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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (6240)	5/22/2003 8:29:49 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7720

I think we have a different philosophical view of "moral good". I don't think that all actions are good or bad, wrong or right just on the basis of utility. And example - If the government or an individual abused someone and ignored their rights it would be wrong. It would still have been wrong if the difficult and unfair position the person was put in caused them to achieve a greater strength of character and lead a better life in the future, acomplishing a lot of practical good for many people. Of course in that example the evil done was not motivated by the thought that much good might eventually come of it, but even evil acts motivated by the idea of achieving a great good are still evil. If a committed communist truly believed that imposing a dictatorship would eventually lead to a communist utopia, it doesn't make all the violence and brutality intentionally inflicted on innocent people along the way morally good. Hitler might have thought that by killing the Jews he was "purifying" Germany and making it better but even if he truly thought this I still support the idea that he was evil. Pol Pot also had an ideal vision of society, and in his opinion he was trying to improve his country. Instead he killed as much as 1/3 of its population. Was he merely misguided and misunderstood? Tim