Ramesh, the size of a house seems an odd thing for you to mention. Living in a doghouse wouldn't be ethical if it was funded by enslaving somebody else, be it as a conscripted soldier, or a serf cutting wood in a sawmill. Living in a palace is ethical if earned by voluntary interaction with other people. I can justify soldiers, police, carpenters, Toyota and lawyers working to support my lifestyle because I pay them and they choose to offer their services. If they refuse their services, I'll have to do it myself or hire somebody else. It's called capitalism, private enterprise and free markets. It works well. Countries which work more like that do relatively better. But no country works like that and none have free citizens - some are just relatively better.
I agree with the Jains inasmuch as we are part of an integrated planetary system and if we mess with it too much, we'll do ourselves in. But if we want a hydroelectric dam for water management and electricity supply, recreation and maybe for fish farming, then I don't see that that upsets the balance of life. Sure, it puts a dent in it and shifts the balance which shifts our existence, like a mirror bouncing our image back at us. But the mere fact that we exist does that, even if all we do is eat, root, have babies and die, like chimpanzees. Goedel's theorem about self-referential systems and Shrodinger's cat come into play here. Also Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Systems are intrinsically integrated and the observer creates the reality of the other and measuring one thing changes another.
In a free society, some people would decide to be soldiers. If a lot of soldiers were needed, the pay would be increased until sufficient were attracted, in the same way that if there's a shortage of blacksmiths, plumbers and lawyers, their pay needs to be increased to attract apprentices.
It makes no more sense to conscript soldiers than it does to conscript doctors or dentists [though I suppose those doing the enslaving might worry that conscripted dentists and doctors might not do a particularly good job]. If people want to be pacifists, that has nothing to do with the size of house they should have. Nor how many cars they have.
How can you justify conscription, slavery and involuntary death for your slaves because that's the only choice you have if you object to them being pacifists? You'll have to attack them in some way. Would you just attack pacifists with houses larger than a certain size? Or would the style and quality of chattels affect your attack too?
Actually, pacifism doesn't have to be part of a whole system of beliefs. Nobody has a whole system of beliefs. They just have a pastiche of ideas which more or less fit together in their heads as a model of how the world works for them. When we bump into cognitive dissonance, with the observed world failing to match our internal model, we get a funny feeling in our heads. Then we have to adjust our internal model or run away or something so that we re-establish a fit. Some people take Prozac, booze, hashish and stuff to help the fit.
King George II had an idea of how the war with Saddam would go. Unfortunately, things haven't gone quite according to plan, so they are rearranging the deck chairs to try to make a place for everyone [except Saddam].
Mqurice |
