Subject:
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Re: Are we doing the right thing?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 5 Sep 2001 18:19:21 GMT
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Viewed:
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1021 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Simpson writes:
>
> > > I disagree. Any people should use whatever methods they have at their • disposal
> > > to secure a fair measure of life. To do less is to accept slavery. If their
> > > only recourse is terrorism, then their neighbors damn well need to help solve
> > > their problems (or snuff them).
> >
> > Chris:
> >
> > With all due respect, I take personal moral umbrage with this statement. You
> > and I have already well-established that our world-views diverge just about as
> > much as any two humans' world-views can, but, I think that this idea is still
> > well worth debating.
>
> OK.
>
> > This is about principles and consistency:
>
> But I believe that principles are inconsistent at their heart.
>
> > Resorting to the destruction and
> > murder of innocent non-combatants is butchery and moral wretchedness of the
> > grossest sort
>
> If you, your children and the bus driver are trapped under an avalanche and
> your children are starving, do you kill and serve the driver to avoid watching
> your children die of starvation? In answering this hypothetical, I do.
> Morality is a fanciful phantom when your life is on the line. Duty to my
> children is greater by far than duty to humanity.
The presence of gray areas in any moral calculus, i.e., moral conundrums, does
not negate moral principles. In some circumstances we do not know what the
right thing to do is, but in all circumstances we can determine what is
definitely not the right thing to do. I defer an example to one given by a
professor in a class that I took which was very much devoted to the moral
calculus: He said that he didn't know whether or not he should allow his ailing
mother to be removed from life support, but he definitely knew that he shouldn't
do it just so he could inherit her money. In all moral conundrums we can move
out of the foggy gray regions into the unmistakable light of certainty. In your
given moral dilemna, I would assert that it would be wrong to kill the man just
to feed your children, because his life is objectively no less value than the
lives of your children. He has a right, so to speak, to his life. Now, if he
was in his right mind and offered his life, then one would have greater moral
latitude.
> I'm guessing that once again, you will disagree with me. Is that so?
Absolutely.
>
> > Striving for a fair measure of life is reasonable and just; striving for a • fair
> > measure of life by murdering innocents is to become as bad or worse than those
> > who have wronged you.
>
> How do you know that? Which people have done what to you? How can you say
> that killing them is worse than what they did or would do? Who is innocent?
Who is innocent of butchery, rape, and terrorism? Why, those who have not in
fact buthered, raped, and terrorized. I assert that the higher ground of human
character is achieved not by practicing a vindictive tit-for-tat system of
revenge and vigilantism, but rather, by instead standing upon the moral high
ground of restraint and justice that does not pay an eye for an eye. I'll take
the moral road of Ghandi, King, and Bonhoffer. I'll take a moral indignation
that elevates humanity without using the means of our basest passions and
intents.
> > Fighting against slavery by becoming a butcher, a moral coward, and a filthy
> > devil may free one from slavery of the body, but in so doing it destroys that
> > person's conscience and moral sensibilities.
>
> I agree, and even think that this is a big problem (maybe the main problem)
> with allowing other parts of the world to degenerate that way. There must be
> whole nations of savages (people who were willing to commit attrocities or one
> kind or another). How do we trust them to get their nation back on the track
> to civilization? On the other hand, I'd rather be a free devil than a slave.
I'll take slavery if the alternative is to become a devil - a monster of a
person.
> > The moral high ground, the morally praise-worthy struggle
> > is one that does not victimize non-combatants and/or the
> > innocent, but which instead allows human decency to thrive.
>
> What makes someone a non-combatant? If you're a black share-cropper in 1920's
> Alabama and the local stores charge you and extra 50% "black tax" then are
> those people combatants? Are they to be spared merely because they haven't (at
> least right at this moment) taken up arms in order to murder you?
Bear arms against those to whom resistance is required. But let there be a just
limit to your aggression. There was no doubt a proper and reasonable level of
resistance due the local merchants - the moral calculus is in finding that level
without overstepping the bounds of justice or human decency.
> > I personally...completely and utterly reject your
> > statement. Humanity is better than that - and if we're not, we should be, and
> > indeed we *must* be.
>
> Must be for what? I agree that that would be nice, and is even worth striving
> for, but not at the cost of subjugation.
Whatever moral, ethical, and social progress that humanity has made is owed to
the morally corageous among us who have refused to live by kill-or-be-killed.
> > I hope to become a slave myself before I stoop so low as
> > to murder the innocent for the sake of my own personal liberties.
>
> Ah, but in your current relative comfort, you may define "the innocent"
> differently than you would as a slave.
The innocent and guilty define themselves by their actions.
> > This does not mean that I am a pacifist; on the contrary,
> > some things are worth fighting for, and fighting for very hard.
>
> But only you can decide what those are.
Indeed. But do you imagine that there are so many fundamentally different views
of right and wrong? Show me a nation or culture that esteems cowardice or
treachery. Show me a culture that values not its kindred. Will you point to
differences in sexual practices? Some cultures believe that a man may have many
wives; some that a man may only have one. Yet, no people on earth have believed
that a man may have *any* women that he chooses. Different measures, same
ingredients. I doubt that you will consider something truly evil unless by its
actions it has proven that title.
> > Liberty and freedom of the oppressed is one of them. Kill the enemy
> > soldier who would enslave your people. Kill him on the battlefield
> > where armed and equal men meet.
>
> Equal? No army has ever set out to fight under equal conditions. That would
> be foolish. Better to send snipers to their rear and execute their officers to
> bring fear and chaos to their lines. Then you can properly...butcher...them.
> And if killing them all isn't actually a _good_ thing, then maybe that war
> shouldn't be fought.
Perhaps not equal. But armed and ready for the task. I'll not thrust bayonets
through the bellies of those who wield no defense.
>
> > But even in that, do not
> > cross the line of moral corruption - do not torture him,
>
> Agreed. I almost can't think of a valid reason to torture a captive. We might
> develop hypotheticals in which the suffering of many could be relieved by the
> torture of a few, and in those cases, I might advocate torture. But I'm not
> sure such situations really exist, and even if they did, that I'd go along with
> it. Too many variables.
>
> > and allow him his life if he throws down his arms and begs you
> > for it.
>
> If it is a nicety that you can afford, then it is the right thing to do.
A *nicety*? Under what circumstance might it be appropriate to run him through
when he is at your mercy?
> > Chris, God help us all if your just measure of life is threatened.
>
> A) I'm not the only one. B) None of us have real justice. But it takes
> serious injustice to get the hackles raise to the point of violence.
Yes. But violence with restraint, and violence with mercy.
james
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Are we doing the right thing?
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| (...) The fact that someone is innocent of those three acts doesn't make them guiltless for any number of others. Is this "butchery" that we're talking about the worst thing that you can imagine? Is it inherently worse than enslaving thousands? (...) (23 years ago, 6-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Are we doing the right thing?
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| (...) disposal (...) OK. (...) But I believe that principles are inconsistent at their heart. (...) If you, your children and the bus driver are trapped under an avalanche and your children are starving, do you kill and serve the driver to avoid (...) (23 years ago, 5-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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