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STS-Nov-M145-Edwards.rs3
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STS-Nov-M145-Edwards.rs3
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<rst>
<header>
<relations>
<rel name="antithesis" type="rst" />
<rel name="background" type="rst" />
<rel name="circumstance" type="rst" />
<rel name="concession" type="rst" />
<rel name="condition" type="rst" />
<rel name="elaboration" type="rst" />
<rel name="enablement" type="rst" />
<rel name="evaluation" type="rst" />
<rel name="evidence" type="rst" />
<rel name="interpretation" type="rst" />
<rel name="justify" type="rst" />
<rel name="means" type="rst" />
<rel name="motivation" type="rst" />
<rel name="nonvolitional-cause" type="rst" />
<rel name="nonvolitional-result" type="rst" />
<rel name="otherwise" type="rst" />
<rel name="preparation" type="rst" />
<rel name="purpose" type="rst" />
<rel name="restatement" type="rst" />
<rel name="solutionhood" type="rst" />
<rel name="summary" type="rst" />
<rel name="unconditional" type="rst" />
<rel name="unless" type="rst" />
<rel name="unstated-relation" type="rst" />
<rel name="volitional-cause" type="rst" />
<rel name="volitional-result" type="rst" />
<rel name="rst" type="rst" />
<rel name="conjunction" type="multinuc" />
<rel name="contrast" type="multinuc" />
<rel name="disjunction" type="multinuc" />
<rel name="joint" type="multinuc" />
<rel name="list" type="multinuc" />
<rel name="restatement-mn" type="multinuc" />
<rel name="sequence" type="multinuc" />
</relations>
</header>
<body>
<segment id="1" parent="2" relname="preparation">Bill Lynch writes:</segment>
<segment id="2" parent="23" relname="span">
&gt;Although I suppose I am a "constructivist" in my theory of knowledge and
&gt;social theory, I am not a relativist, methodological or otherwise. I don't
&gt;know why these are always linked. BUT, why would relativism count against
&gt;academic freedom? Wouldn't the most obvious political implication be a
&gt;concern with expanded, more effective academic freedom as against allegedly
&gt;free but in fact coercive institutions?</segment>
<segment id="3" parent="4" relname="concession">
This would seem to be the natural conclusion,</segment>
<segment id="4" parent="22" relname="span"> but in fact it need not be,
and often isn't.</segment>
<segment id="5" parent="6" relname="concession"> Relativism (both epistemological and moral) is often taken
as requiring tolerance of different views and values.</segment>
<segment id="6" parent="24" relname="span"> But it doesn't.</segment>
<segment id="7" parent="8" relname="nonvolitional-cause"> In
fact, since tolerance itself is an absolute value (not a relative one),</segment>
<segment id="8" parent="25" relname="span"> a
consistent relativist cannot hold that even this value should be required
of everyone -- even of him or herself -- nor that it follows from
relativism</segment>
<segment id="9" parent="8" relname="elaboration"> (it doesn't). </segment>
<segment id="10" parent="11" relname="antithesis">
A relativist culture and/or moral code would, by definition, recognize the
existence and validity of other epistemologies or moral values.</segment>
<segment id="11" parent="27" relname="span"> But
recognizing their existence in no way requires that other
codes/epistemologies be _tolerated, upheld, or even respected_.</segment>
<segment id="12" parent="34" relname="span"> This is the
case, for example, with some of the more extreme speech codes and other
politically-correct policies introduced on university campuses in the last
decade.</segment>
<segment id="13" parent="32" relname="span"> These recognize the cultural basis of beliefs and values and their
large variation;</segment>
<segment id="14" parent="31" relname="span"> they prohibit insults against non-mainstream
views/cultures precisely in order to strengthen and encourage them,</segment>
<segment id="15" parent="14" relname="volitional-cause">
precisely because they are different.</segment>
<segment id="16" parent="33" relname="span"> Yet they make expressing _some_
beliefs/values grounds for explusion from the community.</segment>
<segment id="17" parent="18" relname="concession"> Such codes can be
read as embodiments and logical consequences of a moral and possibly an
epistemological relativism</segment>
<segment id="18" parent="28" relname="span"> -- but certainly not of academic freedom, free
speech, or other Enlightenment values, which are by definition absolutes.</segment>
<segment id="19" parent="29" relname="span">
(Here we get into the hall-of-mirrors problem relativism also involves,</segment>
<segment id="20" parent="19" relname="volitional-cause">
since one could also read these codes as embodying absolute values about
which particular cultures/beliefs are allowed respect and expression and
which are not.)</segment>
<segment id="21" parent="37" relname="summary">
This confusion between relativism and tolerance, which are rather more
opposite than alike, lies at the root of a lot of our recent debates on
this net.</segment>
<group id="22" type="span" parent="35" relname="span" />
<group id="23" type="span" parent="22" relname="antithesis" />
<group id="24" type="span" parent="26" relname="span" />
<group id="25" type="span" parent="24" relname="evidence" />
<group id="26" type="span" parent="4" relname="evidence" />
<group id="27" type="span" parent="36" relname="span" />
<group id="28" type="span" parent="30" relname="span" />
<group id="29" type="span" parent="28" relname="background" />
<group id="30" type="span" parent="16" relname="evidence" />
<group id="31" type="span" parent="13" relname="elaboration" />
<group id="32" type="span" parent="16" relname="antithesis" />
<group id="33" type="span" parent="12" relname="elaboration" />
<group id="34" type="span" parent="27" relname="evidence" />
<group id="35" type="span" parent="37" relname="span" />
<group id="36" type="span" parent="35" relname="evidence" />
<group id="37" type="span" parent="38" relname="span" />
<group id="38" type="span" />
</body>
</rst>