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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

People for the ethical treatment of bobbleheads

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As any freewill theist will tell you, libertarian freedom is a prerequisite of moral responsibility. Or, to turn this around, if you have libertarian freedom, that makes you a moral agent.

This debate is usually confined to human freedom, but the time is long past due to rectify a grave miscarriage of justice to other much-neglected moral agents. Take bobbleheads. As anyone can see, bobbleheads are moral agents. After all, bobbleheads can either bob up or down, right or left. So they enjoy the freedom to do otherwise. Access to alternate possibilities.

Of course, you always have theological fatalists who contrive ingenuous excuses to deny the empirical evidence that bobbleheads are moral agents. Needless to say, any God who’d violate the freewill of bobbleheads is a moral monster. Worse than Satan.

Unfortunately, the callous attitude of theological fatalists has led to the cruel treatment of countless innocent bobbleheads. It’s common to see bobbleheads left alone on the dashboard of a car with no recreational activities to help them pass the time. Common to see bobbleheads locked in a car with the windows rolled up, no air-conditioning, on a hot summer day, while callous humans play volleyball on the beach.

Common to see underdressed bobbleheads (with nothing more than a grass skirt and a lae) left in the driveway overnight on a snowy December day in Michigan, Minnesota, or Buffalo New York.

This is why we at PETB (People for the Ethical Treatment of Bobbleheads) are working in conjunction with the UN Commission on Nonhuman Rights to draft a convention outlining the civil liberties of bobbleheads. 

14 comments:

  1. "As any freewill theist will tell you, libertarian freedom is a prerequisite of moral responsibility. Or, to turn this around, if you have libertarian freedom, that makes you a moral agent."

    Given that bobbleheads (a) lack libertarian freedom and (b) (accordingly?) are not moral agents, this doesn't really help your case for moral responsibility not requiring libertarian free will...

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  2. Bobbleheads don't appreciate your bigoted attitude towards bobbleheads.

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  3. Out of interest, would you claim that a person who is physically forced to pull the trigger on a gun pointed at his wife is morally responsible for killing her? Why, or why not?

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  4. If you're going to burn straw men, give me a moment to grab my oxygen mask so that I don't succumb to smoke inhalation.

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  5. Sure.

    *waits for Steve to grab his oxygen mask*

    Okay, go on?

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  6. The fallacy of question-framing.

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  7. I remember my first bobblehead. He was a Baltimore Colt football player #00.

    I imagine he is gone to his reward by now. His bobble was always quite revealing.
    I miss him.


    Good post.

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  8. A: "Out of interest, would you claim that a person who is physically forced to pull the trigger on a gun pointed at his wife is morally responsible for killing her? Why, or why not?"

    B: "If you're going to burn straw men, give me a moment to grab my oxygen mask so that I don't succumb to smoke inhalation."

    A: "Sure.

    *waits for Steve to grab his oxygen mask*

    Okay, go on?"

    B: "The fallacy of question-framing."

    Lurking Bobbleheads laughing hysterically everywhere.

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  9. Thomas, no. Why? Because he did not act from his own moderately reasons response mechanism which was weakly reactive to reasons (either moral or prudential) and regularly receptive to reasons (both moral and prudential) and so he did not exhibit guidance control in the actual sequence.

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  10. Of course, throw in some Tognazzian stipulations about reasons in alpha into the above, and make the appropriate adjustments for responsibilities for consequences, either concrete or universal, etc., all, of course, backed by Frankfurt Style Counterexamples, and yada, yada, yada.

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  11. You scared him away with your Tognazzian stipulations. If only he knew that Tognazzian Stipulations is a brand of delicious ice cream!

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  12. I didn't think anyone could scare Thomas away

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