Say we have a society where an overwhelming majority of people are treated with respect, but some people are inconvenient. Some people would require society to endure pain or sacrifice pleasure in order to be treated with respect as well.
Coincidentally, the disrespected advocate a universal paradigm where everyone gets treated with respect instead, but the overwhelming majority of society calls them selfish for expecting society to change in order to accommodate them rather than them changing in order to accommodate society. This advocacy might even happen in advance of experience before the disrespected even know they’re going to be disrespected, and it might even happen in advance of the disrespectful engaging in disrespect. However, the disrespected are just unwilling to assume the risk of creating drama whereas the disrespectful are willing.
Are the disrespectful entitled to fairly criticize the disrespected?
I Think I need to know more about what 'inconvenient is referring to. I mean, if it was short people, and the majority thought short people were scary and did not treat them with respect because, say, religious scripture said short people were bad, then I react one way to this argument. If the inconvenient people were rapists, and for them respect meant they were allowed to rape, then I have a different reaction. Often the two sides have a different take on which of my examples is the appropriate analogy, if you see what I mean.
Again, we need some examples. And also what the Word ‘respect’ entails.
I sort of get this, though it seems like we already have all forms of disrespect in play and have had for, well, a long time.
Maybe, and also, one can criticize someone one respects - just to give a sense why I am asking for examples and definitions.
Because without examples a word like ‘inconvenient’ in your OP could mean almost anything. For example. I gave a specific example of why this word might lead to problems. But you did not respond to this. Also what ‘respect’ means in the OP. Does it mean one must think positively about something or someone? Does it mean one has a live and let live attitude toward it? Does it mean never being critical? And what kind of critical? (Large groups milling around someone’s house calling out Kill the Faggot, might be called criticism) If you do not want to give examples, it would help if you clarified terms. Otherwise at the level of abstraction in the OP I might be completely against the implicit position in the OP or completely for it or anywhere in between.
The point is to be abstract and refer to anything. There is no implicit position.
I’m leaving “respect” up to the interpretation of the reader, but again, it shouldn’t be interpreted in a specific way. That would be concrete, not abstract.
Then I think people would be foolish to weigh in. I would guess I could come up with examples that would cut either way for most people.
But it is your thread and I am interested and will now go back to OP and give it a try at this level of abstraction…
It seems implicit that the people who are inconvenient are judged to be able to change to what is respected. They are simply making a choice to be different and this choice has nothing to do with the constitutional make up, genetics, interests, proclivities. They simply choose to be different for some unknown reason. For example, perhaps they refuse to do X. Doing X is not harder for them. It is just as pleasurable for them as eveyrone else, or causes no more pain then it does everyone else, but they simply won’t do X.
This not doing X (or doing Y with the same parameters) causes other people pain or reduces their pleasure.
They even demand this respect before they are disrespected - not sure how they know they will be disrespected and I think this issue muddies the waters.
Then your question…
Are the disrespectful entitled to fairly criticize the disrespected?
Well, first this question seems redundant. The disrespect would be the criticism it would seem. But then the word ‘fairly’ means that they are entitled, regardless of the entire set up before that question. If it is fair, of course it is OK to do it.
Sorry, I tried paraphrasing the whole thing and I still cannot get at it…
I have no idea what the power relations are. If this is a modern democracy then the disrespectful get to criticize given free speech.
INterestingly at this level of abstraction the best examples, it seems to me are that the inconvenient minority would be elites, the rich, nobles, dictators and their associates.
Here you have an inconvenient few who do not think they need to abide by the rules and constraints placed on other citizens and this tend to cause a lot of pain and reduction of pleasure for the rest of the populationn
AND
fitting nicely with your question, there generally is a real issue in those situations of whether the rest of population has the right to criticize this minority. Generally they do not. In that scenario, of course, I think they should have the right, at a minimum.
On the other hand if the inconvenient minority is teenagers - a group that used to be put out in the work force often before becoming teenagers - and the majority is adults and they see the teenagers as capable of work but randomly unwilling, I suppose I still think those adults are entitled to criticise, but I think they are being idiots and I am glad that the days of child labor are over. I think one can make a case for this on utilitarian grounds or deontological ones.
So at the level of abstraction in the OP I cannot weigh in in general. Except to say if the criticism is fair, well that means it is OK. And in any Place where there is free speech, you get to be critical - unless the other person is something like your boss - and be wrong.
OK. I’m going to be a deontologist here (as stated in the title) because you’re confusing categorical with hypothetical imperatives in referring to “rules”. We’re not talking about ideal laws here. We’re talking about customs. That is because a minority in society refuses to practice a custom, it becomes difficult for the majority, so the majority disrespects it.
The reason I don’t want to get specific here is because I’m afraid you’ll interpret this as either morally absolutist or morally relativist. In reality, both absolutism and relativism are particularist. That is it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about a particularly founded way of life (such as people wear red shirts), or you’re talking about a particularly coherent way of lives coming together (such as people wear a harmonized rainbow of shirts). Either way, a minority can exist which doesn’t practice the particular custom, so it becomes disrespected.
I’m not sure why you’re equating disrespect to criticism either. People can criticize respectfully by not insulting, offending, or otherwise being uncivil. Disrespectful criticism is when they would do things like call them names, push them around, or not treat them fairly in ordinary living just because they don’t like what they’re doing.
See, now I would not have known we were talking about customs. And these are customs, it seems according to the OP, that cause pain or reduce pleasure if some do not perform or participate in them. Your shirt example below leaves open the question of whether the majority is really being caused pain by the minority or is deciding to create their own pain for no real reason at all. (not that I Think this is a simple issue, just pointing out that there is an issue here).
Sure. I tend to hate that kind of stuff. IOW I Think non-participation should generally be allowed as far as customs. I am sure I can get as irritated as the next person when this happens. I sit down in a diner at at the next table the people are eating soup with their fists and no spoons, I will likely react with irritation. But frankly I would love it if we loosened this all up and I would get used to the variation, and a hellava lot faster than other people I Think. I find it odd and irritating that non-working class men have to wear ties. I find it odd how similarly most people dress, at least within each subculture. I find it all rather deadening and hilarious.
I Think I may even have asked about his. I could not tell if you were equating them or not.
Agreed.
This is precisely why I found the question odd. Fair criticism is ok, by definition, or it would not be fair. Hence my questioning around that issue. If you go back to the OP it seems like the two are equivalent to you or at least, Reading the OP, potentially equivalent, since you start with the minority demanding respect and end with asking if it is OK for them to be criticized. (fairly) If they are not, then it means that the majority are disrespectful, but also want to criticize fairly, in addition to their disrespectful behavior. Oddly the question is focused not on whatever the disrespect is, but on the fair criticism.
I really am trying to get the issue.
I strongly associate utilitarians and deontologists with ethics, rather than with customs.
But let’s say we have a deontologist who Thinks killing is wrong period and will not enlist or be drafted in WW2 or some other war considered by the majority to be a moral war. Being patriotic and serving the country in this way was a custom. Not so much any more in general. The utilitarians can argue the person is being selfish and that the results are bad potentially for many people. The deontologist is protecting his hide and perhaps his soul if it is a religious deontology that leads to the decision. Can they fairly critique this guy? WEll, sure, by definition. If putting the guy in prison is a kind of disrespect - and I Think it is - I get less sure than the criticism stuff.