I love how seriously non-smokers take the issue of smoking. It just makes it that much more obvious that they've never smoked. It's like a virgin devoting his life to the cause of abstinence and expecting to be taken seriously.
Forgive me if I don't understand why exactly either of these are illegitimate or unserious things to do, theoretically speaking.
It makes objectivity impossible. Shouldn't the most trusted people on an issue be those with the most experience with it?
That also makes objectivity impossible. Who has more experience with abstinence than virgins, or with not smoking than non-smokers? There's no 'objective' level of experience to have had. It all depends on what one frames as the positive assertion of a position that needs to be defended.
No, I disagree. Having sex or being high are very temporary conditions. Virginity and never having smoked are permanent, uninterrupted states. Despite the cultural stigmas, having achieved an altered mental state is not a permanent, constant state of being. It's just another experience. It's absurd to contest that the absence of experience is the basis of the most informed opinions.
But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I don't believe there is
any level of experience that would tender objective opinions about these things using your definition. I also happen to think past experiences of any kind change the nature of future experiences, which, again, I'm not limiting to these particular issues. I can understand the value of experience if we are looking for
maximally informed positions but I simply don't think unexperienced people's positions should be thought to be less
objective, particularly if they ostensibly derive from first principles. (Deriving opinions on very specific issues from first principles can be suspect for other reasons, of course, but I don't believe that's especially relevant here.)
Would an ideal observer be infinitely experienced, and if so, is that simply necessary to achieve infinite understanding (which I am not convinced of, by the by) or is it itself intrinsically important?