----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 9:23 PM Subject: Re: Br!n: Re: more neocons
> > So, the Holocaust would have been ethical if Germany had won? > > It was ethical to the Nazis at the time it was taking place. Just as it > was ethical for slavery to be practiced, here and elsewhere, for a long > time, just as it was ethical for the original tribe of Israel to, > occasionally, utterly murder rivaling peoples, even to the point that a > psalm was written singing of the joys of dashing out the brains of > enemies' children against stones. > > From my point of view today, and I suspect from yours and most others', > those actions are all reprehensible. But to no small degree I suspect > that's because we're living in a world and a time that affords us the > luxury of extending the epithet "human" to *all* people, even those we > oppose or who oppose us. It is indeed far easier to do that when one isn't risking one's childrens' lives in doing so....which makes That is a valid point. I would point out that the arguement had been made thousands of years ago....it's just that even people who state that's their source of ethics find ways to weasel around it. The way I like to look at the Old Testiment is as a journey of a people from a polytheistic religion where every tribe had their totom god and Yahwah was just the god of their tribe to where Yahwah was the God of all, and Israel had a special responsibility. > We're not in "survival mode" -- and I think that > the only way for broad-based inclusive idealism to flourish is in an > environment that is reasonably stable, secure and affluent. > > That's a digression; what I'm suggesting is that ethics is contextual. > People individually -- I think anyway -- don't set out to deliberately > do bad things, at least most people most of the time. There are > exceptions of course, but I think that for the most part most of what > any person does makes sense to him or her *within the context of > his/her ethical landscape*. Others might not see a given action in the > same light, of course, but to the individual I think actions and > decisions spring from a place that is not intentionally bad, though at > least some behaviors might be rationalized, occasionally tortuously. > > I'm inclined to think that societies *usually* behave in the same way > -- a culture or nation does not set out to do terrible things; the > things it does are, to that culture or nation, ethically sound actions. > Whether it's burning witches, performing human sacrifice or attempting > genocide, those behaviors make sense to -- they fit into the ethics of > -- those who perpetrate them. > > Thus, had WWII been won by Hitler's minions, yes, there would be strong > argument (rationalization, I might call it) that the extermination of > the Jews as an ethnic class was fully justified, and it would be > *extremely difficult* if not impossible for someone raised in that > worldview to think otherwise. That doesn't mean I think it would be a > good thing, and it doesn't mean I think it would be ethical, but then, > I'm applying my society's ethics to the situation, not working within > the ethics of the hypothetical Third Reich of 1000 years. > > The issue I have with the word "moral" is that it suggests, to me, an > absolute, a code of conduct implicitly derived from a superhuman > source. I think that, at a minimum, morality requires the existance of Truths that exist apart from humans...but that we can come to understand. We agree that one cannot emperically derive morality. > But if I can't accept the presence of that source, I'm not personally > comfortable with the word, and I get, along with that, the sense that > what we call "moral" is really nothing other than ethics dressed up to > look like divine edict -- when in fact "morality" is every bit as > plastic and fluid as ethics, and for exactly the same reasons, because > to me they both spring from the same source: Social consensus. OK, let me ask you a hard question. I bet if I did a poll of the world, most people would say that homosexuality is wrong. Does that make it unethical to be gay? Aren't gay people wrong _by definition_? I don't believe this because I consider it inconsistent with my morality....which is based on my belief in the worth and value of every human being. If you include the power to persuade, doesn't your statement imply that might makes right? But, I agree you have to have faith to get away from that. I admire your intellectual honesty in not trying to pretend that one can experimentally obtain the Golden Rule. We differ on the ethics of the Nazi's but I fully accept that it is a difference in my having faith and you not, not a difference where I can prove you wrong. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
