Ends Never Justify Means?

[guesswest]

[ QUOTE ]
But people like you love situational and relativistic ethics so that you don't have to make the sacrifices required in order to be a moral person, nor to make judgements about the morality of acts committed by others as well as yourself. It would make you feel bad to do so. It's just a form of cowardice.

[/ QUOTE ]

You think? Interesting that you know so much about me. Everytime I debate ethics, or religion, I desperately wish I could believe in moral absolutism, and in god. It'd give the world much more meaning, it'd give my life much more meaning. I reject these positions with anguish because I just can't believe them, because the supporting evidence isn't there or because the arguments don't make sense. I'd embrace that stuff in a heartbeat if I could bring myself to - rejecting it is a burden not a relief.

[David Sklansky]

"You think? Interesting that you know so much about me. Everytime I debate ethics, or religion, I desperately wish I could believe in moral absolutism, and in god. It'd give the world much more meaning, it'd give my life much more meaning. I reject these positions with anguish because I just can't believe them, because the supporting evidence isn't there or because the arguments don't make sense. I'd embrace that stuff in a heartbeat if I could bring myself to - rejecting it is a burden not a relief."

Chez thinks you're nuts. Not Ready thinks you're lying.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
There is a further, perhaps more fundemental, problem with the view that "the ends don't justify the means":

All means are also ends. The distinction between ends and means is contextual.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

Not Ready thinks you're lying


[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily lying. The heart is deceitful and that includes self-deception. Every individual is at a different stage along the road to heaven or hell, a different level of self-consciousness. God speaks to all. Not all react the same.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
God speaks to all.

[/ QUOTE ]


How? (And the standard glib answer of "Any way He so chooses" lacks panache and logic.)


Masculine or Feminine? Voice over or inner voice? Phone mail or intercom? Morse code or Sumerian Cuneiform?

-Zeno

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

How?


[/ QUOTE ]


Romans 1:19

that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

And many other verses. Through the creation, through the conscience, through His Word.

Hebrews 3:
7Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
"TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,
8DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME,
AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS,

[MidGe]

Cool,

If that's the case I never had a call from she/it/him. No guilt here! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
"You think? Interesting that you know so much about me. Everytime I debate ethics, or religion, I desperately wish I could believe in moral absolutism, and in god. It'd give the world much more meaning, it'd give my life much more meaning. I reject these positions with anguish because I just can't believe them, because the supporting evidence isn't there or because the arguments don't make sense. I'd embrace that stuff in a heartbeat if I could bring myself to - rejecting it is a burden not a relief."

Chez thinks you're nuts. Not Ready thinks you're lying.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think guesswest is the slightest bit nuts.

chez

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
To those who say that it is wrong to kill one innocent person to save 1000 because an immoral act can never be justified by some greater good, I say that you need to find a better argument.

[/ QUOTE ]Well, it depends very much on the wording (premise) of the question. Phrased strictly the way you put it, i.e. so reductively that it becomes reductio ad absurdum, the rational answer can only be "Yes, sacrifice away the one life!".

But when we start towards applying this rule, we run immediately into trouble! We see that the "threat to the lives of 1000 people" can very easily become a mirage, a foggy notion, a cloud full of poison.

There exist cases, of course, where clear-cut choices present theselves in real life, e.g. a ship sinking whereby the choice for saving one man trapped in the engine room will jeopardize the saving of twenty women and children getting on the boats. People will usually choose "correctly" in such cases -- religion or no religion. [1]

The foggy notion of "saving 1000 lives" has been used so far to execute people who might have been innocent, to forcibly submit human beings to meedical experiments akin to torture, to force people in misery, etc etc. History, as they say, abounds with examples.

Arithmetically, you are correct, since 1000 > 1.

Morally, we need to be extremely careful.

Mickey Brausch



[1] : Other times, the prospect for comradeship overcomes self-preservation or rationality and, for example, a company of soldiers will return under very adverse odds to save a lone, injured fellow combattant from the battlefield. They might all die, or at the very least one more soldier will be injured; surely not a desirable expectation, numbers-wise. This kind of behavior/choice can also be attrributed to the prospect for a higher moral code of living one's life. All these are quite legitimate expressions (in Statistics & Probability) of human aspirations & preferences -- and utility theory finds little "wrong" in choosing "1" over "1000"; not even when that "1" is the person making the choice.

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
"You go to steal the car to save the 1000 and in your getaway unwittingliy strike a pedestrian in the street and kill him. That wasn't your intent, but it was a result of a chain of actions that began with your theft."

It sounds like you actually wouldn't steal that car. Or at least condone the actions of someone who wouldn't. Do you realize that NO ONE on this forum agrees with you?

[/ QUOTE ]


When I said no, I was referring mainly to the random homocide type of hypotheticals you have posed. If I were starving through no fault of my own (i.e. willing to work but can't find work and no substance abuse problems, etc in the way), then I would steal food to survive and think it more right than wrong. And in the car example you give, with a certain list of caveats like the likelihood of causeing serious injury to others in so doing and such an act not just being the setup to demand further more serious types of acts, then yes I would steal the car.

The factors in determining the subjective morality of a person committing an act are the objective morality of the act, the seriousness of the wrong of such an act, and the person's intent in committing same. Where typical situational relativistic ethics fall down is the 2nd factor, i.e. while trying to propose a "it depends" morality on discrete situations, they ignore the magnitude of wrongness in that equation.

Varlos in a post objected to definitions and semantics and said that one should consider the value of an object/thing/person in deciding the morality of an act involving same. To a certain degree he is correct. The right of someone to be secure in their private property represented by a loaf of bread or a car certainly cannot be compared to that person's living or dying. But human life itself is the greatest value and should be accorded the greatest respect, dignity and protection (if you are a disciple of Ayn Rand then human life and its protection should be your top value).

But Varlos went further, and so do you and others here, in trying to distinguish between the relative values of the lives of different persons so that you can justify taking their lives according to when in YOUR judgement they don't have as much value as your own life or that of others. This is what is uncacceptable, to play god with the lives of other people (oh the irony).

Catholic moral theology in looking at various sins distinguishes between "mortal" sins which separate you from God's grace, and lesser "venial" sins which merely restrict the efficaceousness of His grace in one's life. The mortal sins involve "grave matter", i.e. the most serious offenses against the life and dignities of a person. Thus killing when not in self-defense cannot be justified (although the church's teaching that the death penalty should not be used by the state has more wiggle room because of this, i.e. preventative measures in some minority of cases), and one cannot make subjective judgements about the value of the life of another person, including those unborn.