Again, I am sorry for accusing you of not reading my paper, when you obviously had. I wish I had successfully deleted that post. Here is the response I wanted you to see.
Apparently you think you have weakened my argument by pointing out that it is complicated, and adding a link to a description of Occam’s razor. Occam’s Razor does not say an argument is wrong or improbable just because it is complicated. It does not even say that simpler arguments are always preferable because they are simpler. It says that the simpler argument is preferable to the complicated argument only if both arguments explain the facts equally effectively. As your linked text points out, your simplified interpretation of Occam’s razor would require us to say that Intelligent Design is superior to the theory of evolution, because “God did it” is simpler than the DNA double helix.
Also, Occam’s Razor is not a truth of logic, because it applies to inductive, not deductive reasoning. As your link says “It doesn’t prove or disprove, it simply leads you down the path that’s most likely to be correct. Also, ‘simplicity’ is often subject to heavy debate, so you and I might come to different conclusions when faced with a decision between the same 2 hypotheses.” None of these limitations are applicable to truths of logic.
You say that a moral law requires a universal truth in order for it to be true. That assertion is controversial to say the least. Kant believed it, and probably got it from the Aquinas source you mentioned. But plenty of philosophers since Kant have shown that there are problems with this assumption. Everybody’s favorite example is the Nazis asking if you have Jews in your cellar. We all agree that, generally speaking, it’s wrong to lie. Does that mean we must tell the Nazis the truth? Kant bit the bullet on this example, and said yes (although he didn’t specifically mention the Nazis for obvious reasons). That answer, however, does not deal with the fact that we also have a moral obligation to protect the innocent. Each of those moral principles meets Kant’s criterion that breaking them creates a contradiction, which seems to make them universally true. And yet they can’t be universally true, because in this case, and in many others, we must break one rule to follow the other rule.
What I am saying here is that we have two conflicting moral imperatives in the issue of racism and prejudice 1) protecting ourselves from crime and 2) refraining from increasing the frustration and tension that ordinary honest black people have to deal with through no fault of their own. You refer to this conflict as “assuming existential risk for the potential benefit of avoiding insult.” What you called “avoiding insult” is much worse than this blasé expression implies. If you really want to get a sense of what it’s like, read this article by G. Correia. I also recommend Rebecca Stevens for similar personal experiences, and William Spivey for historical data.
What you’re calling “assuming existential risk” is the kind of risk we do every day. There is a tremendous risk in driving or riding in an automobile, for example, and yet most of us conclude we must do it. Your example of walking through certain parts of Chicago could be a case where the risk is too great. However, if the risk is small, and the damage done to other people by avoiding that risk is great, I’m claiming that it is morally wrong. An example of this would be the stop and frisk program that may have reduced crime, but also made New York City a constant source of stress to young black men. As I said in the paper, “The question of which obligation is morally stronger depends on the quantitative weight of each factor”.
