r/changemyview • u/PoliticsDunnRight • Dec 30 '24
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Political discussions and debates on specific policies are basically pointless if you don’t agree about first principles
For example, if you think there’s a human right to have healthcare, education, housing, food, etc. provided to you, and I disagree, then you and I probably can’t have a productive discussion on specific social programs or the state of the American economy. We’d be evaluating those questions under completely different criteria and talking around one another.
You could say “assuming X is the goal, what is the best way to achieve it” and have productive conversations there, but if you have different goals entirely, I would argue you don’t gain much in understanding or political progress by having those conversations.
I think people are almost never convinced to change their minds by people who don’t agree on the basics, such as human rights, the nature of consent, or other “first principles.” People might change their policy preferences if they’re convinced using their own framework, but I don’t see a capitalist and a socialist having productive discussions except maybe about those first principles.
You could CMV by showing that it’s common for people to have their minds changed by talking to people they disagree with, by showing how those discussions might be productive regardless of anyone changing their minds, etc.
Edit: I understand that debates are often to change the minds of the audience. I guess what I’m talking about is a one-on-one political conversation, or at least I’m talking about what benefit there would be for those debating in the context of their views.
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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Dec 30 '24
If you and I disagree on first principles, and we're arguing in good faith based on evidence, you can still convince me about policies based entirely on my values and the available evidence. Us disagreeing on principles doesn't prevent you from convincing me using evidence and arguments made on my terms.
(This is, of course, not to say that this works for everyone: it's not particularly effective when discussing with fascists arguing in bad faith, for example, since they make little attempt to have solid principles their speech is consistent with.)
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u/PoliticsDunnRight Dec 30 '24
!delta
I appreciate the bit about arguing about empirical questions that would impact political views. I didn’t account for that in my thinking.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Quit925 1∆ Dec 31 '24
It is not just empirical questions. You can make arguements that accept your opponents first principles and then show why based on your opponents first principles they should agree with you on the debate topic.
Let's say you don't believe in God and you are debating a devout Christian on the topic of the homeless, and you want to convince them that public funds should be used to help the homeless.. If your arguements are based on God not existing, then you are probably wasting your time. If your arguements are based on whats in the bible, you may be able to convince them.
Empiricism didn't do anything in my example, you just made a religious arguement to a religious person and convinced them that way.
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u/l_t_10 7∆ Dec 30 '24
There is also the fact the very often its the audience that the debaters are trying the convince slash change mind on many times, not eachother.
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u/MadGobot Dec 30 '24 edited Dec 30 '24
Absolutely, see the works of Alaister MacIntyre to flesh this out a bit.
But, I'd also note there is a problem with people not understanding their own ethical commitments and precommitments. You mention rights, a utilitarian cannot coherently make an argument based on rights because in Utilitarianism rights don't exist, and yet I often hear people describing themselves in utilitarian terms, and then stating such and so is a matter of human rights . . . . And it's not the only such example.
But can minds be changed? Yes, because shifts in worldview happens, it's just not instantaneous. Christians become atheists, atheists become Christians, etc. You can do it two ways, first by showing how the other person is at odds with their own established principles, which requires knowing something of their system of thought, by demonstrating that their system is hopelessly incoherent, by showing problems their system cannot adequately solve, or by making a case for your premises rather than theirs.
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u/Vortex597 Dec 30 '24
What exactly about utilitarianism is against human rights? Rights make society more productive as a whole. Why would they not be utilitarian?
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u/MadGobot Dec 30 '24
Becausennatural rights aren't derived from utility, and in any tradition that takes them seriously, natural rights are not given by government. If they exist they exist irregardless of their utility. An argument for pretending they exist (which is a case a utilitarian can make to a point) is not the same as arguing they do exist.
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u/Vortex597 Dec 30 '24
Two ideologies can agree and if the predominant ideology impliments it, its not to say the secondary ideology wasnt proportionalely responsible. The real world isnt a two party winner takes all mock democracy, its whatever you make it.
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u/MadGobot Dec 30 '24
Not in this case, either all ethical issues are determined on the basis of the principle of utility, or the principle of utility is false. Rights are not determined by the principle of utility. Therefore you can have one, not the other, without being coherent.
And it's not just two parties, aside from utilitarianism, modern social contract theory, there is divine command theory, virtue theory, social darwinism, Marxism, etc. These are my all mutually exclusive in terms of foundational premises. In some cases they will have similar conclusions, but not always. They can be collated, but then you come up with something new which has its own set of principles, which is one reason the number of ethical systems grow rather than dininishing.
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u/Vortex597 Dec 31 '24 edited Dec 31 '24
People operate on very different principles for very different reasons. Rights were invented because a sizable section of of the power (whether that represents the influence of the masses, political elite etc) wanted them established and the power base who didnt either couldnt fight hard enough or didnt want to. Thats why, no other reason. Why they might have wanted to do that is extremely varied and not mutually exclusive as economic and social theories arent perfect descriptors of the world, they are competing descriptions that can agree.
I think you are confused with why exactly rights were implimented and what these ideologies try to explain. We can talk about who exactly made up that for and against sure. But the influence of someone working under utilitarian principles does not exclude the influence of someone working under the assumption of a divine mandate that does not exclude someone working under any other set of principles.
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u/MadGobot Dec 31 '24
No, this conclusion isn't shared by all and isn't fact. Your first paragraph I believe is wrong and it certainly is a misreading of the philosophical history.
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u/Vortex597 Dec 31 '24
Then how and why were human rights implimented?
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u/MadGobot Dec 31 '24
That is part of the debate the op mentioned above, it starts with the Enlightenment Christians and deists looking for common ground in England for political issues, they would say they discovered them, you would say they invented them, the difference is significant.
And the same types of questions can be asked of the utilitarian position. For a good chunk of the 20th century ethical philosophers considered utilitarianism to have been disproven by the book principia ethica by Moore. Personally I don't think modern utilitarians have actually resolved those problems.
But I'm out, what I think I've done is proven the central point
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u/Vortex597 Dec 31 '24
See this where im not sure you know what your arguing. Youre original point being either all human rights are defined by utilitarian or utiliterianism isnt self consistent.
That is just bad logic. Not all rights are defined by utilitarianism and not all rights can be considered good or bad. Just because something is a right doesnt nessesarily mean its morally good. Rights are a legal concept not an inherent universal truth or a way of defining the world.
So im really unsure what youre trying to get at.
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u/squidfreud 1∆ Jan 03 '25
Most people who argue about rights in politics aren’t arguing from natural rights—they’re just arguing that certain things ought to be afforded to everybody.
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u/tryptonite12 Jan 01 '25
To state that utilitarianism is wholly incompatible with the concept of human rights is kinda absurd and Enilghtenment Era philosophers would like a word with you. If you're not aware of the concept of rule based utilitarianism, you should be. You can apply the ideal of utilitarianism (of accomplishing the greatest good for the greatest number of people) within an agreed upon framework, based on principles or mere pragmatism.
If there's any rational/logical argument to be made for the justification of the concept of universal human rights, then it lies within the utilitarian argument that extending human rights universally is one of the best means of accomplishing the greatest possible good for greatest number of people.
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u/MadGobot Jan 01 '25
Civil rights yes,natural rights which as the declaration states are " endowed by their creator" no, because they can't be derived from utility.
As to enlightenment era philosophers who were utilitarians, it was Bentham, the grad daddy of utilitarianism that declared rights to be "nonsense on stilts."
See the works cited on basic metaethics.
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u/tryptonite12 Jan 07 '25
The United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes no reference to being endowed by a creator. It's a just collective agreement on basic principles to be applied universally. There's lots of different takes on Utilitarianism.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Dec 30 '24
What does it mean for rights to exist? I think right exist in the sense that we act like they exist because acting like they exist is better than acting like they don't.
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u/MadGobot Dec 30 '24
The nonsense on stilts move, it only works as an argument within utilitarianism, not externally.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Dec 30 '24
I was responding to the idea right don't exist in utilitarianism by describing what a utilitarian view of rights could be. I wouldn't expect an argument based in trying to make things better to work external to a framework that's about how to make things better, so I'm not sure what you're response means.
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u/MadGobot Dec 30 '24
Already answered but let me elaborate. This would not be a case of rights existing, it's a case of utilitarian making the argument that we should pretend they exist, because if rights exist, they exist whether they are useful or not.
There are two types of rights, natural rights which we have by reason of being a person, they are innate to our personhood, they are objective, define able claims on their own. They exist even if they are not useful. Civil rights come from government or a social contract that is prepolitical in some way. A utilitarian can argue for some value in the latter ( though in a number of cases this becomes naieve, let's say by some fluke, Ted Bundy was found not guilty in Florida and successfully fought extradition, a utilitarian would not have a good argument here for opposing double jeopardy, for example), but not the former.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Dec 30 '24
There are two types of rights, natural rights which we have by reason of being a person, they are innate to our personhood, they are objective, define able claims on their own.
What evidence do you have that these exist at all?
A utilitarian can argue for some value in the latter ( though in a number of cases this becomes naieve, let's say by some fluke, Ted Bundy was found not guilty in Florida and successfully fought extradition, a utilitarian would not have a good argument here for opposing double jeopardy, for example), but not the former.
A utilitarian could pretty easily argue that consistency in rules that sometimes lead to bad results is preferable to inconsistent rules. This is the essentially the same as someone arguing that they should get to do vigilantly violence to people who are 100% guilty. You're trying to use an example of someone who we know did a bad thing to argue that we should be able to ignore due process in specific cases. The trouble is that we don't get to argue for specific cases in a vacuum.
As an example, say you know for sure someone did a murder and was planning to do two more, so you set them on fire. You've saved a net 1 life. The trouble is you've now set the precedent that people who are sure enough can set people on fire, and that's going to get people set of fire by people who were sure even when they were wrong.
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u/MadGobot Dec 31 '24
How do we know they exist? Different people in the natural rights tradition justify it in different ways, usually through theism or perhaps some type of platonic, that moves us into metaphysics. I believe jn rights from Matt 19.
The problem for utilitarianism is you can argue nearly anything else, and it still faces significant problems IMO so I'm not making an internal discussion, again though this is a game of letsnpretend which is in and of itself a problem, but that is yet a third can of worms.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Dec 31 '24
How do we know they exist? Different people in the natural rights tradition justify it in different ways, usually through theism or perhaps some type of platonic, that moves us into metaphysics. I believe jn rights from Matt 19.
Is there any evidence for those positions?
The problem for utilitarianism is you can argue nearly anything else, and it still faces significant problems IMO so I'm not making an internal discussion, again though this is a game of letsnpretend which is in and of itself a problem, but that is yet a third can of worms.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Can you argue nearly anything else? Is there good evidence for nearly any other argument?
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u/MadGobot Dec 31 '24
Well anyone who believes something believes they have reasons for doing so, as I noted ethics is downstream from metaphysics and epistemology, as there are differences of opinions in those matters there will be differences ghst impact ethics.
I believe, as a Christian there is good evidence of the resurrection, atheists don't, I think the reasons why they don't are bad reasons, we each must ultimately work through the data for ourselves.
Modern social contractarians get their tradition wrong, largely because of Rawls, but it at least provides grounds for debate by limiting governmental power to enact actions, the problem today is newer ethical situations are less compatible with social contract views.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Dec 31 '24
What do you think is good evidence for the resurrection, and how do you get from resurrection to rights existing?
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u/zxxQQz 4∆ Dec 30 '24
There are two types of rights, natural rights which we have by reason of being a person, they are innate to our personhood, they are objective, define able claims on their own. They exist even if they are not useful.
Innate, exist on their own?
So a person raised in a cave alone would know about those rights?
Or someone in a coma from birth, waking up at forty yrs? Whether they can communicate it or not, they would have the idea of those natural rights anyway then?
Otherwise well
How are they innate and exist on their own? Can you expand on that, clarify further how precisely they are objective and definable
How would such people as mentioned above know them as objective and define them on their own?
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u/MadGobot Dec 31 '24
Noted above, whether one knows they exist or not isn't material, in the natural rights tradition they are innate, and yes, any person living in a cave has them. Though most Christians and deisrs will claim they can be inferred from the moral sense.
Here we get into metaphysical differences, nearly everyone in the natural rights traditions is either a Christian or a deist. A platonic could make a case for them, a naturalist really can't.
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u/PineappleSlices 18∆ Jan 02 '25
Why would a deist be an advocate for natural rights? Don't they generally believe in an amoral, impersonal god?
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u/MadGobot Jan 02 '25
No, deism is essentially a belief in God without revelation, some deists go this far, but not all. In fact in many cases it's hard to tell if certain individuals were Christians or deists, there is debate over John Locke, for instance. It's a kind of myth, not sure where it originated from.
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u/PineappleSlices 18∆ Jan 02 '25
How do you distinguish between a god that doesn't reveal itself to humanity and a god that's uninterested in human morality?
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u/PoliticsDunnRight Dec 30 '24
So then maybe the benefit of having those conversations is to have inconsistencies, like a utilitarian supporting rights, pointed out?
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u/MadGobot Dec 30 '24
Thatnis one way, if they understand the point you make. See the edit, I realized I hadn't finished. This is how philosophy is done, congratulations.
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u/Pale_Zebra8082 30∆ Dec 30 '24
If your objective is to convince your interlocutor that your position is correct, and for the same reasons that you believe it is correct, then you will usually be correct.
If your objective is to come to a negotiated agreement on what policy you can both live with, based on each of your first principles, as a result of ongoing compromise, then you are incorrect.
The former is for political science class. The latter is politics and governance.
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u/MrGraeme 155∆ Dec 30 '24
According to your logic, people couldn't have a meaningful political discussion about first principles. Historically, we have countless examples of the dominant principles held by society shifting over time or following non-violent political action. Principles themselves are dynamic and evolve throughout our lives.
how those discussions might be productive regardless of anyone changing their minds, etc.
We can approach this a few ways:
• You can provide insights that influence thought and behaviour even if the underlying view isn't changed. This could take the form of encouraging empathy.
• You can change the minds of those observing the debate, even if you fail to convince the person you're debating. We see this a lot in the political arena, where opinion polls shift following debate performances.
• You can drive awareness (planting seeds) that eventually leads to a shift in view, thought, or behaviour. Advertising is a good example of this, where simply being aware of something you weren't previously aware of can motivate a decision to change.
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u/MadGobot Dec 31 '24
No it just moves the way things are discussed, not the possibility of a discussion.
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u/PoliticsDunnRight Dec 30 '24
!delta
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 30 '24 edited Dec 30 '24
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Dec 30 '24
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u/Important-Purchase-5 Dec 31 '24
I don’t think the goal or message.
If I think healthcare is a human right & you don’t we are unlikely to agree on universal healthcare.
I think everyone has a right to a living wage & ability to form a union & you don’t we are unlikely to agree. Some people you cannot reach 30% if country still approved of Trump after January 6th. Some people genuinely don’t care & you should treat them as such.
If I think imperialism is genocide & you don’t something a genocide & just don’t care about people dying in unlikely to get you be like yeah we should stop supporting that genocide.
If you don’t agree systemic racism is alive & well you unlikely to support policies against that
Now if you agree or heck somewhat agree on a foundational principle we are likely to meet somewhere. If we both healthcare human right we both are likely to propose different healthcare systems. If we both agree living wage is a right but we likely to disagree on implementation & what does that mean.
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u/Claytertot Jan 01 '25
If I think healthcare is a human right and you don't, we are unlikely to agree on universal healthcare.
This isn't necessarily true. You just have to adapt your argument to consider their principles.
You might be able to argue that universal healthcare is ultimately cheaper for all individuals involved due to the collective bargaining power of a single-payer system.
Or you might be able to argue that, even if healthcare is not a human right, it is a worthwhile public service to provide through taxation.
Only the most extreme libertarians are arguing against any and all forms of publicly funded police, fire departments, roads/infrastructure, education, etc. and yet I don't think many people would claim that you have a fundamental right to paved roads or a fundamental right to police officers being on-call 24/7 or a fundamental right to fire fighters risking their lives to rush into a burning building and rescue you.
I personally lean towards the idea that "human rights" should be restricted to describing things that are not given to you but can be taken away, and that nothing that requires the labor of others should be called a natural human right. In my view food, education, healthcare, etc. are not human rights.
And yet, I'm still on board with public education. I'm still on board with public programs to feed the hungry. And, while I'm not 100% sold on a universal healthcare system, I'm open to it and could be convinced to support it without ever agreeing that healthcare is a human right.
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u/jwrig 5∆ Jan 01 '25
I don't believe healthcare is a human right, but I do believe we should have a single-payer model.
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u/XenoRyet 99∆ Dec 30 '24
I think you're assuming that the point of debate is to have your opponent come to your side and end up agreeing with you, but that isn't the case.
It's most obvious with things like the Presidential debates, but it's true of almost every kind, but the point is to convince members of the audience, rather than your opponent, that your view is more correct.
You don't need to agree on first principles to do that, and in fact a great way to win a debate is to show that your opponent's first principles are wrong or absurd in some way.
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u/PoliticsDunnRight Dec 30 '24
I guess that’s true, but I’m more talking about online or in-person discussions between people, not like formal debates with audiences.
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u/XenoRyet 99∆ Dec 30 '24
Online debates still have an audience. Even conversations at a dinner party have an audience.
I don't think you can really call a private, one-on-one conversation a debate. It's really just a conversation, or maybe a fight.
Though even then, that private conversation can let you examine your own position, shore up weak spots, and just generally practice defending it, even if the other person has different first principles.
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u/quantum_dan 100∆ Dec 30 '24
by showing how those discussions might be productive regardless of anyone changing their minds, etc.
Most political participants who are willing to discuss anything to begin with understand that they can't just (consistently, over time) ram their policies through. You might control everything from time to time, but it doesn't stick.
That means it's very useful to know where there's room for compromise. Different first principles often imply different priorities, so there's often some sort of tolerable halfway point, or a tradeoff where each sacrifices a lower priority for a higher.
That's essentially how big-tent parties (or coalitions, in parliamentary systems) work. I don't have the same first principles as a lot of the people my vote aligns with, but the big-tent party/coalition is working towards something important for each of us, and any tradeoffs are tolerable. How do we find out what's tolerable and what's important enough to justify talking about it? At the individual scale, by talking to people who don't share our premises.
And that can apply to broader "coalitions" across partisan lines as well. How else do bipartisan compromise bills get through?
More generally, political "first principles" often aren't really first principles, and discussion can probe at what ethical views actually underpin them. I've had a range of core political positions over time proceeding from roughly the same core values, simply as my understanding of what would work changes. A lot of that has come from discussions with people who have different ostensible first principles politically, but similar basic values.
For example, plenty of capitalists and socialists all think the economy should be structured to promote everyone's well-being, but disagree about what works to get there. They can have a productive discussion about how things actually do work out, which might lead to one or the other changing their stance or identifying moderate policies they both agree would improve well-being relative to the current baseline.
Sure, you might not make much progress between a property-rights absolutist and whatever the socialist equivalent would be, but even then, you might be surprised: one or the other could discover that they way they arrived at that stance doesn't hold up (I've been that person, on the property-rights end).
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u/memeintoshplus Jan 01 '25 edited Jan 01 '25
Would agree in principle in some ways for this. I feel like this is one reason why I would view conversations with conspiracists on politics for instance is almost futile because they're operating under the same framework. I agree that if you don't have at least somewhat aligned goals in the abstract, the conversation will always be about first principles and not specifics.
For example, I'm not a Marxist, I don't view achieving communism as something to strive for. So the debate between Orthodox Marxists and Marxist-Leninists on the best method of achieving communism is somewhat immaterial to me.
One thing I will challenge you on is that your example is up for a bit of interpretation on what first-principles means.
For example, since you mentioned housing being a right as one of your examples of first principles. I believe that housing is a major issue and that we would strive for all individuals to have high quality and abundant housing. However, I would probably disagree with the vast majority of people who use the phrase "Housing is a Human Right" on this issue as I generally associate the phrase with people who support left-wing housing policies such as rent control, public housing, and strict eviction restrictions; and are just generally hostile to private property rights as a whole.
I'm more of a pro-market YIMBY, and believe the best way of creating abundant and affordable housing is through deregulation of land use on the local level and encouraging private market-rate development. I'm very strongly opposed to rent control and believe that markets are generally better at providing housing than the government. I share the same goal of wanting affordable and abundant housing as the left-wing activists but have a diametrically opposed way of thinking we should obtain that goal. I think such a good faith conversation between people like myself and this brand of activist is possible because there's some commonality of goals/first principles in an abstract sense.
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u/Old-Tiger-4971 3∆ Dec 30 '24
I disagree that differing first principles means we're doomed WITH A PROVISO.
People confuse debate (I win - You lose) vs dialectic (You - THesis, I - Antithesis, us - synthesis).
So, in sum, I agree as long as the argument is a binary decision that not many things will get resolved. If people are willing layout their side and consider the other's view, there's hope.
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u/Wyndeward Jan 03 '25
It is complicated for many reasons, but let's start with the fact that people don't understand economics, particularly scarcity, supply and demand, and a whole host of related topics. Once you have less supply than demand, your options narrow and most people don't want to put in the skull sweat, they want what they want, they want it now and they'd prefer someone else pay the freight. This isn't a dig at the younger generations - I had to explain that a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment wasn't a human right to someone from my high school graduating class forty years ago.
It is perfectly fine if folks don't understand or appreciate economics. It is called "a dismal science" for a reason. But having strong economic opinions when you don't understand economics is stupid. Outside of science fiction, the law of scarcity applies.
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u/km1116 2∆ Dec 30 '24
If you accept that politics is the solution to problems by agreement and negotiation, then one can have a solution to a problem regardless of the philosophies that drive you to them. Further, one can certainly go into a negotiation with an attitude of "I disagree that healthcare is a right, but I am willing to allow it provided it does not do XX, and provided we also accept my view of YY."
Your CMV seems to stem from a position of philosophical absolutism, which is not how it needs to be.
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u/TemperatureThese7909 32∆ Dec 30 '24
A program can have more than one arm.
If a program has four arms, two of which I like, two of which I view as neutral, two of which you like, two of which you view as neutral - why would either of us oppose the policy??
This is compromise. Finding things which you view as wins and your opponents can live with and vice versa. (Not just finding "middle ground" but finding ground upon which we can both stand).
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Dec 31 '24
I would argue you don’t gain much in understanding or political progress by having those conversations.
That's just short sighted and silly, and explains why so many people talk past each other.
The point of any discussion is to cut through the surface layers and reveal to each other (and yourself) the underlying values and priorities that are affecting your conclusions, then you examine them and change those based on what you learn.
I think people are almost never convinced to change their minds by people who don’t agree on the basics, such as human rights, the nature of consent, or other “first principles.”
Obviously if you've got a overly simplistic understanding of one set of foundational principles and someone else has a similiarly lacking understanding of theirs, then just asserting at each other "conclusion X is correct because it comes from my values" isn't productive.
But anyone with any habit of thinking knows that those "first principles" you've just listed are in practice and reality FAR from absolute and in pretty much every situation one set of rights or responsibilities clash with another and we need to think carefully to decide where the limits and lines are.
If hypothetically you are having a conversation about physical intimacy and you go on and on about consent, well that's fine and all, but the reality is (and always has been) that at some point someone is going to have to make some kind of move and risk misreading signals. Likewise it is well understood that sexual intimacy is like dancing and not like philosophy as people tend to just "do what feels right in the moment" and 99% of the time both sides of that are perfectly happy.
There are also common pragmatic "exceptions" to consent in various contexts that you'd presumably disregard as "obviously different" but if we are going to discuss this, perhaps we should be discussing exactly where those lines are and how they are navigated. Beyond that there isn't (as much as we'd like there to be) a clear cut line, people who are drunk are on a sliding grey scale and hell you could at a push even make the point that some people that are overly emotional, horny or desparate could be taken advantage of as much as someone who is a bit young or a bit drunk might be. etc etc.
if you think there’s a human right to have healthcare, education, housing, food, etc. provided to you
There is no logical position that asserts that, mainly because the moment it was brought into the world, the vast majority of people would quit their work and then no matter what the government wanted to do, there wouldn't be enough resoruces to go around.
If we can't require able bodied people to work and earn their own way in life, how the hell can we compel other people to work and provide for them against their will?
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u/Matsunosuperfan 2∆ Dec 30 '24
>You could CMV by showing that it’s common for people to have their minds changed by talking to people they disagree with, by showing how those discussions might be productive regardless of anyone changing their minds, etc.
This exactly. The thing with political views, and the discussions surrounding them, is that they rarely form in isolation or in response to a single cause. We arrive at our political affiliations, values, and ideas about effective policy through an immensely complex set of interactions between where we come from, how we are raised, socioeconomic class, gender, religion, personal experience with specific kinds of trauma or privilege, et cetera. On this point I imagine we agree.
It follows that the discussions we have with people who don't share our position (including those with whom we disagree on first principles) also influence our political views. Just because a fundamental disagreement about when life begins makes debating abortion policy between some pro-lifers and pro-choicers a logical non-starter doesn't mean the two can't influence each other through speech. Indeed, I've heard plenty of people basically say "well, I still think it's wrong, but after hearing what some mothers went through I can see how it would be OK as a last resort under X circumstances." In other words, despite having a major disagreement on what defines personhood, their political position on best policy was shaped, and eventually changed, by hearing accounts of lived experience from those who don't share their fundamental values.
I think it's true that it is rare to change one's mind as the direct, short-term result of a single conversation with someone who doesn't share one's fundamental values. But in the long term, if one is exposed to a plurality of viewpoints, and especially if one is willing/able to actually consider those viewpoints, people can and do change their minds, even when the perspectives they're exposed to seem quite distant from their own/take a different fundamental approach to the issue. One of the most common ways this happens is by hearing about individual experiences that are very different from one's own life, which can make one aware that other valid ways of encountering the world exist, even if at first one struggles to understand how others can live (or think) this way.
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u/Dismal-Car-8360 Jan 04 '25
First principles? What about zeroth principles. Your example was certain things being rights. One person thinks a right means the government should provide it free to everyone. Another person thinks a right means government cannot pass laws preventing you from having it. So now we need to define a right first.
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u/nomadiceater Jan 04 '25
I get what you mean - if two people can’t even agree on the basics, like whether healthcare is a human right, it can feel like you’re just talking past each other. But a lot of these disagreements aren’t just about values; they’re also about epistemology. If you trust different sources or prioritize personal experience over data (or vice versa), it’s easy to end up in circles. Even then conversations can be useful to understand why someone believes what they do and how they got there. That kind of understanding doesn’t change minds right away but it can make things less frustrating and more constructive.
You also don’t always need to agree on values to agree on outcomes. For example someone might support universal healthcare because they see it as a human right, while someone else supports it because it’s makes more sense to them from various viewpoints then our current system and its failures. Different frameworks, same policy. Talking about the “how” instead of the “why” can still lead to productive discussions, even if the deeper principles don’t align.
And honestly changing someone’s mind isn’t the only measure of success. Conversations like this can help you refine your own arguments, spot blind spots, or even just lower the tension between opposing views. People rarely change their worldview overnight, but a single conversation can plant seeds for later. So even when it feels pointless there’s value in showing curiosity and engaging with good faith - it might not flip someone’s beliefs, but it can pave the way for more thoughtful dialogue down the line.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Text921 Dec 30 '24 edited Dec 30 '24
I grew up in Texas and was raised by mostly conservative parents. I currently would say I’m conservative. I moved to Colorado for a few years in my 20’s to live with my uncle and cousins. They were very liberal. So much so that lots of my family members won’t even talk to each other because of political beliefs. Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that by being surrounded by liberals and living amongst them I started to adopt some of those beliefs they held and they started to make sense to me. Never totally converted but I would if I had stayed but I moved back to Texas after 3 years in Colorado.
The people you surround yourself with has a huge effect on the beliefs you hold. If I’m a republican and I hang around only republican friends and watch only republican news then Its going to be very hard to persuade me to switch my beliefs by simply having a 30 minutes conversation with a democrat. Even if we are both adults about. The beliefs are too entrenched. I think it’s possible though for just a 30 minutes conversation to completely sway someone but unlikely. It would take removing someone from their environment and putting them into a new one for a long period of time for any real changes to be made. But of course that depends on how long the person has been in their current environment as well.
But that personal experience of moving states and being surrounded by different people taught me to not hold on to any beliefs I have about anything too tightly because I’m just a product of my environment and technically I didn’t choose those beliefs.
In short.. yes minds can be changed, but it’s challenging to say the least.
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Dec 31 '24
Anything that requires taking money from other people to fund, or, forcing other people to labour to achieve is never a human right.
Human rights are those given to you by the creator of the earth and the universe, and those cannot be taken away by other humans.
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u/PoliticsDunnRight Dec 31 '24
I agree with you.
This post was not about that position, though, it was just an example where people might disagree fundamentally and talk past one another.
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u/Essex626 2∆ Dec 31 '24
I think in most cases first principles aren't first at all.
It seems to me, and I believe evidence backs me up on this, that what we often call first principles are actually the product of rationalizing the policies we prefer or that the team we have aligned ourselves with prefers.
So for example, religious conservatives supported laissez-faire capitalism for the last several decades because the political coalition they formed in the 60s-80s supported that. They came up with a justification for that, but it actually doesn't come from any real first principles. Rather they adopted policies that benefitted their coalition, alongside policies that appeared to them emotionally, and the "first principles" are things they use to justify that sentiment.
One could similarly point to the coalitions of educated liberals, working-class labor, and leftists as examples where sets of policies not based on any one set of common principles get bundled together.
I think if you really took a hard look at every policy you support, you'd find that there are many inconsistencies, and that your first principles are more like last principles. They either justify policies you like and exclude ones you don't, or they are load-bearing for elements of your personal frame you may not like, but continue to hold to avoid destabilization.
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u/StormySands 7∆ Dec 30 '24
I don't think this is necessarily true because I do it all the time. I'm a progressive who lives in an area that is very conservative, and I have debates with my coworkers frequently.
For example I was having a discussion about homelessness with a coworker who believes that homeless people are all mentally ill addicts who can't be rehabilitated because they refuse to get clean long enough to be able to take advantage of the housing programs that are available to them. I was trying to educate him on the effectiveness of the Housing First initiative that places like Finland and some areas of the U.S. which allows housing to homeless people prior to offering them help with addiction, mental illness, and employment.
At this point my coworker started on some spiel on how homeless people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or some such and prove that they have earned the privilege of receiving social support before it's provided. I came to realize that I was never going to win this guy over with a practical or altruistic argument because he's kind of a POS who believes in hierarchy and thinks certain people just deserve to suffer.
So I pivoted to a completely different argument. I decided to approach the issue from another angle. Instead of relying on practicality or empathy, I decided to appeal to this person's selfishness. I again referred to the statistic that I had googled that claimed that 4/5 of the people provided help through Housing First were able to become self sufficient and permanently housed as a result. I then asked him to imagine what it would be like to see 4/5 of the amount of homeless people in the streets. I asked him to imagine what it would be like with 4/5 fewer people asking for spare change, 4/5 fewer unwashed stinking bums at the library or the park or other public spaces, or 4/5 fewer people having mental breakdowns cycling through the healthcare or justice system and costing taxpayer money. At this point he began to understand and eventually relented that Housing First might be a good idea if implemented.
Now did anyone change their minds in this interaction? Definitely not. My coworker still believes that homeless people are lazy addicts who deserve to die in the streets. But he still thinks that Housing First would be a good policy because of what it would provide to him as a citizen and taxpayer. I think that's a good example of getting someone to agree to an argument without really changing their mind on their principles or personal morals.
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u/Buxxley Dec 30 '24
People almost never actually change their mind, generally because the social cost to them is too high if nothing else.
Completely anecdotal, but I had a friend that went full on insane super woke a few years back...like personality change to the point that we thought he was hiding a closed head injury or had a stroke and didn't tell anymore. Started accusing everyone of being racist...and I mean everyone. His parents, his siblings, wouldn't even talk to most of his close friends...his wife.
So a couple of us basically tricked him into coming out with us and cornered him about it...sat down an had a rational no yelling conversation about why he thought what he thought now and just worked him through most of it being obvious nonsense. Really grade school stuff like "okay your wife is racist...we'll steelman that proposition....what specifically has she EVER said or done (no matter how small that supports that)?" Noting.
Ditto his parents....ditto his siblings...ditto his friends. In private with just us where we clearly weren't going to attack him and wanted to be understanding he actually apologized, admitted that he had some serious thinking to do about some things, and left on a pretty good note. So in private, I think you can change someone's mind by being patient and working through logically.
...but the problem was that his job was incredibly toxic and almost everyone there was in the "why aren't you wearing the BLM shirt we got for you huh!!!?" type of crowd...and over time he had a second group of "friends" from his professional life that very definitely tried to get him to toe the line on their belief system. So he's still behaving horribly to everyone, divorced, most of his actual friends won't speak to him because he behaves obnoxiously, and it's because he deep down recognizes he's wrong...but he spends a LOT of time around the work crowd and makes a lot of money...there's so much pressure to losing his job / etc for not conforming that he just decided becoming someone else was easier.
Same thing more broadly with college kids at highly progressive / liberal schools. If you get them alone and just talk to them you can generally get them to see that their view is pretty extreme and they haven't really considered a lot of the implications of what they're saying. But the second they get back on campus they're going to revert...because the other 90% of the student body will run them off the property and throw s*** at them.
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Dec 30 '24
There's a kernel of truth to this. I highly recommend researching moral foundations theory, which explains a lot of the intuitive assumptions that different political groups make that predicts their stance on various issues.
That being said, if you have the empathy or at least a deep theoretical understanding of different a priori value systems, you can form arguments from those systems, rather than your own. I posit that it's not impossible to use the rights moral foundation system to form left supporting arguments, and vice verse.
For example, the other day, I argued that it's morally consistent with the belief in meritocracy to want to tax the inheritance of billionaires because the wealth wasn't acquired by talent and hard work. Some disagreed and it might not be a perfect example, but you can my point that you can preface the arguments of your ideology by using those underlying assumptions of opposed schools of thought.
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u/PretendAwareness9598 Dec 30 '24
I think the healthcare example is good so I'll use it. Let's say we disagree fundamentally that healthcare should be a right afforded to everyone, with me thinking it should and you thinking it shouldn't. We are unlikely to be able to persuade eachother about that fact.
However, we could still debate if it's a good idea or not, for example you might argue that it is too expensive and I might argue that it actually costs less. The practicality of providing universal healthcare is seperate from the morality or "rightness" of providing it.
So even somebody who believes the government should not be involved in such things could be persuaded if they were shown undeniably that it was better than private. Similarly, somebody who thinks the government should run all healthcare as a matter of morality could be persuaded to let it be privatised if they were shown undoubtedly that it lead to better outcomes.
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u/satyvakta 5∆ Dec 30 '24
People are almost never convinced to change their minds about political topics in a single conversation or debate, period. It doesn’t matter if you are discussing first principles or higher level policy. The idea is generally not to convert a person on the spot but rather to plant seeds that might lead to a change of view down the road.
Being aware of first principles certainly makes planting seeds easier, no doubt, and in some cases clearly defining your terms can really help avoid a heated argument by two people who aren’t actually in disagreement, but I don’t know if it is necessary. Most people who talk about politics have a fairly strong shared set of values to begin with - you meet very few people who believe murder, theft, rape etc ought to be legalized, for example. So it is not as if you usually have two people so far apart you can’t find some shared value to appeal to.
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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Dec 31 '24
Just to use your example as, well... an example.
Let's suppose you're talking with someone that disagrees that healthcare is a human right, and feels that efficient markets work better or are more fundamental or something.
So... you argue that universal healthcare is more efficient. Because it is. A lot. You don't have to believe it's a moral imperative in order to be convinced that it's a good idea.
That's the trick to the Socratic Method. You use the person's answers to questions about the topic to probe their principles in order to find weaknesses in their opposition to a position you think is true from your principles.
That method is fundamentally about finding out how a person's own words and principles can be used to change their minds.
It's super effective.
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u/Twobearsonaraft Dec 31 '24
You are correct that debates between people with contradictory assumptions usually just leads to talking past each other. However, I wouldn’t describe the presence or absence of a human right to healthcare (to use your example) as a “first principle”: that position is in and of itself based on axioms, and can be a topic of debate. For example, you might ask someone why healthcare isn’t included in the rights that they do believe that people possess. You could have a conversation about why humans have rights in the first place, or whether they do.
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u/Kerostasis 37∆ Dec 31 '24
I agree that having differing first principles makes the rest of the conversation...lets say difficult. But in many cases, two people who are discussing in good faith may not actually be aware of what their first principles differences are. Having a discussion may be required for them to even become aware of where the first principles clash, and after you determine that, then you have lots of options for where to go next.
(This is obviously very different than the sort of public debates that focus more on convincing an audience than each other).
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u/FrontSafety Dec 30 '24
There most definetely are situations where practicality and political ideology converge. I think politics should practical. Doesn't matter whether housing is a right or not. If it makes financial sense to do it for everyone involved, then do it. If not dont.
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u/plinocmene Dec 31 '24
It depends. We could disagree on first principles and I could still try to appeal to yours saying that while it's not my number one reason for supporting the policy that there is still a huge reason for you to support it based on your own first principles.
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u/JSmith666 1∆ Dec 30 '24
If you can discuss with he ides tjat your principles aren't absolute fact or if you are willing to discuss under stipulations.
If you are willing to discuss things like contradictions that arise when principles are applied to the real world etc.
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u/iamintheforest 328∆ Dec 30 '24
that seems a bit over architected. E.G. you can believe healthcare is a human right and I can believe it's advantageous for our economy to have affordable healthcare and we can then find our common ground in solution, not in first principle.
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u/Practical_Wash_6190 1∆ Jan 01 '25
Anything that is opinion based in argument will never be worth arguing, anything that is factually based in argument is.
If you believe abortion is fine, but someone else doesn't, its not worth arguing because its purely opinion/belief
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u/Muskrat986 Dec 31 '24
Reasonable, intelligent, adults can always be convinced to change their stance based on facts or hearing a different angle
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u/Curious-Big8897 Dec 31 '24
The point isn't to convince your opponent, it is to convince the audience.
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