Please tell me why I'm wrong.

[Ladewig]

RandFan beat me to it, but I, too, think the cigarette analogy is inaccurate. The government has spent the past few decades engaging in a massive education campaign with the result being that everyone in the U.S. who purchases cigarettes knows that prolonged use can damage or kill.

After the government launches a massive education campaign to teach all Americans that ADC and fortune telling are bunkum, I will consider the products and their associated sales to be similar to cigarette sales.

Arg. Called away to do some work at the office. Back later.

 

[RandFan]

You say that it's "not OK". Why isn't it? This implies that harm is done. OK for the "real psychic" to do it, just not for me?

If you are refering to me I absolutely think it is wrong for anyone to do it for whatever reason.

FWIW, I don't buy the notion that there are people who really think they are psychic unless they have an organic problem.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just trying to get to the root.

Understand. Let's try a couple hypotheticals.

Is it ok to lie by telling your neighbor that you are dying and need money for an operation? What if he or she gets a lot of pleasure from helping others? Hey, that's a win-win right?

You discover money belonging to someone else. Forgoten account, buried treasure, lost diamond ring, whatever. You are the only one that knows that it exists. Is it ok for you to keep what you have discovered knowing that it does not belong to you?

(My big point in the podcast is that the personal beliefs of the person behind the cash register are not relevant. The elephant in the room is that this buyer demands to buy something you think is worthless; and he's going to buy it no matter who sells it. Education is the answer, not criticizing the seller.)

I think it is unethical for stores to perpetrate fraud. Yes, they do this all of the time and they get away with it. I can see little point in yelling at the poor clerk. On the other hand, I have sent letters to stores asking them to stop carrying Kevin Trudeau's book.

Do you understand what a Tu Quoque argument is? I'll simplify it, just because someone else does something wrong doesn't make it ok for you. Now, if you are saying that as a society we put up with fraud, liars and cheats so we should put up with you to then I would agree that the odds are in your favor. Go ahead and lie and cheat to make money.

I know that is not how you see it but that it what you want to do.

 

[Darth Rotor]

If you listen to my Skeptoid podcast (http://skeptoid.com), you know that I break ranks by supporting the peddling of the paranormal, and even being willing to profit from it, should the opportunity arise.

It would be great if we could change the system - make everyone a skeptic - but we never will. We live within a system that can't be changed, and why not profit from that system. You can take advantage of it, and work to change it, at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive.

PLEASE:
Read - http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4003
Listen - http://skeptoid.com/audio/skeptoid-4003.mp3
Subscribe - http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=203844864

I would love to get some more negative feedback on this issue. Should be easy since EVERYONE disagrees with me.

I am not sure your position as a skeptic stands up to scrutiny, if you engage in deliberate falsehood as a vocation.

Do you sell real snake oil?

DR

 

[Ladewig]

Your argument contains the assumption that pretending to transmit messages from dead people is not harmful. I am not entire convinced that that claim is true.

You can take advantage of it, and work to change it, at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Doesn't one lose all credibility at that point? If Randi were to come out and say that years ago he taught John Edward to be a cold and hot reader in exchange for a cut of the profits, wouldn't the skeptical movement be greatly pushed back?

___________________

ETA: oh, and there's one more area in which you are wrong: thread titles. (joking) Many of us do not have either the time or the internet connection speed to read every thread in a sub-forum. By using descriptive titles you can increase the number of people who will post in your thread and you can make it easier for people to find your thread when using the search function.

 

[Meadmaker]

What makes you think that the average "professional psychic" believes in psychic powers? I think most of them are frauds. So, you could join their ranks, and you would be no worse than they, and no better.

 

[Ladewig]

Bumped for interest.

 

[Lord Muck oGentry]

It would be great if we could change the system - make everyone a skeptic - but we never will. We live within a system that can't be changed, and why not profit from that system. You can take advantage of it, and work to change it, at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive.



I would love to get some more negative feedback on this issue. Should be easy since EVERYONE disagrees with me.

Fair enough. Here comes some criticism.


1. The moral criticism you have faced is not:


(a) you have a moral duty to stamp out the practice of exploiting the gullible, but

(b) you have a moral duty not to exploit the gullible.

Rebutting (a) gets you nowhere with (b).


2. From the premiss that people are morally free and legally free ( and ought to remain legally free) to be duped, it does not follow that anyone is morally free to dupe them. See 1 above.


3. You seem to be arguing-correct me if I've got this wrong- that If I don't do it, someone worse will..

This shameful argument has been advanced by:

(a) school bullies who rob smaller children of their dinner money,

(b) grown men who take money from prostitutes for " protection " and

(c) governments that sell weapons to regimes that use these weapons to murder and terrorise their own citizens.

What is wrong with this sort of argument is not that it gets the facts wrong ( see (c) in particular) but that it is morally disastrous even when it has got the facts right.

As this criticism is rather hurtful, I hope you will be able to tell me that I have misunderstood you.


4. You say " No power on earth will convince the customer that he's being deceived".

Are you sure? On this board and elsewhere there are bods who are grateful for having been undeceived.


5. You speak of the customer who " insists on being deceived. "

That is nonsense. Of course, if I am wrong here, it is easy to refute what I am saying. All you need do is produce an example of someone saying " I am deceived in thinking x, but I believe x all the same".

 

[briandunning]

Disagree COMPLETELY with your assessment. Nowhere in my podcast do I celebrate theft or injury. I spoke only of ways to make their experience not only as positive as they (as believers) hope, but also as medically sound as we (as skeptics) hope.

Someone comes to me for a faith healing and I find a way to get them to the doctor. You call this exploiting the gullible?

Someone comes to me to read their palm and I tell them exactly what they want to hear, leaving them enriched and happy. You equate this to bullying them and stealing their lunch money.

 

[RandFan]

Disagree COMPLETELY with your assessment. Nowhere in my podcast do I celebrate theft or injury. I spoke only of ways to make their experience not only as positive as they (as believers) hope, but also as medically sound as we (as skeptics) hope.

Someone comes to me for a faith healing and I find a way to get them to the doctor. You call this exploiting the gullible?

Someone comes to me to read their palm and I tell them exactly what they want to hear, leaving them enriched and happy. You equate this to bullying them and stealing their lunch money.

You never answered my questions. If your friend lost her diamond ring, forgotten it and you found it later would you return it? Why? Any harm is past and had nothing to do with you.

Is it ok to lie to a friend who is by nature philanthropic, telling them that you are dying of cancer, thereby enriching yourself and making them happy? Why or why not?

 

[RandFan]

Disagree COMPLETELY with your assessment.

BTW, LMoG makes a logical argument that you haven't rebutted.

 

[Ladewig]

Disagree COMPLETELY with your assessment. Nowhere in my podcast do I celebrate theft or injury. I spoke only of ways to make their experience not only as positive as they (as believers) hope, but also as medically sound as we (as skeptics) hope.

Someone comes to me for a faith healing and I find a way to get them to the doctor. You call this exploiting the gullible?

No. Not that part. In fact, your response makes you seem a bit ingenuous in that no one claimed sending sick people to a doctor to be "exploiting the gullible." We were pointing out that things like pretending to talk to the dead is most certainly exploiting the gullible. That the victim of this fraud does not see it as a fraud does not make the action less of an exploitation of the gullible.

_______________________
This discussion will be easier to follow if you address each question and each relevant item.

 

[briandunning]

In fact, your response makes you seem a bit ingenuous in that no one claimed sending sick people to a doctor to be "exploiting the gullible."

Lord Muck oGentry said that specifically. My podcast discussed exploiting their faith in the psychic to convince them to go to a doctor. So long as it's on the "advice" of their "dead relative", some believers will be more likely to actually go.

Make sure you've listened to the podcast or read the transcript to better understand what you're replying to.

 

[briandunning]

I listened to the podcast.

1. It's unethical to profit from someone by lying to them (commonly called fraud but the purveyors of paranormal have a number of ways to get around the law).
2. That you can do something legally doesn't mean that it is ok to do it.
3. That someone else does something doesn't make it ok for you to do the self same thing (assuming selling cigarettes is comparable it still doesn't make it right see Tu Quoque fallacy).
4. Cigarettes have a warning printed on the side and are known to cause cancer.
5. If you told someone that cigarettes don't cause cancer in order to sell them the cigarettes that would be unethical.

I'm libertarian though not a strict libertarian (I eat meat). I think we should let the buyer be ware with some measure of protection. I don't think people should be able to lie and make claims that are demonstrably false in order to profit. This happens every day though. You can get a bigger penis (Enzyte) or lose weight effortlessly (Cortisol) or lots of other BS.

That said, even if we took a purely libertarian stance or just because our courts don't care or just because you can lie for the purpose to make money doesn't make it ok.

RandFan

I think you're raising the (much) larger issue of: OK according to whose value system? In all of my examples, it's OK with me, and it's OK with the customer. Who else's opinion matters?

I'm not stupid or irresponsible, of course I agree that it's wrong to fraudulently injure someone. The majority of cases are harmless: i.e., selling homeopathy pills. Since you listened to my podcast you know that there's NO WAY I'd be the type of storeowner who would say "Hey, this will cure your cancer" - quite the opposite, in fact. But I'd still own such a store - they're profitable as hell.

A friend of mine owns a software consulting firm. He hates third world outsourcing more than anyone on the planet. He constantly rants about importing poverty from Mexico, and exporting our wealth to India. He donates and volunteers to political campaigns - he does put his money where his mouth is. But guess what? He outsources some of his development to India, because it saves him so much money. His reasoning is that you should fight to change the system, but so long as the system is the way it is, you might as well use it to your advantage. He came to this conclusion after months of wrestling with his conscience. I agree with him, and I think my logic is the same as his.

I've given four figures to JREF so far this year. That's one way I fight to change the system. I've never sold a paranormal service, and don't have plans to. But, philosophically, I think it would be OK to do so, so long as that's the way our system is set up.

 

[briandunning]

BTW, LMoG makes a logical argument that you haven't rebutted.

An unintentional oversight - I do appreciate LMoG's time framing his argument - if you could quote whatever it is I missed I'd be happy to do my best.

 

[RandFan]

You never answered my questions. If your friend lost her diamond ring, forgotten it and you found it later would you return it? Why? Any harm is past and had nothing to do with you.

Is it ok to lie to a friend who is by nature philanthropic, telling them that you are dying of cancer, thereby enriching yourself and making them happy? Why or why not?

Could you answer these questions?

 

[Ladewig]

I think you're raising the (much) larger issue of: OK according to whose value system?

Such activity is not OK according to Kant's Categorical Imperative. If everyone were required to tell lies (pretending to speak to the dead) in order to make money, then the concept of truth would become meaningless. Thus, Kant would label the activity as inherently immoral. I agree with that label.

In all of my examples, it's OK with me, and it's OK with the customer. Who else's opinion matters?

Are you of the opinion that the JREF should not go after Sylvia, James, and John? After all, these after-death communicators (ADCers) are alright with it and their customers are alright with it.

I'm not stupid or irresponsible, of course I agree that it's wrong to fraudulently injure someone. The majority of cases are harmless: i.e., selling homeopathy pills. Since you listened to my podcast you know that there's NO WAY I'd be the type of storeowner who would say "Hey, this will cure your cancer" - quite the opposite, in fact. But I'd still own such a store - they're profitable as hell.

Again, I can find no statement in this entire thread in which anyone suggests that you are planning on bilking seriously ill people rather than sending them to doctors. Can we stop talking about that idea? The crux of the argument is that you would be lying to people in order to take money from them. That is what I find immoral about the proposal.

I also find the proposal counterproductive because, as I pointed out, if a prominent skeptic were to confess to lying to people to get their money, then the skeptic movement would be dramatically harmed.

I've given four figures to JREF so far this year.

Thank you for supporting the skeptical movement.

 

[Ladewig]

In fact, your response makes you seem a bit ingenuous in that no one claimed sending sick people to a doctor to be "exploiting the gullible."

Lord Muck oGentry said that specifically.

Really? LMoG said that you would be exploiting the gullible by sending sick people to doctors? I have re-read that post and cannot find that claim.

Make sure you've listened to the podcast or read the transcript to better understand what you're replying to.

I did listen to the podcast - which is why I never took you to task about the idea of exploiting gullible sick people. None of your critics has said that your position towards sick people needing medical care is immoral. We are talking about your position on people who do not need medical attention! We are talking about issues such as your proposal to "sell psychic predictions" (taken directly from the third paragraph of your blog).

 

[briandunning]

If your friend lost her diamond ring, forgotten it and you found it later would you return it? Why? Any harm is past and had nothing to do with you.

Yes, of course I'd give it back to her, because it's hers and I'm sure she'd love to have it back. Trick question?

Is it ok to lie to a friend who is by nature philanthropic, telling them that you are dying of cancer, thereby enriching yourself and making them happy? Why or why not?

My favorite philosopher, Mark Twain, can give you my answer much better than I ever could. The answer is often yes, in many cases. Pocketing money as you described would not be my choice though. Big Daddy Twain explains in Was It Heaven? Or Hell?

 

[Squishua]

The Real Question is...

Is it OK to profit through the use of fraud?

What about the ethics of performing psychic surgery? Maybe selling yourself as a faith healer? Selling phony AIDS and cancer cures?

The deluded should be offered enlightenment, not predation.

We live within a system that can't be changed, and why not profit from that system. You can take advantage of it, and work to change it, at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive.

They are, however, conflicting efforts. Most of us strive for cognitive consonance.

Ethics of Peddling the Paranormal

Basically a statement of intent to commit fraud. I hope you don't really sell yourself as a psychic anywhere because your essay is quite damning.

-Squish

 

[RandFan]

Yes, of course I'd give it back to her, because it's hers and I'm sure she'd love to have it back. Trick question?

So what if she would like to have it back? She's already gotten over it and you can make out nicely. What's wrong with keeping it? What if the ring belonged to an aquaintance?

My favorite philosopher, Mark Twain, can give you my answer much better than I ever could. The answer is often yes, in many cases. Big Daddy Twain explains in Was It Heaven? Or Hell?

If you understand Twain's moral then you ought to be able to condense it to a sentence or two.