quote:The right of parents to act immediately on their instincts is important enough to me that I won't cede it in any but the most extreme cases-- and I don't think this case is extreme by any measure.
I'm curious as to why you believe that parents have a "right" to act on their instincts. It's not something I've ever heard expressed that way. Certainly our society recognizes a parents right to decide what's best for their children with in certain bounds, but the right to decide and the right to act instinctively are not synonymous.
Up to your statement, no one had said anything that touched on parental rights. No one has suggested that these children should be taken from their parents or that the parents should be forced to continue interacting with the boy. These parents have the right to decide who their 4 year old should associate with for any reason what so ever and no one has a legal or ethical right to force them to do otherwise. But as Jim-Me so aptly pointed out having the right to decide does not imply that every decision you make is morally or ethically correct.
To me, your arguments imply that you strongly believe that parents "instincts" will most often lead them to make moral and ethically correct choices. Therefore you think parents should follow their instincts even when those instincts violate generally accept ethical norms and that it is unethical for others to question the parents judgements.
My problem with your point of view, is that my personal experience has shown over and over again that parenting instincts frequently lead people to make unethical decisions. A parents instincts to protect and benefit his/her child have a clear biological orgin. From a strictly evolutionary perspective, people have strong instincts to protect their children for the same reason they have instincts for self preservation and instincts to have sex. Once you have a child, survival of your genes is more strongly dependent on survival of that child than it is on your own survival so it is only expected that humans would have strong instincts to protect their children and seek advantages for them. The problem is that this instinct to take care of your own doesn't arise from any more noble principle than your instinct to take care of yourself. They are in fact one and the same.
That doesn't mean that these instincts are wrong. What it does mean is that unless you accept the Nietzian view that survival==ethical, there is no more reason to expect that peoples parenting instincts will lead to ethical choices than to believe that their sexual instincts will lead to ethical choices. Thats why parents decisions for their children need to be based not just on their instincts but also on sound moral and ethical principles. Whenever parents instincts lead them to make a choice that otherwise violates their ethical and moral principles, those parents need to step back and reconsider their options. It is no more ethical to put the welfare of your child ahead of the welfare of other peoples children than it is to put your own welfare above the welfare of others.
[ November 10, 2006, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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Scott, I thought your story was lovely. I think your parents are good people.
The problem I have with NA's story is that her family is not handling it that way. I wish they had. In NA's family (not her, but her siblings)this:
quote: “But that’s not us, honey. Your dad and I love you so much, we would never do those things to you. We would never hurt you, or abandon you, or. . . any of those things. That’s what our family is about. We love you.”
isn't what is happening. NA's son is being abandoned by his family.
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quote:To *have* the right to do something is not the same as to *be* right in doing it.
I agree with this statement.
It is true that parental instinct may sometimes lead parents to do hurtful things. In my experience, however, it is a valuable tool for keeping children safe.
When the danger has passed that caused the parental instincts to assert themselves and remove the child from perceived danger-- THEN it is acceptable to reevaluate and perhaps ask forgiveness from anyone you may have hurt.
I think I've implied this already. Something about informing instincts back on page 3...
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quote:Therefore you think parents should follow their instincts even when those instincts violate generally accept ethical norms and that it is unethical for others to question the parents judgements.
What's the generally accepted ethical norm being violated by the actions taken by the parents as described in the other thread?
Scott has reiterated, several times now, that the instincts should be followed until additional information can be determined. We don't know the additional information the parents have. We do know that there are literally thousands of data points - each and every interaction with this child - that inform the parents' decision to act as they are acting. We also know that we don't have access to any of those data points.
My problem with this kind of condemnation and questioning is that I've seen it lead people to ignore instincts (I prefer intuition, but insticts will do) that were correct but not fully articulable. And I've seen the violent results - in one case, the deadly results - at first or second remove of people who were talked out of taking steps that couldn't be "justified" by anything other than a creepy feeling based on lots of little indicators.
I know people have said that they aren't condeming these parents in particular but only these parents as represented by the Need Advice's posts. That's an artificial construct without meaning. Every situation will have those thousands of data points underyling it. No matter how honest and complete the account of events have been, NA has left out much of what informed the parents' decision, because much of what informed that decision is probably not known to them at an articulable level.
Society as a whole tends to denigrate intuition in general and feelings of possible danger in particular. I'm convinced that this denigration leads people to ignore the very powerful mechanism we have and creates danger. It also creates fear, rather than lessening it.
Clearly, the more drastic an action informed by intuition, the more time and effort must be taken to verify the intuition before acting. But, when the action is one that is both ethical and legal to take, condemning them absent better information - even when the condemnation is second hand and couched as being aimed at a facsimile of the person acting - is dangerous and irresponsible.
Scott started this thread because the parents' actions were called 10 times worse. I've seen people on this board suggest that telling someone who gives a creepy vibe to no longer contact the creeped out person is being unfair if they don't have stronger indications of danger. I see the condemnation of the parents-as-presented as the same type of behavior.
Ending contact is not such an extreme action that it should be condemned by those who don't have a clue what's actually going on. I'm not entirely sure what Scott means by "act immediately on their instincts," but I do know that his balancing mechanism - the extremity of the response - is the correct one. Sure, we don't want and can't tolerate someone who pulls a gun whenever they get a little creeped out. But when the extent of the actions is merely an exercise of the inherent right of association, this condemnation is misplaced and potentially dangerous.
The ethics of how these parents are acting depends entirely on their perception of the threat. Since you can't evaluate that in this case, you can't judge the ethics of their action.
The reason extreme actions can be judged is that we can start from the assumption that the risk is as bad as the parents' think it is and then judge the act against that risk. If we use that calculus to analyze the parents' acts, it's clear they are not in excess of the worst case risk.
Therefore, until you have any credible reason for knowing their assessment of the risk is wrong, questioning their judgment is little better than a guess.
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And I think that, when the threat is neither lethal nor immediate, the world would be better if our instincts were more often tempored with common sense and compassion, especially when judging an eleven-year old who is part of one's family.
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quote:And I think that the world would be better if our instincts were more often tempored with common sense and compassion, especially when judging an eleven-year old who is part of one's family.
You don't know that they're not so tempered. That's pretty much my whole point - we don't know what they know, because much of what they know is not something easily conveyed in language. In this case, we wouldn't know their side even if it could be conveyed with language, because they haven't given it.
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And you don't know that they are. We all are talking about bits of information; none of us has the whole story. This is true of most of what we discuss on internet fora.
Is your suggestion that we not discuss it? Deciding that we don't have enough information to decide either way is one thing. I would be fine with that. Deciding that, because we don't have enough information to judge, we have to assume they did the right thing, is another.
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quote:And you don't know that they are. We all are talking about bits of information; none of us has the whole story.
In this situation we can't have the whole story because of the way threats are processed by people. Firther, I haven't said that they are acting in a manner tempered by compassion.
quote:Is your suggestion that we not discuss it?
No, my suggestion is that more credence be given to the information these parents have that we don't.
Oh, and not outright say that the parents are acting 10 times worse or that supporting others' reliance on instinct and intuition in certain situations means one "think[s] parents should follow their instincts even when those instincts violate generally accept ethical norms."
quote:Deciding that, because we don't have enough information to judge, we have to assume they did the right thing, is another.
And neither Scott nor I have said that. I have not assumed they did the right thing. I have said that there is not enough information to declare what they did to be unethical. I have also said that giving someone the benefit of the doubt who has acted out of instinct in response to a threat perceived by them does not mean necessarily one has unethical principles.
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Nor is there enough information to declare what they did was ethical. Or if it was compassionate. We don't know what exactly happened in the original incident either, but we are judging the kid.
Dagonee, in anything we discuss, we are never going to have all of the information. All we can do is form our opinions on the information we have. Saying that we can't form an opinion on the parents because there may be stuff we don't know about doesn't make any more sense than saying we can't form an opinion about the kid because we didn't know what he was thinking either.
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quote:Nor is there enough information to declare what they did was ethical. Or if it was compassionate.
I'm really not sure how many times I have to say that I haven't said it was ethical or compassionate. Would you please give some indication that I'm not saying it was either?
quote:We don't know what exactly happened in the original incident either, but we are judging the kid.
No, we aren't judging the kid. The parent's haven't really judged the kid, either. Rather, they've decided that it's not worth the risk to their children to associate with this child any longer. Judging risk is very different than judging the person. There is no presumption of innocence when we're talking about whom to associate with.
quote:All we can do is form our opinions on the information we have. Saying that we can't form an opinion on the parents because there may be stuff we don't know about doesn't make any more sense than saying we can't form an opinion about the kid because we didn't know what he was thinking either.
Again, I don't think we can form a meaningful opinion about the kid. That's close to the heart of my point. You and I have the luxury of not having to take action based on whatever opinion we do form. The parents in this situation do not have that luxury. They have to decide whether to allow their children to associate. They are forming an opinion as to whether the association is worth the risk - and risk is a concept that by its nature contains the possibility that no danger at all exists.
I haven't made myself clear. I'll try to do so later. The essence of my argument is that giving the parents the benefit of the doubt is essentially holding judgment in abyance, whereas condemning them or saying they made the wrong choice is not.
Further, it is fiction to think that we can judge some sort of hypothetical based solely on NA's version of events. NA's version of events are incomplete and leave out crucial information - not from malice or even ignorance, but simply from the inherent inability of one person to communicate conclusions intuited by someone else. It's as meaningless to discuss whether their actions are justified based on the events recounted to us as it is to judge whether a shooting was in self-defense when all we know is that the person shot was in someone else's house after midnight. There are simply too many unkowns.
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quote:Nor is there enough information to declare what they did was ethical. Or if it was compassionate.
I'm really not sure how many times I have to say that I haven't said it was ethical or compassionate. Would you please give some indication that I'm not saying it was either?
Okay. But what I think you're saying is that, without all the information, we have to give the parents the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was.
quote:
quote:We don't know what exactly happened in the original incident either, but we are judging the kid.
No, we aren't judging the kid. The parent's haven't really judged the kid, either. Rather, they've decided that it's not worth the risk to their children to associate with this child any longer. Judging risk is very different than judging the person. There is no presumption of innocence when we're talking about whom to associate with.
And I think that there should be some presumption of salvagability when one is discussing your eleven-year-old nephew. That is what I am trying to say. This isn't some stranger. This kid is part of their family. The recognition that he is a kid and he is family is what I think we are missing here.
quote:I haven't made myself clear. I'll try to do so later. The essence of my argument is that giving the parents the benefit of the doubt is essentially holding judgment in abyance, whereas condemning them or saying they made the wrong choice is not.
I think you are clear. And I think we disagree. I think that giving them the benefit of the doubt is making a judgement as well.
There are too many unknowns about everything - both in RL and in discussions. We can't ever know all of the facts about anything. We still form opinions.
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quote:Okay. But what I think you're saying is that, without all the information, we have to give the parents the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was.
No, I'm specifically NOT saying that we say that it was ethical or compassionate. Jeez, how many times do I need to say it?
There's a difference between "benefit of the doubt" and saying someone made the right decision. A huge difference.
quote:And I think that there should be some presumption of salvagability when one is discussing your eleven-year-old nephew. That is what I am trying to say. This isn't some stranger. This kid is part of their family. The recognition that he is a kid and he is family is what I think we are missing here.
Changing the conditions under which one will interact with him is not saying he isn't salvageable..
quote:I think you are clear. And I think we disagree. I think that giving them the benefit of the doubt is making a judgement as well.
There are too many unknowns about everything - both in RL and in discussions. We can't ever know all of the facts about anything. We still form opinions.
SInce my point is that these unknowns are qualitatively different then I haven't made myself clear. I'll try later.
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It is possible that we mean different things by "benefit of the doubt".
Saying, "we don't have enough information to know either way", is different that saying, "we don't have enough information, so we should give the parents the benefit of the doubt." I don't have a problem with the first; I do with the second.
Changing the conditions underwhich one will interact with him to what NA has described is pretty harsh from an uncle to a nephew.
edit to add: not sure how much longer I will be here and still no computer at home. I'll look forward to Monday?
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Dag, Your insistence that we should not condemn these parents because we don't know all the facts is well taken but I don't think anyone here has been doing that.
I, at least, have been responding to Scott's leading statement.
quote:Speaking hypothetically, I don't CARE if the offender is a "confused little boy." I don't care about him at all-- that's his parents' job, and I trust they'll do fine.
In this case, my focus must be to protect my children in the way that I feel is necessary.
I have stated repeatedly that I think this position violates the spirit and letter of the golden rule. Parents clearly have unique responsibility to their own children but that responsibility does not obviate them of their responsibility to care for others even in worst case scenarios.
All my comments have taken into account what I see as the worst case scenario in our hypothetical story. The worst case scenario in this hypothetical story is that the 11 year old boy is sexual predator who will molest children if given the chance. I have never condemned any of the parents actions which can be reasonably seen as trying to prevent a child from being molested. What I can't imagine, even in this scenario, is an ethical reason for adults in the extended family to shunn this child and his family. Perhaps my imagination on this issue is insufficiently vivid, but no one else here as suggested a reason that might justify this response either.
I think Scott's story suggests and interesting perspect. What if the two children involved had been syblings rather than cousins? I can't imagine that you or Scott would condone the parents thinking only of the little girl and not caring about the boy "at all". I would expect loving parents to react as they did in Scott's story, attempting to show love and concern for both children while taking all reasonable precautions to protect both children.
My point is that the golden rule requires the same level of concern for both children whether or not we are their parents. That doesn't mean that our actions would be the same if we are not the parent because a parent has unique rights and responsibilities in this situation. If you were the parent of both children you would have an entirely different set of options to choose from than if only one child is yours. But while those practical considerations must influence our actions, they should not influence our motivations. It is simply unethical not to care about both children.
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quote:All my comments have taken into account what I see as the worst case scenario in our hypothetical story. The worst case scenario in this hypothetical story is that the 11 year old boy is sexual predator who will molest children if given the chance. I have never condemned any of the parents actions which can be reasonably seen as trying to prevent a child from being molested.
Then I misunderstood what you were saying - this puts your posts in a different light. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.
quote:What I can't imagine, even in this scenario, is an ethical reason for adults in the extended family to shunn this child and his family. Perhaps my imagination on this issue is insufficiently vivid, but no one else here as suggested a reason that might justify this response either.
Now this I still have a very different opinion on, but I don't think this is an ethical opinion so much as a practical one. I have a vivid imagination in this regard and some very scary, true stories of almost-public molestation. The corner of a room with 8 adults and 10 kids is enough opportunity, especially with a four-year old.
In a large family gathering - at least as I am used to them, which is very chaotic - I can picture numerous chances for predation to occur, short of a leash-like arrangement on the 4-year olds. I can see arrangements that would pretty much guarantee* abuse would be detected, but not arrangements that guarantee* it could be prevented.
*Guarantee is not used to indicate 0% chance - I know that's unobtainable because of the many possible ways harm could occur. Let's just say I can't think of measures short of total avoidance that would have stopped some real-life instances I've heard of.
Once the decision that such events must be avoided has been made, it's very easy to make the step to avoiding the more structured interactions such as church, for two reasons: 1) if their church services are anything like ours, there's often a period of time before or after where there's a kind of free-for-all mixing of of kids and adults, which does create opportunity, and 2) if one did try to keep the children totally separated outside the presence of the boy, I think it would be almost impossible not to say things in front of him that would be hurtful.
Again, though, this is a very different type of disagreement and not one I'm nearly as invested in as an ethical point.
quote:But while those practical considerations must influence our actions, they should not influence our motivations. It is simply unethical not to care about both children.
I agree with this general statement. However, I think it can lead to a place where the only active considerations need by one's own children if one has reason to believe another responsible party is looking after the other child. I'm not sure we're interpreting Scott's statement the same way. It seems to me that he feels justified in focusing exclusively on his children because he has faith in the boy's parents to focus on him.
quote:It is possible that we mean different things by "benefit of the doubt".
Saying, "we don't have enough information to know either way", is different that saying, "we don't have enough information, so we should give the parents the benefit of the doubt." I don't have a problem with the first; I do with the second.
We must be using different definitions. Here, we know one thing for sure: the parents making the decision know more than we do.
Until Rabbit's last post it had not occurred to me that one would think the parents' actions to be overwrought if it were known that the boy would molest if given the chance to do so. If you agree with that stance, then we may be using the same definition of benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, I can't imagine how we would be.
(That doesn't mean we aren't, just that at this point I can't think of a scenario that has us both using the same definition, agreeing that the parents' actions would be justified if we knew would molest if given the chance, yet disagreeing that the parents should get the benefit of the doubt.)
quote:Changing the conditions underwhich one will interact with him to what NA has described is pretty harsh from an uncle to a nephew.
I agree. What I disagree with is that we are at all capable of evaluating the other half of the harm/benefit equation that must be balanced when taking such harsh measures.
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Read the whole thread, please. Your interpretation of my intial statement falls flat when taken along with the other statements I've made on the subject.
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Scott R, I have read the whole thread. Perhaps you should do the same. If you had, you would realize that my most recent post was a response to Dagonee. It was an attempt to clarify that the correct context of my comments in this thread was not as response to NA original thread but as a response to your tangent as stated in your opening post. In quoting your initial comment, I did not intend to indicate that I hadn't read or understood your further discussion but my intent was specifically to explain to Dag the context of my statements.
[ November 11, 2006, 06:38 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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