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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (7704)	3/6/2001 6:04:26 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

If it works for you, it's fine with me. You're entitled to determine what's moral for you just as I'm entitled to determine what's moral for me. I would have taken my neighbor's car and begged his understanding later. You would steal someone's car in order to honor a promise to drive one of your friends somewhere? Now for something a bit lighter.. theonion.com Tim

To: Lane3 who wrote (7704)	3/6/2001 6:53:05 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Yes, I misunderstood the meaning you had for convenience. Yet, the task you agreed to was to find a scenario in which I would be involved and could not determine a right and wrong choice. You involved me in a scenario of promising to keep a secret. I cannot accept your presumption that such a promise obligates me to allow the secret teller to abuse me or my trust. The restriction you are now placing on me is, no choice at all. "I was referring to never making a promise just so you won't ever have to break one." Exactly. I consider it stupid to make a guarantee when I am not all powerful enough to make it good. I frequently agree to do something for another person. I have many people depending on me. I am careful when I agree to help some one to always qualify that with "as far as I am able" or unless some act of God interfers, or unless my ability to assist you changes, etc. etc. etc. I consider that the only responsible path to take. You make that sound cheap or selfish. Is that what you intended? If I offer to help someone go to a job interview, I would expect them to understand if something happened to interfere with that. I could have engine failure or my kid has the car as you proposed. Once that happens...and it had already happened in your scenario, then my (right or wrong) choice is based independently of the precipitators. So, If I promised and then knowingly gave my kid the keys because I didn't want to take him, that would be wrong. If I lied to cover up my forgetfulness, that would be wrong. If I admitted my mistake and offered to do what ever I could to help from that point, that would not be immoral in any way. People have accidents, become victims of circumstance, and make mistakes. Mistakes are not immoral. We don't think of people as evil if they don't multiply and divide properly in the third grade. Making a promise you can't gaurantee is IMO a mistake, and you can't guarantee any promise. I don't make them without qualifiers as I stated previously. I originally stated that I can't imagine a situation in which I couldn't see a right and wrong choice. The presumption I made is that choice is forward looking not backward looking. The set up would have to be one in which I would realistically be placed. I explained to you that I don't consider a promise as a guarantee because you have to be all powerful to have the ability to gaurantee promises. The "set up" you gave me involves keeping confidence (The secret). Ok, this implies a trust between the two parties. Either party can violate this trust. The secret teller can implicate the secret hearer in a crime or evil deed. The presumption that we are all agreeing to in saying I will hear your secret and keep it confidential is that we can trust one another and you are not committing harm to me by revealing the secret. The presumption is that if I hear your secret, I may be in some capacity to help or support you by knowing your secret. Any risk that involves me beyond hearing the secret must remain my choice. If you put me at a risk that I have not agreed to and I have had no choice in, that is a violation or abuse of trust. If you see it any other way, you should never again in this life time agree to listen to a secret. The bottom line is, that I said I cannot imagine a situation where there is not a right and wrong choice. In both of the situations you gave me I told you what I would do, which I consider right and the other options left that would be clearly wrong. You are trying to say that the precipitating factors of which I had no choice make any decision I could make in the future wrong. I don't buy it. There has to be something in my decision making process that makes my actions or intent to act "wrong." In the case of your friend and the telephone, she was having her mother state the facts correctly but her intent was to decieve. Big difference between that and the decisions I made when the promise could not be fulfilled.