Subject:
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Re: Don Quixote puts away his lance (was Re: McDonalds set
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 28 Sep 1999 13:40:25 GMT
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Viewed:
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1279 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Brown writes:
> > That's just my take on it. People 'should' treat each other equally. If
> > there's two exactly similar situations, the outcomes of which you control,
> > you 'should' choose the same outcome for each. Of course in reality no two
> > situations are exactly alike, but again, this is the hypothetical.
>
> Well, I agree. People 'should' be treated equally. However, people should
> not be >required< to treat people equally. It's an unenforcable rule, and
> unenforcable rules reduce the value of the system as a whole.
Well, I think my view on it is that it's required in order to be moral... We
don't 'require' people to be moral, but if they're not, then people like me
call them jerks. They're not unjust, per se; they are certainly within their
rights, but they're still immoral-- the line there is a morality of charity
rather than of justice. You can be perfectly just and still be immoral. At
least that's my take on it. Others may disagree (and do, judging from the last
debate)
> OK, reasonable assumption. Modify the situation as follows: group 2 have food
> and clothing they do not need, and they will get a tax credit for everything
> they send. Are they now in the wrong?
> ...
> Hmm. Te example of the druggist does not give us enough information to
> determine if he is being greedy. And the above paragraph implies (if not
> directly states) that you have no problem with the druggist sitting back and
> letting Heinz's wife die, so long as he doesn't profit from it.
As you might have been able to infer from my prior posts, the strongest thread
of morality is intent/motivation. According to my own belief, if you honestly
intend good through your actions, I can't say you're evil. Perhaps you're not
the kind of person I want in my society, but you're not evil. This is what in
my mind distinguishes the situation. But there's a lot of assumptions one makes
in this process.. perhaps I'd better explore them.
In the starving people in the natural disaster example: I think the intent of
your question is something like "are you immoral for not giving to the
christian children's fund/united way/peace corps/etc"? I think that I associate
not giving to these things along with some form of apathy or neutrality. Not
acting to save them isn't done out of malice or vice. In other words, I don't
intend evil when I don't give to these organizations, hence I'm not evil.
However, I don't think I could say that I intend good by not giving to them.
Hence, the act of not giving, at least for me, is rather neutral. And just so
someone else doesn't say it, I could also argue the shallow argument and just
say 'well, these organizations dont REALLY give ALL your money to the needy' or
'there are plenty of OTHER organizations out there' or 'maybe these people
aren't REALLY needy', etc. But that's highly superficial.
There is a distinct difference, though, when this hypothetical 2nd party is the
only group to know about the situation. Let's put it at the extreme: The
natural disaster is an avalance. It collapses a house that a bunch of people
were in. You live about 5 minutes away by car/skidder/snowmobile/whatever and
you're the only one in the area for about 50 miles around. A 6 year old runs up
to your door and says his parents were just trapped by the avalanche. Maybe you
don't even have to do anything other than just phone up the police/rescue
squad, and let them know what happened. But you decide you'd rather not. No
reason, mind you, you'd just rather not. I think the intent in this case would
be towards malice. The person in all likelyhood believes his actions are wrong;
hence, he's wrong. Note that I can concieve of a person who wouldn't intend
wrong, and is thereby not evil, but I don't believe that anyone like that
really exists. Even homosidal maniacs know subconsiously that their actions are
wrong. BUT, I concede that there COULD be a person still not evil in this
situation.
This last situation is more akin to what I'm assuming in the druggist example.
I'm assuming (I thought I mentioned it if only vaguely) that the druggist
intends malice. Similarly, the druggist is presumably the only person who can
save Hienz's wife, and he's not selling for no determinable reason. Again,
this is the extreme-- Hienz has the 4K in cash, he's explained the situation,
and the druggist still would make a huge profit with no loss whatsoever at the
sale of the drug. Is it possible that the druggist doesn't intend malice? I
suppose it's concievable, but I think I'd say from his action that he probably
does intend wrong. Perhaps that's going a little far-- he might not INTEND
wrong, but he feels that his inaction is wrong. That's the real sense of it.
> I should have explained more fully. You can't morally impose a penalty if
> that penalty is not determined beforehand.(1) So in this case, you can't
> punish the druggist unless it is reasonably clear that his actions are
> considered wrong, and a penalty is already in place for people who choose to
> cross the road.(2)
> ...
> 1:I can explain the reasoning behind that if you like, but it took me a long
> time to work out. Or I can give an example: If you tell your child that you
> will ground him whenever he pulls his sisters hair, you are morally justified
> in grounding him for doing so. However, if you make no mention of it, and you
> ground him for pulling his sisters hair, you are being arbitrary and unfair,
> because he had no way of knowing that the action was wrong.
> 2:A samaritan reference
Well, there's still a problem. Assumedly, your child might not agree beforehand
to being grounded if he pulls his sister's hair. The only reason that the law
is in force is because the parents have the authority. What if the parents said
"if you play with your stuffed frog, we'll kill you"?
There's also other problems. You might have not specifically said "if you stab
your sister in the armpit with an exacto knife, you're grounded to your room
for a week", but your child should still KNOW that it's wrong, and expect
punishment. After all, my parents never said that to me, and if I had done it
(like when my sister was 2 and I was 16) I should still have known to expect
punishment. You can try and simplify it to "if you're not nice to your sister,
you'll be punished", but then your child is free to interpret the definition of
'nice' and maybe also of 'punished'.
We can put that in the druggist example by saying what if Heinz has tried and
tried, but can't get the 4K together, he goes to the druggist, explains it
several times, the druggist refuses, Hienz goes away, gets the 4K, comes back,
but the druggist isn't home. He happens to know that the spare key to the
druggist's house where he keeps the drug is under the mat. So he goes in, takes
the drug, and leaves the 4K on the druggist's desk, and returns the key. Did he
really steal the drug? After all, there are laws against theft, but there
wasn't a law saying "if you give someone a pre-arranged sum (they've agreed to
the price already, Hienz just didnt' have it at the time) for a product without
specific agreement to the transaction, that's theft. You will be puished by X
years in prison or X dollar fine, etc." I guess you could say that he was
entering the property illegally (breaking and entering) but then we could alter
the hypothetical situation to change that. The point is that the spirit of the
law is interpretable when it's not specific, but if the law tries to be
specific, there's always cases that bend the line of the specific case. Hence,
you'd need to be infinite in your examples.
Laterz,
DaveE
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