Subject:
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Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 17 Oct 2001 18:10:52 GMT
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Viewed:
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570 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes:
> It would still be cowardly for them to fly their own planes into the
> buildings because they would be making an unprovoked attack against innocent
> and unsuspecting civilians on the civilians' home soil during a time when
> the home nation was at peace. An unprovoked sneak attack on innocent and
> unsuspecting civilians is cowardly. It wasn't my intent to say that
> terrorism equals cowardice, nor vice versa. It's possible for a terrorist
> to be a coward, just as it's possible for a terrorist to be a librarian.
> That doesn't change the fact that the acts of Sept 11 were cowardly.
Still, my point stands then? Whether or not they were cowardly is irrelevant
to whether it was terrorism, yes?
> > Let's also not blur this issue. Does terrorism by definition need to be
> > morrally inacceptable? I don't think so. Morality doesn't really play a
> > part, as far as I'm concerned. It can still be moral, yet terrorist. But
> > then again, that's me being a moral relativist. Would it be moral for you to
> > "kill thousands of innocent [so what if they're innocent? another useless
> > point?] New Jersey residents"?
>
> The morality is hardly a useless point--it's the essence of the argument.
> If you're a relativist, then there's no point in going further.
!! Sure there is. Attempting to get someone/a group of people to do
something by making them respond to terror that you induce is terrorism,
regardless of whether it's moral or not. BUT-- make no mistake! Most
people's moral judgement of terrorism is that it's evil. Hence, the question
is twofold: 1) is it terrorism? 2) is it moral? And yes, as a moral
relativist, the 2nd question may become useless-- but only if you don't have
a good guess as to the moral beliefs of those involved. And usually you can
make a good guess if nothing else (at least with such extreme cases).
> One's being on a wanted list is not the same as having war declared on
> one, except to a relativist.
How does moral relativism not differentiate between these two issues, yet
moral universalism distinguish? I don't get it.
> Is it relevant that politics might have played
> a role in our previous actions or inaction against him? I don't think so.
I don't think so either. I don't think the whole "is X at war with Y?"
question is relevant at all to terrorism or morality. That's a totally
separate question again.
> > See above. Terrorism has nothing to do with morality. In my book. While you
> > can have moral judgements of terrorism, terrorism is not necessarily tied to
> > one particular moral judgement.
>
> So if terrorism has nothing to do with morality, is it wrong? By your
> elastic moral yardstick it would be perfectly acceptable for me to torture
> to death every man, woman, and child in Afghanistan, as long as I believed
> it was moral.
Yep. If you truly believed it to be moral, then yep. 'Course I've never met
anyone of that persuasion, but I'm open to the hypothetical. The important
part is, that I'm still capable of being moral to try and stop you from
doing so.
> I disagree completely, so maybe that's the end of it.
I don't think so, but only because I don't force terrorism to necessarily be
associated with evil, see above. Perhaps we also disagree on the definition
of terrorism in addition to moral valuation.
DaveE
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Hiroshima-Was It Necessary?
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| (...) It would still be cowardly for them to fly their own planes into the buildings because they would be making an unprovoked attack against innocent and unsuspecting civilians on the civilians' home soil during a time when the home nation was at (...) (23 years ago, 17-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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