Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Solon who wrote (58594)	9/18/2002 11:21:23 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Well, we are in very fundamental disagreement on that point, then. I think it irrefutable that there are true dilemmas that either cannot be resolved, or cannot be resolved in a timely manner, in the sense of curing the dilemma. Certainly I have experienced them, as have most people that I have intimate acquaintance with, and we do not pretend that choosing is the same as resolving the conflict. Anyway, I am not talking about a conflict between myself and society, but between what I would think were I a disinterested party, and the urge to special pleading that desire can create. Nor am I saying that the stricter view is necessarily correct: sometimes there are factors that allow one to escape the most rigorous view of the matter. It would not be a real choice if it were clear what the correct solution is overall. I am saying that no internal argument is conclusive, and one must take a leap, and either choose to follow the stricter path, or choose to follow the transgressive path, hoping for the best either way.

To: Solon who wrote (58594)	9/18/2002 8:40:55 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

The Nazis committed terrible acts with the fully rationalized belief that they were doing good. However, one does not need to go so far as to believe one is doing good. Some probably thought destroying Jews and others they felt where undseriable was in and of itself a good thing. Others might have thought rather the following orders from their superior was a good thing and opposing those orders a bad thing. But I'm sure that many thought they where not doing good but did evil things out of fear or just to get along or from some other motivation. Some of those that did not feel that they where doing a good thing may have thought that they where actually doing something evil but did it anyway because of social pressure or fear. Moving away from nazis a bank robber might steal because he wants money or a rapist may rape because he wants sex, they may even think that what they are doing is morally wrong, but do it anyway because their disire for money or sex might be more powerful then there desire to do good or avoid what they see as evil. They may rationalize it - "There just a greedy company and its insured anyway", or they may not. My arguement applies even for believers in moral relativism. Even if there is no absolute standards there are standards of socieities and individuals. And individuals do violate standards that they believe in not just standards society tells them to follow. You or society might tell me it is good to kill the guys with no hats. But if I have qualms about that I will find a way to rationaize the goodness of it. The fact that I am transgressing an ethical norm of society does not mean I am breaking an ethic of my own. But people do violate their own ethical ideas. Tim