I spend so much time trying to investigate things that I don't act, but I've still had instances where I act hastily without sufficient thought on whether I'm making a good choice. Of course, to evaluate an action as good or evil requires a moral judgment, which cannot be based entirely on information of any kind but instead must take into account goals as well. Information can only tell us whether an act might help us reach a particular goal, not whether the goal itself is a worthwhile one. So two people who believe identical information to be true may still act on it differently because they have different end goals. When we consider this fact, we can see that differences in beliefs are not necessarily due to differences in information, even if they can be. This is one (though certainly not the only) reason that persuasion can be so difficult. There's often an assumption of shared end goals and while that may often be true in general, there are a lot of specifics that matter to most of us that get overlooked in such an analysis. And of course, it's still the case that some people may have wildly divergent end goals in mind.
Anyway, just some freeform thoughts I had. They're not...super well-organized or detailed, but I thought I'd write them down regardless.
I've often had the problem where I spend so much time trying to investigate things that I don't act, but I've still had instances where I act hastily without sufficient thought on whether I'm making a good choice. Of course, to evaluate an action as good or evil requires a moral judgment, which cannot be based entirely on information of any kind but instead must take into account goals as well. Information can only tell us whether an act might help us reach a particular goal, not whether the goal itself is a worthwhile one. So two people who believe identical information to be true may still act on it differently because they have different end goals. When we consider this fact, we can see that differences in beliefs are not necessarily due to differences in information, even if they can be. This is one (though certainly not the only) reason that persuasion can be so difficult. There's often an assumption of shared end goals and while that may often be true in general, there are a lot of specifics that matter to most of us that get overlooked in such an analysis. And of course, it's still the case that some people may have wildly divergent end goals in mind.
Anyway, just some freeform thoughts I had. They're not...super well-organized or detailed, but I thought I'd write them down regardless.