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Discussion
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Hi everybody, hope you’re having a witchy Thursday!
For whatever reason, we’ve seen a recent spike in posts and comments that violate Rule 3 on exclusionary conduct. Specifically, we’ve seen many contributions that moralize. So let’s open things up a bit to better understand what the rules are and why they’re in place.
What is Moralizing?
Moralizing is stating one’s personal opinions and beliefs as fact, with the explicit or implicit aim of emphasizing that your own opinions or beliefs are correct.
Sometimes it can be a bit new to people to try to disentangle whether their personal belief is an opinion or is a fact. This is especially the case when the specific belief is something that most people in one’s society or culture holds. A good example here is free will.
Free will is actually a philosophical position that one can adopt or not. There are hundreds of millions of humans who do not believe in free will, as odd as that might sound to those of us raised in cultures where free will is simply assumed. Topics like the existence of free will, determinism, and fatalism have been debated by philosophers for thousands of years. The reason why these topics have been debated so much is because no single position is an obvious, observable feature of reality. And so, we have various different positions and beliefs on the matter.
Can You Give an Example of a Moralizing Statement?
Back to moralizing then, let’s give an example of statements about free will that are moralizing and that aren’t.
“If you cast this spell, you are messing with someone’s free will.”
This is moralizing. It assumes that free will exists (when it is actually a particular belief one is adopting) and it is implying from that assumption that casting the spell would be immoral or unethical (also specific beliefs). This is a kind of statement which can run afoul of Rule 3.
“I believe in free will and so I choose not to cast spells like that. Here’s my take on why…”
This is not moralizing. You’re not stating your belief or opinion as fact, you’re not telling another person what to do, and you’re not implying (or outright stating) that your position is morally superior. This type of statement is perfectly acceptable on this subreddit.
Why Does it Even Matter
Many people on this subreddit would criticize certain religions for being notoriously judgemental. Many of our users have experienced religious trauma from moralizing: from religious leaders and others stating their personal religious beliefs as fact, in a way to emphasize their own correctness. This has the effect of shaming, belittling, invalidating, and othering.
In Sum (TL;DR)
1 Karma, free will, the Law of 3-Fold Return, the Rede, certain actions as sin, the necessity of worshipping a particular god for salvation, and so on are all personal beliefs.
2 Any user is welcome to hold whatever beliefs they like.
3 Any user is welcome to discuss their personal belief where relevant, so long as it does not also involve oppressive speech (e.g., sexist, racist, sanist, ableist, queerphobic speech).
4 Violating Rule 3 for moralizing comes when stating personal belief or opinion as though it is a fact of reality, especially if this is done in a way to emphasize or imply that one’s own beliefs are correct or superior to what someone else believes or chooses to do.
Before commenting about what the “correct” way to believe or behave is to another user, pause for a moment and think about whether doing so is an ethical, wise choice. Always remember the human(s) on the other side of the screen.
