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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Thu, 6 Sep 2001 19:16:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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958 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Simpson writes:
>
> > > 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.
>
> 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?
My response to a wrong committed against me can only be in measured proportion
to the wrong in question done to me. What I'm getting at, is that I can't
morally punish a man for everything he's ever done - only the crime for which
evidence has proven his guilt. I can't kill a man based upon an assumption of
his future prediliction for crime. The butcher needs to suffer for his
butchery, and the slaver needs to suffer for enslaving. If the butcher is also
a slaver, let him suffer for both - provided that his guilt can be reliably
proven.
> > 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.
>
> You said before that there are things worth fighting for. Things worth killing
> enemy soldiers over. Isn't that the tit for tat that you now claim to be
> against?
Not necessarily. A surrendering SS soldier might have genuinely deserved a
bullet through his brain on the spot, but provided that he layed down his arms,
then his punishment must come via an ethical court of inquiry.
I am opposed to revenge-based "justice," but it seems that most
> people are not.
I am in agreement with you here, but, I suspect, for different reasons (i.e., I
believe in objective absolute truths.) Note that I still believe that the death
penalty is just, and needn't be "revenge-based," but, as Larry says, that is
plowed ground and we needn't go into it again unless you feel that it is
pertinent.
I think we should look at why bad things are done, and make it
> (when possible) so that those people don't feel the need to do bad things.
> Most people just want to hurt them. That's childish. But when I see someone
> denying me of the rights that I consider sacred, if violence is the only way to
> respond, then to do so is just. If there are other plausible responses, then
> they are probably the best choice.
I agree with you here again. My only contention is that violence should be the
last option, and even so, it should be measured by mercy if at all possible.
> > I'll take slavery if the alternative is to become a devil - a monster of a
> > person.
>
> Out of genuine curiosity, why? How do you stand to gain by allowing yourself
> to be subjugated to another? Is it in your mind impossible to come back from
> being a devil?
I stand to gain nothing if I become a physical slave, but I stand to lose
everything if I become a monster to prevent it. I believe that conscience is
individually our most valuable possession, and that one can lose the ability to
distinguish Right from Wrong and one can come to value evil actions over just
ones by habitual practice of wrong-doing. In other words, one can learn to
enjoy the worst horrors by giving into devilish behavior. I'm not suggesting
that you don't kill the man who tries to force you or your family into slavery.
What I am suggesting is that you don't burn down his house if his children are
inside. Let your violence be minimal and tempered by a sense of regret. Can a
man return from evil? Perhaps. But wrong-doing and well-doing both lead to
further actions of their kind. I have no reason to believe that I will be able
to resist evil tendencies within me once I have dedicated myself to their
practice if I cannot control myself when first I'm tempted.
> > > 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.
>
> It seems that you aren't willing to take a hard stand on this. How much
> aggression is fitting? I don't see anything morally amiss when this
> hypothetical black share-cropper caves the back of the merchant's head in with
> a hatchet and takes all his stuff. Though, I'm dubious that in this scenario,
> it would be terribly productive...it's just not something that I'd condem.
You are right. I am unwilling, because I do not know what is right in this
situation. But I do know what is wrong: taking a hatchet to his skull. That is
an extreme action that could only concievably be taken if someone's life was in
immediate jeaopardy.
>
> > > 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 think it's more complicated than that. I think that we (I mean the US, or
> The West, or probably most successful groups) sometimes to "bad" things in
> order to allow our way of life to continue. And it is our way of life that
> lets us have the free time to develop morality, ethics, and social progress.
> At some times, as a group, we had to live by those kill-or-be-killed rules so
> that at a later time we could continue to do "good." So I'd say we owe those
> progresses both to the enlightened and to the barbarians among us.
Why do you assume that one can chose to be good once bad tendencies have been
established? I think that badness is a slippery slope which requires supreme
effort to break free from. Again, my presuppositions are based on the existence
of absolute truths to which we owe a pressing claim of obedience. And by the
way, morality, ethics, and social progress have been consistently postulated by
humans who have lived in ages past with far less free time than ours, and a far
more serious business of personal survival at hand. Yet despite the barbarism
and kill-or-be-killed around them, our great moral teachers and those obedient
to their teachings have nevertheless asserted and demonstrated a firm conviction
in standards of justice and mercy that transcend mere human survival.
> > > > 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.
>
> We define them by our perceptions of their actions.
I refuse to believe that under *any* possible circumstances certain horrors
would become good by virtue of perspective. The murder of babies is an evil at
all times and at all places will never cease to be vile. Perspective be damned.
> > > > 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?
>
> I think that my views of right and wrong are substantially different than many
> others (though there certainly is common ground). Maybe I'm an annomoly, but
> how many others are?
>
> > 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.
>
> Some cultures believe that it is acceptable to enslave. Some cultures believe
> that it is good to hurt certain people. Others disagree. You cite the
> attributes that are needed for a culture to even exist. But those aren't the
> basis of morality. There is broad variance in what different groups of people
> think is OK.
Some cultures have believed that only certain people deserve their liberties.
But no culture at large has ever believed that slavery is fit for their own kin.
The goodness of liberty was never questioned by enslaving cultures; what was
questioned is what members deserved to partake of it. Liberty as a better state
of affairs was never in question. Same ingredients, different measure. You
still haven't demonstrated a fundamentally "other" moral conception.
>
> > I doubt that you
> > will consider something truly evil unless by its
> > actions it has proven that title.
>
> Certainly. But what I think is evil and what you think is evil are not that
> same. What accounts for that discreppancy? Why does one thing "prove" evil to
> me and not to you?
If I decided to do you an evil turn and hit you a blow over the head from
behind, provided that you survived, you would agree with me that it was indeed
evil. I doubt that you and I differ so much in our definition of evil as such.
We merely differ in our understandings of when and how violence may be carried
out as an instrument of justice and/or survival.
>
> > Perhaps not equal. But armed and ready for the task. I'll not thrust • bayonets
> > through the bellies of those who wield no defense.
>
> Even if they're likely to take up arms once you have passed?
No. Not even then. The moral calculus demands that you spare his life, and his
future actions are a risk that you have to take.
>
> I think war is ugly. And if we can't stomach it, then we shouldn't be doing
> it. But if I had to kill the unarmed because there was a good chance they
> would become armed, then that would just be one of the ugly aspects of war.
And if we can't see the difference between right and wrong, then we're no more
fit to be a soldier than a teacher. Even a man charged with killing must use
moral restraint in that endeavor.
>
> > > > 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?
>
> When you can't imprison him and he presents a clear or substantial future
> threat. Perhaps it would be adequate to severe his Achilies tendons or his
> spine and letting him go, depending on the circumstances, but that just seems
> sick.
So does not sparing his life if he is at your mercy.
james
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | 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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