# Ethical Thread



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Not sure where to put this, but since we've discussed the ethics of politics here lately, I chose this location. 

I would like to discuss your opinion on some ethical issues, which crop up in the most unusual places. I have two to discuss, let's talk about the first one and see how this goes.

My daughter recently saw the movie "Orphan", this discussion contains a huge spoiler for this movie, so if you haven't seen it and were planning, you may want to avoid this discussion.

The film is about a couple who adopt a child. There are limited records on this child and some strange happenings begin to attach to her.

In one scene, the orphan, who is 9 years old, puts on her mother's clothes and tries to seduce the adopting father. Rejecting her, he and his wife then dig further into the child's history. 

If you intend to see the film soon, you may to change threads now!!!!!!



What they find is that the girl has a syndrome which has her actually being 32 years old, and she is mentally disturbed.

Now I'd like to change the plot. Let's say the father decided to accept the daughter's advances, thinking she was 9. Let's further change the plot that he is found out and arrested. Now during the trial it is confirmed that she was actually 32 years old.

Other than the issue of marital fidelity, what other issues are there...


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> Now I'd like to change the plot. Let's say the father decided to accept the daughter's advances, thinking she was 9. Let's further change the plot that he is found out and arrested. Now during the trial it is confirmed that she was actually 32 years old.
> 
> Other than the issue of marital fidelity, what other issues are there...


The ethical implications of a choice (and there has to be a choice for ethics to pertain) derive from the *intended consequences* of that choice. That doesn't mean that not thinking about it gets you off the hook... negligence isn't always as bad as some choices, but it is a choice and has consequences.

In this case the guy thinks she's a nine-year-old, and is making choices on that basis. GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY. If she turns out to be a 32-year-old with a rare medical condition or an 18-year old police officer posing for a sting operation it makes no ethical difference. But I'd prefer to see the latter.

The classic thought experiment is someone going back in time and murdering a child. But it turns out that the child is Adolf Hitler. So the actual consequences turn out for the best. But the point ethically is the *intent*, so the culprit is still a murderer.

Cheers


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Hi bryanc, I agree with you 100% on this, so I am eager to see if anyone else posts. The point is, he assumed a responsibility to act as a parent, thus he must act as such. It would be interesting to see what the legal statues say on this. Can you say Woody Allen.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

bryanc said:


> The ethical implications of a choice (and there has to be a choice for ethics to pertain) derive from the *intended consequences* of that choice. That doesn't mean that not thinking about it gets you off the hook... negligence isn't always as bad as some choices, but it is a choice and has consequences.
> 
> In this case the guy thinks she's a nine-year-old, and is making choices on that basis. GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY. If she turns out to be a 32-year-old with a rare medical condition or an 18-year old police officer posing for a sting operation it makes no ethical difference. But I'd prefer to see the latter.
> 
> ...


Or let's say a guy goes back in time and goes on a rampage in a foreign country and kills hundreds of people with a different complexion and different eyes than his own. When he returns to his country he is regarded as a hero, not a murderer, and even receives medals for his heroism. Oh, wait a minute—that _did_ happen. And still does happen.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

I really dislike the idea of "intent to commit" being a crime. It makes thoughts culpable rather than actions. It's what you DO that matters, not what you intended to do. That goes for both good and bad intentions, IMO.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

bsenka said:


> I really dislike the idea of "intent to commit" being a crime. It makes thoughts culpable rather than actions. It's what you DO that matters, not what you intended to do. That goes for both good and bad intentions, IMO.


I can see your point, but that sounds more like a "legal" view. Something can be legal but not ethical ... I think that is the problem with our societal view in North America ... we only concentrate on the legal side of an issue.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bsenka said:


> I really dislike the idea of "intent to commit" being a crime. It makes thoughts culpable rather than actions. It's what you DO that matters, not what you intended to do. That goes for both good and bad intentions, IMO.


What about attempted murder? Do you not think this should be a crime?

What about conspiracy to commit a murder? As in when someone tries to hire a hit man but it is actually a sting operation?

Intent is important when an action is involved, just because the action failed to meet it's intent does not mean that an immoral or unethical action didn't take place.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> The classic thought experiment is someone going back in time and murdering a child. But it turns out that the child is Adolf Hitler. So the actual consequences turn out for the best. But the point ethically is the *intent*, so the culprit is still a murderer.
> 
> Cheers


Unless, of course, (and I am walking on dangerous ground here, I know) that one of the people who would have died as a child in the Holocaust would grow up to become a world leader and murder six million gentiles instead.

That was not among the intended consequences either.... Isn't the road to hell paved with good intentions?

Intent is important... most people make a distinction between accidentally killing someone and intentionally killing someone. We even have a different word for it--you don't generally hear about people 'accidentally murdering' someone, do you? 

Now intent may not be the be all and end all of the crime, but it is a factor.

Though in bryanc's example, I see that less about intent than about actions. The action was to murder a child. Perhaps it was a well-intentioned murder (as strange as that phrase is) but it's a deliberate killing nonetheless.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

screature said:


> What about attempted murder? Do you not think this should be a crime?
> 
> What about conspiracy to commit a murder? As in when someone tries to hire a hit man but it is actually a sting operation?
> 
> Intent is important when an action is involved, just because the action failed to meet it's intent does not mean that an immoral or unethical action didn't take place.




Attempted murder is an action, it's a definition of a type of assault. That's perfectly legit.

"Conspiracy to commit" is a whole lot muddier, IMO, as it can involve a situation where the police are manufacturing a crime that never would have existed had they not been the ones pursuing it.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

However, evidence creation is another ethical question don't you think?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bsenka said:


> Attempted murder is an action, it's a definition of a type of assault. That's perfectly legit.
> 
> "Conspiracy to commit" is a whole lot muddier, IMO, as it can involve a situation where the police are manufacturing a crime that never would have existed had they not been the ones pursuing it.


But if someone is going to meet with another person that they think will be "taking care" of someone for them, that is an action on their part, regardless of it being a sting operation.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*New Question:*

Man has always been fascinated by machines. In fact, we often base our understanding of ourselves on our inventions. We really didn't understand the heart until be made the pump, and we really didn't understand how the brain worked until we invented computers. So here's the issue:

Man in his wisdom wants to build the ultimate computer. He understands memory, but what he cannot understand is the creation of thought. Finally he succeeds in creating an organic microchip, which can actually learn on its own, and have its own thoughts. In effect, a fully functioning manufactured brain. He suddenly realises his error in this discovery and is faced with a moral and ethical issue.

If he shuts off the computer or destroys the organic processor, has he committed murder? Because he has created a computer which can think on its own, has he created a sentient being? If it is a sentient being, does it have a soul?

Your turn.....


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

This very question has been addressed, as so many ethical questions have, in Doctor Who.

It's more than murder, it's genocide (since the organic processor would undoubtedly be able to create additional organic processors, so you are wiping out a new race, not just a sentient being.

Is that wrong? Depends on whether you think a Creator has the right to revoke his creation. I do -- not to mention we have already made thousands of species extinct either accidentally or on purpose -- so it's not a problem.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

I'm glad to see this thread has sprung back to life... these are things I've always enjoyed discussing and arguing with intelligent people with different perspectives.

Firstly, I just want to give a nod the disscussion that's gone before:

Ethics does not equal morality or legality. 

Legality must, because we cannot know people's thoughts, hinge on *real* consequences, and the pragmatic needs of society. Ideally, we'd like ethics to govern law, and, personally, I think we do reasonably well in this regard, but there is obviously lots of room for improvement in this regard.

If we can agree on some terminology, we'll probably have more fun, and at the very least, we'll know what we're disagreeing about. So, I'll start by asking "what do the words 'ethics' and 'morality' mean?"

The definitions we used for these words when I studied philosophy as an undergrad were something like this:

An ethical system defines what is "right" or "good" and what is "wrong" or "evil".

Morality is the personal desire to behave ethically (what ever that might mean to the individual in question) when they believe they are not being observed.

So we might agree, for example, that returning lost property to the right owner is an ethically "good" thing to do (the reasons for why this is "right" or "good" will depend on the ethical system used, but most ethical systems would agree that this is a good thing to do).

So, upon finding a lost wallet full of money in the woods while walking by myself, what determines if I return it to the owner, or just take the cash, is my morality.


This brings me to my question for you to consider: I'm often told by various religious people that without God there can be no morality. While you may argue with the definitions of the terms that I learned as a philosophy student, it seems to me that by these definitions, there can be no morality *with* God. If you're a theist who believes in an omniscient judge who not only knows all your actions, but also all your thoughts, morality can never pertain to your actions. The best you can do is enlightened self-interest. You may return the wallet, but you don't believe you'd have "gotten away" with keeping the cash if you believe in an omniscient judge. 

Only the atheist can choose to be moral.

Thoughts?


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> If he shuts off the computer or destroys the organic processor, has he committed murder?


Yes. And genocide. This is an old classic in Sci-Fi.

But it comes down to wether your ethical system is consequentialist (mine is), or deontological. If you're a deontologist (like Kant), and you believe in immortal souls, then the question becomes much more murky... did the computer have a soul? Given that I don't believe that souls exist, this is a trivial problem for me. Sentience becomes the currency of ethical consequence... where things become murky is in ascribing sentience.

I'm okay with swatting a mosquito, and I'll kill a fish or even a mouse to do the experiments I need to do to answer the questions I have about biology (that being said, I'm very aware of how many animals I use, and go to great lengths to minimize the numbers used and eliminate/minimize any suffering they might experience). But I couldn't do research on dogs, monkeys, or even cephalopod mollusks, because I suspect they're highly self-aware.

For anyone that's into the terminology, I see myself as a Millsian Utilitarian. I spent a fair amount of time as an undergrad evolving J.S.Mill's principle of Utility to extend in a graded way as a function of sentience, and I've never really found much more I could do to improve the system after that.

Cheers


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Persons have ethics - societies have mores.

Morality is the degree to which your personal ethics is in step or close to the mores of your society.

At one time it was perfectly moral to have slaves tho many found it ethically distasteful.

Legality, mores and ethics can get tangled and out of sync as well as with the marijuana laws just now.

The law is out step with many personal ethos vis a vie drugs and even the wider moral climate is also out of step with the legal system.

Mores emerge guided by the structure of law and the individual ethics of persons.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Rps said:


> Man has always been fascinated by machines. In fact, we often base our understanding of ourselves on our inventions. We really didn't understand the heart until be made the pump, and we really didn't understand how the brain worked until we invented computers. So here's the issue:
> 
> Man in his wisdom wants to build the ultimate computer. He understands memory, but what he cannot understand is the creation of thought. Finally he succeeds in creating an organic microchip, which can actually learn on its own, and have its own thoughts. In effect, a fully functioning manufactured brain. He suddenly realises his error in this discovery and is faced with a moral and ethical issue.
> 
> ...


I think we are a long way off, and we brag about our computers as being some kind of achievement, but are still is in a very crude state. We simply do not understand how thoughts work. Sure, we can use logic to make decisions based on a Yes or No premise, but next to some dabbling in fuzzy logic - and surely these are powerful tools, but are no where near complex enough to have "machine intelligence".

Our minds do not work like a computer - there is no CPU, no accumulator - but rather, our neural networks operate in the analog world, more like complex circuits built out of operational amplifiers, which can deal with the arbitrary and illogical. There was a "contest" put on by an electronics group some years ago, which defined a mathematical problem that one would need to design an electronic circuit of some sort to solve in real time. So one group came up with software that needed a four processor Pentium system, and some crazy whack amount of memory and drive space (at least for the day) - but it performed the solution in an acceptable manner. Another group came up with a fuzzy logic system using customed programmed grid arrays, and wrote an expert system for it. So who was the winner? It was the dude from National Semiconductor (I can't recall the name off the top of my head, but he was the inventor of the Super OpAmp) - who did the whole task with a Quad Op-Amp, and the computation was entirely implemented using a handful of capacitors and resistors.

The point is that our minds are not binary - in fact we know of no life that employs a binary system for such problem solving; but rather, that neural networks are analogous to amplifiers that can behave in different ways given different feedback and configurations - and that these networks are entirely able to evolve, learn, reconfigure, and even repair themselves from damage. A CPU with a single defective transistor is an unusable ruin - while life can entirely exist while sustaining a great deal of damage and quite often, bad configuration.

If we want to create "artificial intelligence", we will only achieve that through some massive breakthrough that allows us to build thousands, or millions of Op-Amps on a single chip, that is entirely programmable through configuration of feedback elements and input conditioning. We are a long way from that. No computer that we have now can have "understanding" - even the most advanced computers can only "beat" a world chess champion though playing through billions of moves per second, while the mystery is why a human champion can even mount a defense based on a mind that has no "gigahertz", and may even perform that task while thinking about other things, like wondering what's for lunch, or dreaming of shagging a hot hooker later that night, all while wondring if they can get away with scratching their nads because they are itching...

As for the ethics... God once detroyed the world to purify it, saving only Noah and the Ark - then went on to denouce Himself for that profane act since it was so unethical and against the universal goodness that He embodies.

The ramifications of such machines surely are the purvey of the Science-fiction realm. As for our current computer technology, really, we are not moving that much forward, as evidenced by the Intel Atom...


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

EvanPitts said:


> I think we are a long way off


I agree. I had a discussion with Marvin Minsky back in the late '90s about this and, while he remained optimistic that we will some day develop machine intelligence, he was convinced that we wouldn't 'invent' it, per se. Because we don't understand what minds are, we won't be able to build one from first principles. But it isn't necessarily true that for a machine to be intelligent, it needs to emulate the way our minds work. Minsky argued (and I agree) that we'll like develop some types of machine intelligence that we don't initially recognize as intelligence because it will be fundamentally different (both in underlying mechanisms and in external manifestation) than ours.



> Our minds do not work like a computer


No, they don't. It's interesting, don't you think, that throughout history, people have used the most advanced technology of the time as an analogy for the brain? Early philosophers drew analogies between looms and the human mind, later, people thought the brain was like a telephone switchboard, and now, the brain "is like a computer". The brain is not a computer, but ...



> The point is that our minds are not binary - in fact we know of no life that employs a binary system


I think you're over simplifying here. Neurons do function in a binary fashion. They either depolarize or they don't. Their thresholds change, and the threshold for one synapse can be different than for another, but the cell itself either depolarizes or does not, so it's a binary mechanism. I think that what you're getting at is that the number of these binary elements, and the patterns of connections between them (neurons in the brain can have over 10^5 synapses with other neurons) is vastly more complex than anything we can fabricate at the moment.

At any rate, regardless of the implementation, a self-aware system has ethical value, and cannot be unilaterally terminated without consequence, which was the point of the original gedanken experiment.

Cheers


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Hi bryanc, first, how is the weather down there ... was NB in any danger from "Bill". I think another point is, and you touch on this, do we recongise intelligence when we see it. We only seem to understand it when we can compare it to something we've made. Does a rock have intelligence? Does a tree? They may not react to things the way we do, but a rock has a cycle, a "life" if you will ... if you equate erosion to its life cycle. And what of a tree... to further the question... is intelligence man made or man recognised.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> first, how is the weather down there ... was NB in any danger from "Bill".


Rather anticlimactic... we had a brief but heavy rain this morning, and a few hours of windy weather, but it's calm, warm and humid now.



> I think another point is, and you touch on this, do we recongise intelligence when we see it.


This is a huge problem in AI, and psychology in general. Intelligence, it turns out, is a rather poorly defined term. Most of us seem to have a reasonably congruent idea of what we mean by 'intelligence' but, it's very difficult to objectively pin down what this means. Self awareness, and sentience are similarly squishy concepts, but ones that are similarly crucial in defining artificial intelligence.

What many people have been doing for decades is saying "to hell with the philosophy, let's just get on with making machines that have the properties of intelligence and we can argue about wether they're really intelligent later."

So we now have machines that can recognize objects and people, navigate in complex real-world environments, beat the living crap out of the best human chess players, and identify the composers of musical selections. All of these things are behavioral manifestations of intelligence, but because we know *how* the machines are doing it (we can read and understand their programming) we don't call it intelligence.

I suspect there's a "blick" (as Daniel Dennet would say) in our thinking. We have a deep-seated psychological need to think of ourselves and our intelligence as somehow 'magical', so when we see a machine achieve something by non-magical means, it ipso facto, must not be intelligence; it's just a clever trick of programming that *looks* intelligent.

While I'd agree with EvanPitts, that we're still a very long way from achieving anything that resembles human intelligence in machines, I'd say that we are almost incapable of recognizing intelligence in any artificial construct because of our preconceptions about intelligence.



> Does a rock have intelligence?


I'd say unequivocally no. It has no mechanism by which to process information or to act on it.



> Does a tree?


This is not quite so straight forward, but I'd still say no. It definitely collects information and acts on it, but it has no nervous system or other complex information processing system to assemble information and consider possible actions. It's genetic programming may be well-adapted to it's environment, in which case it's physiological responses to stimuli will be appropriate, or it's maladapted. That is not intelligence, that's physiology.

When you look at the behavior of a fish, or a bird, for example, intelligence begins to emerge in the complexity of their responses and their ability to learn. Dogs, elephants, dolphins, and octopuses are all obviously intelligent in that they exhibit complex problem-solving behavior and the ability to learn (octopuses can even learn vicariously). While it may be possible for something without a nervous system to exhibit these properties of intelligence, they would have to have some other mechanism with similar information-processing capacity. Rocks and trees don't have this.

I should add, however, that simply because something lacks intelligence or sentience does not mean that it lacks ethical value. A tree may have no self-awareness and cutting it down may therefore not have a direct ethical cost, but a tree is habitat (and food) for animals that probably do have self-awareness, it is an important contributor to the ecosystem on which all self-aware entities depend, and it may be a beautiful thing that gives pleasure to many, and may therefore have great indirect ethical value.

Cheers


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Some plants are capable of signalling via chemicals the presence of a predator or even a competitor and executing other reactive behaviour to environmental changes.
It may be low level but there some degree of sentience even without a traditional neural network.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

[/QUOTE]This brings me to my question for you to consider: I'm often told by various religious people that without God there can be no morality. While you may argue with the definitions of the terms that I learned as a philosophy student, it seems to me that by these definitions, there can be no morality *with* God. If you're a theist who believes in an omniscient judge who not only knows all your actions, but also all your thoughts, morality can never pertain to your actions. The best you can do is enlightened self-interest. You may return the wallet, but you don't believe you'd have "gotten away" with keeping the cash if you believe in an omniscient judge. 

Only the atheist can choose to be moral.

Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

Now this is an interesting thought! My first impression is that if I believe in G_d, then all is known ... so you are right in some respect ... but only if the judge knows I am going to, or not going to keep the money. If I am a believer and I follow the "ethics" of my faith [ whether they are legal or not ] I am moral, what I maybe is illegal ... which then, opens the question ... if I am moral and illegal can I be ethical?


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

> Now this is an interesting thought! My first impression is that if I believe in G_d, then all is known ... so you are right in some respect ... but only if the judge knows I am going to, or not going to keep the money.


The important thing here is that you *believe* your decision is being monitored, so you are not free to behave morally. That doesn't make you immoral, it just means that if you believe in an omniscient judge, morality doesn't pertain to your choices.

The only exception I can think of is if an agent goes against the teachings of their church on moral grounds. So, for example, if Abraham had decided that God's command to sacrifice his son was evil, and had refused to do so, knowing that God would punish him, Abraham would've been behaving morally, despite being a believer. But basically, under any 'normal' circumstances, I don't think a theist has the opportunity to develop morals because they believe that they're under constant surveillance.

Cheers


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

MacDoc said:


> It may be low level but there some degree of sentience even without a traditional neural network.


I don't think so. There's no reason to posit any self-awareness with regard to the phenomena you describe. Bacteria do similar things (quorum sensing, adjusting their metabolism to increase viral resistance in response to compounds released by their neighbors, etc.). Complexity isn't evidence for intelligence.

It certainly is interesting though.

Cheers


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

I'm would agree except that G_d allows us to make the choice ... since we make the choice, we choose to be moral, and I don't see why we can't still be believers and be moral. Many a person does something under surveillance which is illegal [ read unethical ].


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

bryanc said:


> . Complexity isn't evidence for intelligence.
> 
> It certainly is interesting though.
> 
> Cheers


 Maybe complexity is an intelligence we haven't yet learned to understand. I have always thought that we are the most arrogant species on the face of this earth. Unless we can talk to it and understand its reply, it has no intelligence. We are very myopic ... however religious supporters will tell us what lens to look through ... I think we need to discover our lens for ourselves.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> I'm would agree except that G_d allows us to make the choice ... since we make the choice, we choose to be moral, and I don't see why we can't still be believers and be moral.


The key distinction is that in order for your morality to pertain to your choices, you have to *believe* you are unobserved, or at least, that the observer may disapprove of your actions... if you make ethical choices, but you do so while believing you're being watched, there can be no distinction between morality and self-interest. You are right, however, that people under surveillance still sometimes choose to break the rules (ethical or legislated), and these *are* moral choices... but we'd generally define them as "immoral." So while I agree that it's possible for believers to be immoral, I don't think they have much opportunity to be moral (although I can think of several "edge cases" where morality could pertain to a believer's choices... for example, the mother who drowned her children in order to save them from temptation could reasonably be said to have been behaving morally... she believed she was ensuring their entry to heaven by killing them while they were still innocent, even at the cost of her own immortal soul. Certainly a commendable moral choice, even if completely bat-sh*t crazy from any rational perspective).

What I think you're getting at is free will (i.e. that even if there's an omniscient observer, we still make our choice and therefore can be fairly judged for our intended consequences). I don't think this holds water either. There's a fundamental paradox caused by positing free will and omniscience. If God exists and is omniscient, we cannot have free will. If we have free will, God either cannot exist or cannot be omniscient.

If an omniscient entity exists, then your choices are illusory; said omniscient entity, by definition, knows what you will choose, so you really have no choice.

Fortunately for the materialist/rationalist philosopher/scientist, there's no reason to think that omniscience is even a theoretical possibility, and many reasons to think it's not. So this is only a problem if you believe in gods/demons.

Cheers


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> Maybe complexity is an intelligence we haven't yet learned to understand.


This illustrates my earlier point. It's clear that our disagreement is about the meaning of the word 'intelligence.' 



> Unless we can talk to it and understand its reply, it has no intelligence.


Ironically, this is the definition of "language"... another important idea in the philosophy of mind that is in desperate need of a objectively coherent definition.



> I think we need to discover our lens for ourselves.


I can't argue with this. However, how will we know when we've found it?

Cheers


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bryanc said:


> There's a fundamental paradox caused by positing free will and omniscience. If God exists and is omniscient, we cannot have free will. If we have free will, God either cannot exist or cannot be omniscient.
> 
> If an omniscient entity exists, then your choices are illusory; said omniscient entity, by definition, knows what you will choose, so you really have no choice.
> 
> Cheers


The point you are making is often referred to as theological fatalism and there are many "viewpoints" to deal with the apparent paradox:


God can know in advance what I will do, because free will is to be understood only as freedom from coercion, and anything further is an illusion.
God can know in advance what I will do, even though free will in the fullest sense of the phrase does exist. God somehow has a "middle knowledge" - that is, knowledge of how free agents will act in any given circumstances.
God can know all possibilities. The same way a master chess player is able to anticipate not only one scenario but several and prepare the moves in response to each scenario, God is able to figure all consequences from what I will do next moment, since my options are multiple but still limited.
The sovereignty (autonomy) of God, existing within a free agent, provides strong inner compulsions toward a course of action (calling), and the power of choice (election). The actions of a human are thus determined by a human acting on relatively strong or weak urges (both from God and the environment around them) and their own relative power to choose.
 God chooses to foreknow and foreordain (and, therefore, predetermine) some things, but not others. This allows a free moral choice on the part of man for those things that God choose not to foreordain. It accomplishes this by attributing to God the ability for Him, Himself, to be a free moral agent with the ability to choose what He will, and will not, foreknow, assuming God exists in linear time (or at least an analogue thereof) where "foreknowledge" is a meaningful concept.
It is not possible for God to know the result of a free human choice. Omniscience should therefore be interpreted to mean "knowledge of everything that can be known". God can know what someone will do, but only by predetermining it; thus, he chooses the extent of human freedom by choosing what (if anything) to know in this way.
God stands outside time, and therefore can know everything free agents do, since He does not know these facts "in advance", he knows them before they are even conceived and long after the actions have occurred. The free agent's future actions therefore remain contingent to himself and others in linear time but are logically necessary to God on account of His infallibly accurate all-encompassing view. This was the solution offered by Thomas Aquinas.
Instead of producing a parallel model in God's own infallible mind of the future contingent actions of a free agent (thus suppressing the agent's free will), God encodes his knowledge of the agent's actions in the original action itself.
God passively seeing the infinite future in no way alters it, anymore than us reading a history book influences the past by simply observing it retrospectively. However, He might choose (or not) to read any chapter or the ending, or open the book at any page.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has stated that man does have limited free will; he can decide whether or not to surrender to the will of Krishna. Otherwise, all material happenings and their implications are inconceivably predestined. This concept being subject to challenge in customary affairs, it is then also somewhat ridiculed as a philosophy.
God cannot be Omniscient and Omnipotent. If he is omniscient, he knows exactly what he is going to do and he cannot change that, so he is not omnipotent.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

screature said:


> The point you are making is often referred to as theological fatalism and there are many "viewpoints" to deal with the apparent paradox:


All of which are either logically flawed or put limitations on the definition of "God" or "free will."



> God can know in advance what I will do, because free will is to be understood only as freedom from coercion, and anything further is an illusion.





which is not "free will" in the normal sense.


> [*]God can know in advance what I will do, even though free will in the fullest sense of the phrase does exist. God somehow has a "middle knowledge" - that is, knowledge of how free agents will act in any given circumstances.


this is logically non-sensical... what is this "middle knowledge"... if God knows how you will choose, you are not free to choose otherwise, even if you might believe you are.



> [*]God can know all possibilities. The same way a master chess player is able to anticipate not only one scenario but several and prepare the moves in response to each scenario, God is able to figure all consequences from what I will do next moment, since my options are multiple but still limited.


In this case, God does not know what is going to happen... He just knows what the possibilities are. This is not an omniscient God.



> [*]The sovereignty (autonomy) of God, existing within a free agent, provides strong inner compulsions toward a course of action (calling), and the power of choice (election). The actions of a human are thus determined by a human acting on relatively strong or weak urges (both from God and the environment around them) and their own relative power to choose.


Again, this God is not omniscient.



> [*] God chooses to foreknow and foreordain (and, therefore, predetermine) some things, but not others.


This God is not omniscient.



> [*]It is not possible for God to know the result of a free human choice.


This god is not omniscient.



> [*]God stands outside time, and therefore can know everything free agents do, since He does not know these facts "in advance", he knows them before they are even conceived and long after the actions have occurred.


The actions of agents in a universe viewed from "outside time" are not free. If "outside time" exists, free will does not.



> [*]Instead of producing a parallel model in God's own infallible mind of the future contingent actions of a free agent (thus suppressing the agent's free will), God encodes his knowledge of the agent's actions in the original action itself.


I'm not sure this makes sense, but if I understand it correctly, its just another way of saying agents in this universe don't have free will.



> [*]God passively seeing the infinite future in no way alters it, anymore than us reading a history book influences the past by simply observing it retrospectively.


Choices made in the past cannot be undone. They are no longer free (assuming they ever were).



> [*]Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has stated that man does have limited free will; he can decide whether or not to surrender to the will of Krishna. Otherwise, all material happenings and their implications are inconceivably predestined.


In this view neither is God/Krishna omniscient, nor is the agent free.



> [*]God cannot be Omniscient and Omnipotent. If he is omniscient, he knows exactly what he is going to do and he cannot change that, so he is not omnipotent.



This is another paradox altogether, but it is certainly another hole in the logic of some religions.

I should add that, as a materialist/objectivist, I don't believe in free will in the Cartesian sense either, but I'm just arguing that omniscience and Cartesian free will are mutually exclusive.

Cheers


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bryanc said:


> ...or put limitations on the definition of "God" or "free will."


Your point being...?

Is not God as a concept a human construction... is not free will? 

There are concepts of God that do not include omniscience as a characteristic of God. Omniscience is only part of a particular construct and seems to play into your argument that one can only choose to act morally if one does not believe in God. Or to use your words exactly, "Only the atheist can choose to be moral." However, there are multitudinously more views and constructs of God than the limited view you have portrayed.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

In my view, and I am not a religious person, but I do respect those that are ... I have free will .... it is my belief that even if I have a religion, which provides the basis for my moral and ethical decisions... I still decide what I do and when I do it. Where the problem comes in, and bryanc you outline this in the post above, is when someone acts on the behalf of or on what they think their religion has taught them to believe is in the "greater good" of their G_d, such as the drowning of children because the believer actually believes they are possessed by the devil. [ your example ] ... I still maintain that if the belief system of many religions were true, why aren't there more suicides? Wouldn't that true believer want to actually hurry the process to see their G_d .... I think this is, wisely, choice.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Rps said:


> In my view, and I am not a religious person, but I do respect those that are ... I have free will .... it is my belief that even if I have a religion, which provides the basis for my moral and ethical decisions... I still decide what I do and when I do it. Where the problem comes in, and bryanc you outline this in the post above, is when someone acts on the behalf of or on what they think their religion has taught them to believe is in the "greater good" of their G_d, such as the drowning of children because the believer actually believes they are possessed by the devil. [ your example ] ... I still maintain that if the belief system of many religions were true, why aren't there more suicides? Wouldn't that true believer want to actually hurry the process to see their G_d .... I think this is, wisely, choice.


Rps, many religions hold that life is dear and to commit suicide is a grave sin. In other words, if you go for the whole script, it ain't up to you when to check out - it's the Big Guy who gets to decide. You either go with that script or you wriggle out and find another script perhaps less constraining in its parameters. Or, of course, you toss the scripts altogether and write your own.

We won't get into debating the inherent clashes in many major religious streams of thought regarding discussions about the relative value of life as it relates to stuff like euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, etc. It's an ethical minefield. And it's also full of Byzantine twists and turns in logic.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Max said:


> an ethical minefield. And it's also full of Byzantine twists and turns in logic.


 I certainly agree with that. What I am wondering is, and I'm sure to catch flack for this, but is the concept of religion ethical? When you consider all the trouble in the world [ past and present ] one would wonder? Personally, I always thought of religion as a "kind of police force" if you will that keeps 98% of the population in some form of harmony ...


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

That's not a bad theory. The police force thing is actually OK in principle; yet we also know from history that unruly mob behaviour allows us to do things as a group which we would never permit ourselves to do as individuals - lynchings, rapings, hooliganism, theft, vandalism, etc. Sometimes we ennoble these activities by throwing an umbrella called 'war' over our actions and pretend, for as long as we can, that anything goes, so long as it's for the right reason.

Keeping the populace in relative harmony is most definitely a carrot and stick thing.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

screature said:


> Your point being...?
> 
> Is not God as a concept a human construction... is not free will?


Excellent points. Yes they are entirely human concepts, and both are almost certainly without objective existence.



> There are concepts of God that do not include omniscience as a characteristic of God. Omniscience is only part of a particular construct and seems to play into your argument.


My bad. You're absolutely right. I was working with the idea of the Omniscient Abrahamic God and I should've made that limitation explicit.



> However, there are multitudinously more views and constructs of God than the limited view you have portrayed.


Totally. And I have much less basis to argue against the Buddhist, or Deists (although I do still disagree with these positions).

Thanks for pointing this out... I do need to be reminded sometimes.

Cheers


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> ... I have free will ...


ORLY? How do you know? How would you distinguish an agent who had 'free will' from one who didn't? How would you even define free will?



> if I have a religion, which provides the basis for my moral and ethical decisions...


How can religion provide a basis for ethics? The only way I can imagine it doing so is by teaching you that $DEITY says X is good and Y is bad.

Which is handy when you're dealing with children or an effectively naive population that you can't trust to think and make judgements for themselves in circumstances where X usually has good consequences and Y usually has bad consequences. But what if you're dealing with intelligent adults, who can reason out for themselves why it's a good idea to do X and a bad idea to do Y? Wouldn't it be better to teach them to consider the consequences of their actions and act accordingly. Most of the time they'll do X and not do Y, but under the rare circumstances where Y is actually the right thing to do, they won't be scared to make the right choice.

Organized religion has been a spectacularly successful means of controlling the masses and keeping them from thinking for themselves.

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” - Seneca, 

Cheers.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Max said:


> We won't get into debating the inherent clashes in many major religious streams of thought regarding discussions about the relative value of life as it relates to stuff like euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, etc. It's an ethical minefield. And it's also full of Byzantine twists and turns in logic.


Interestingly (to me, anyway), the logical complexities in dealing with issues like euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, etc. completely evaporate when you take religion out of the analysis. From an ethical POV, these are generally trivial problem, however from a pragmatic and personal POV they can still be fraught with emotional challenges and difficult judgements, but that is simply because the specifics of a case must be considered on it's own; there is no "killing is always wrong" deontological rule to fall back on.

Indeed, the difficulty deontological ethical systems (including religiously based systems) have with these issues is strong evidence that they are fundamentally flawed.

Cheers


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

bryanc, here's the point, from my perspective. I have free will because I believe I have it. I do not hear little voices saying do this or that. What I hear is the prior teachings of my parents, teachers, friends, students, and even dogs.

Laws were created to bring some order to society, I try to obey the law to be a good citizen, most laws are taught to us by our parents, teachers, friends, students and dogs ... if I choose to follow them, it is my choice, I weigh the consequences ... I take the action .... case in point, tell me you have never driven even 1km over the speed limit.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

bryanc said:


> Indeed, the difficulty deontological ethical systems (including religiously based systems) have with these issues is strong evidence that they are fundamentally flawed.
> 
> Cheers


 While I agree with you, the bottom line on this statement is: that's what faith is all about.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> What I am wondering is, and I'm sure to catch flack for this, but is the concept of religion ethical?


I think I catch your drift, but the way you've phrased this is like asking if the concept of faeries is ethical. Ideas aren't ethical, choices and actions are.

But you're point that religion is a fairly effective way of getting people to behave acceptably is a good one. This is the primary reason many scholars have given for the ubiquity of religions in primitive cultures.

It is not until we can reliably assume that the vast majority of our citizens have reached at least Piaget's second stage of moral development that we can really hope to do without religion as a superstitious impediment to unacceptable behavior. Fortunately, in modern society, that's usually about the age of 7 to 9 for normal children, which (perhaps not coincidentally) is the age it starts getting pretty difficult to convince bright kids that they're being watched by an invisible policeman in the sky.

Cheers


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Just wondering .... time for a new question? Your turn.......


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> I have free will because I believe I have it.


Would you accept that I have a dragon in my garage because I claim I have it?

Your claim that you have free will is an extraordinary one (in that it defies the laws of physics), so it will require some more substantive evidence to convince me.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I have no doubt that you *believe* you make choices, and I make no claims that I, or anyone else, could predict what choices you would make under all circumstances. But that is not evidence of free will (in the Cartesian sense of being unconstrained by the material universe).

As the day goes on, and your metabolism functions, it's pretty easy for me to predict that you will eventually get hungry and 'choose' to eat something. Your choice of what to eat may be similarly constrained by what's in the fridge.

Wether you choose to break the law by exceeding the speed limit may be influenced by many factors (you may need to pee, or you may have forgotten to turn the stove off, or you might be keen to get home to install the latest update of OS X), so it's not entirely free. In fact, the more someone knows about your past, your genetics, your physiological state and your present circumstances the better they will be able to predict your 'choices.' Indeed, perfect knowledge, at the quantum level, of your brain and your perceptual environment would yield perfect predictability (this becomes arguable because of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, but conceptually Laplace's Demon, on which this idea is based, is not subject to Heisenburg's annoying physics). 

Fortunately for a materialist such as myself, we don't have to worry about Laplace's demon predicting our actions, because no such entity can exist within a finite universe.

So what are we left with? We can't have Cartesian Free Will within a material universe, but we can have behavior that is so intractably complex that, for anything less than an omniscient mind, is effectively unpredictable in the ethically important ways, so it has all the philisophical properties of Cartesian Free Will without invoking magic. For me, that's as good as I need.

If you'd like to read and think more about this sort of stuff, I'd suggest some of Daniel Dennet's early work (Elbow Room is a great place to start).

Cheers


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> time for a new question? Your turn.......


Okay... here's one.

Many moral "leaders" pontificate about the ethics of sexual relationships (which, IMHO, is none of their business).

Suppose a married couple with no kids decides after long discussion, that their sex life is boring, and that they ought to explore sexual relationships with others outside their marriage. Even assuming unwanted pregnancies and STDs are not an issue, there are many who would denounce this sort of behavior as 'immoral.'

What do you think?

As far as I can tell, as long as no one is getting hurt, there's no ethical cost, and if everyone is enjoying themselves, that's great.

Cheers


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

And another: Should government ban/censor 'objectionable' material?


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

First, as related to an above post, I'll research the book "Elbow Room", somehow I know this title....

Anyway, to answer your question, if the couple truly believe that no one will get hurt, and that each party will not have their action held against them, from my perspective, it's their business.

But one would wonder about the concept that "no one gets hurt". I don't know about that .... to use a bad expression, you may be opening Pandora's Box here ....


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> there are many who would denounce this sort of behavior as 'immoral.'


Society have more's so if the wife swapping is outsid that norm then it well may be immoral at that point in time but the couple may be comfortable with it personally from an ethical standpoint.
Wife beating may have been moral at one time but unethical for many men.

So too with abortion

May be ethical for some women in a society that considers it immoral

May be unethical for some in a society that considers it moral or has no consensus or law on it ( Canada for instance )

Keeping ethics for individuals and mores for society ( they are emergent but may be guided by law or education or propaganda _ marijuana for instance ) separated makes it far easier to discuss.

It allows a breach between the individual and the society as it is generally in reality.

Morality in my view tends to trail a shift in ethics - and the law trail even further behind.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> ...you may be opening Pandora's Box here ....


How did you know her name was Pandora?!? Has she been hitting on you already?


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

bryanc said:


> How did you know her name was Pandora?!? Has she been hitting on you already?


 As my age I wish.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

MacDoc said:


> Morality in my view tends to trail a shift in ethics - and the law trail even further behind.


Someone once said that "morality, like art, always begins by drawing a line. I guess it depends on whether you are the person drawing the line, and how big a line you have drawn.

Rp


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> Someone once said that "morality, like art, always begins by drawing a line.


I'd love to have an attribution for this quote. 

When I studied ethics as an undergraduate, this was my single best trick... Many of the great ethical philosophers of the past are *easy* targets for someone who recognizes that right/wrong good/evil are not binary concepts, but rather spectra with shades of grey. I remember impressing the heck out of my profs by eviscerating Kant for being a binary thinker, and by expanding on J.S.Mill's Utilitarian Ethics with a graded spectrum of ethical value for species with progressively greater and lesser self-awareness. 

Two of my profs tried to convince me to write a graduate thesis on this topic, which I seriously considered. But then I also considered, what does one do with a graduate degree in philosophy?

Cheers


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

A little googling yielded this:

"Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere." ~G.K. Chesterton

Thanks.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Yep the mores of an existing time frame are like fat needles on that scale moving back and forth ( alcohol use - sexual freedom a couple of notables ).

When a million personal dials are far away from the society's supposed norms - as it is with marijuana just now, was with sex int he 60s and alcohol earlier last century - laws are due for an overhaul.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Yes, laws and social mores have next to nothing to do with ethics. Never have.

That being said, my second question, regarding wether government ought to control access to objectionable material is probably not worth arguing.

I doubt that anyone smart enough to hang around here would support a role for government in regulating access to information. I was just trolling for an argument 

So I'll open it up the lurkers... what do you see as challenging ethical questions?

Cheers


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Well how far is it off controlling access to booze or drugs.....

Hate speech, disturbing lyrics, adult movies, - seditious incitement, bomb making manuals....

Some memes are dangerous, some knowledge is dangerous and how do you handle kids ad for how long.

Is a strip club in the nanny neighbourhood always okay, the kirk , the drug dealer? The cookbook for crack in the school library???

What is the procedure for codifying social mores/comfort zone with individual ethics ( or lack of in some views ).

These are almost eternal questions for human societies.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> Yes, laws and social mores have next to nothing to do with ethics.


I think it's a feedback between them - I don; think they can ever be divorced from each other as the mores and laws arise from ethical decisions by individuals acting in concert.










There is a tension between the middle ethos making up the morality of the day and the outriders or more extreme ethical positions....babies as food for instance...

Laws curb the excesses that are dangerous to the public weal but suck when it comes to "no victim" issues.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

MacDoc said:


> some knowledge is dangerous and how do you handle kids ad for how long


Aye, there's the rub.

I'm fundamentally opposed to censorship, and I'd far rather my kid be exposed to the portrayals of and information about sex, violence, drugs and how to make bombs than that this information be [ineffectively] hidden and thereby elevated to the status of "forbidden fruit." But there is no question that certain information at certain times needs to be hidden (e.g. where the troops will be landing on D-day, what route the president's car will be taking to the inauguration, or how they get the caramel in the caramilk bar).

So to what extent should our government be controlling our access to information, and who should be the judge of what is accessible? What credentials should such a decision maker have and, more importantly, who should they be accountable to (i.e. who should pay their salary)?

Cheers


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

MacDoc said:


> I think it's a feedback between them - I don; think they can ever be divorced from each other as the mores and laws arise from ethical decisions by individuals acting in concert.


I'm not sure I agree with you here. While I'm not an absolutist, I don't think ethics are that subjective. Pleasure is good and pain is evil. Whatever brings about the greatest pleasure for the greatest number over the greatest time is the *right* choice.

What is dynamic and subject to the sociology (and other practicalities) of the time is the judgment that an individual has to make about what the *right* choice may be.

While standing up for the persecuted gay person may always be the desirable course of action, if it's just going to get you beaten and killed in the circumstances (due to the sociological mores* of the time), it may not be the ethically optimal choice. But the ethics aren't dynamic... persecuting someone because of their sexual preferences is consistently wrong, but social mores* and other dynamics are going to impact the outcome of the ethical calculus a responsible individual needs to do under a particular circumstance.

Similarly, while the ethics of drug use/prohibition haven't changed significantly for millennia, the legislative and political constraints on drugs have swung all over the map.

So social mores and legality are effectively divorced from ethics (although they still show up together at photo-ops).

Cheers

*you may have noted that I really don't like this concept. While there's no question that the social zeitgeist is of enormous importance in the crafting and passing of legislation, I really think it has no bearing on ethics at all. When the Aztecs were sacrificing virgins to their volcano gods, it was no more ethical because their government and society supported it than if we did it now.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

MacDoc said:


> Yep the mores of an existing time frame are like fat needles on that scale moving back and forth ( alcohol use - sexual freedom a couple of notables ).


I know someone who was almost expelled from graduate school (in the US) for working as a stripper while she was a graduate student (in biochemistry). This was considered 'immoral' and she salvaged her academic career by quitting that job (we were confident that the reason she was singled out was for refusing to give lap dances to a particularly lecherous old geezer who was influential in the department).

Sexual freedom remains one of my 'no-brainer' issues with respect to ethics. 

Cheers


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bryanc said:


> Excellent points. Yes they are entirely human concepts, and both are almost certainly without objective existence.
> 
> My bad. You're absolutely right. I was working with the idea of the Omniscient Abrahamic God and I should've made that limitation explicit.
> 
> ...



bryanc, thank you for the most reasoned and forthright responses. It is truly refreshing to enter into debate with others who are willing to engage in a fair and rational exchange and not doggedly cling to a thought or argument merely because they expressed it. Kudos to you. :clap:


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

bryanc said:


> I know someone who was almost expelled from graduate school (in the US) for working as a stripper while she was a graduate student


bryanc, I had to laugh when I read your post. Some friends and myself were at a "ballet" one night when one of our number [ who is a high school teacher ] mentioned the time he was at a similar establishment with some friends and he noticed that one of the dancers looked strangely familiar .... after her performance she walked to to him and said " Hello, Mr. XXXXX". He said he ran out of the club as fast as he could ... he laughs every time he tells that story, but I could see his point on running out of the club ... not so sure about expelling a graduate student for the same "heinous crime"....or should that be "heinieous" crime. 

Rp


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bryanc said:


> ... persecuting someone because of their sexual preferences is consistently wrong.


I think you have made a basic presumption here that extends beyond the language of your statement. 

"Sexual preferences" is a very wide open statement that can clearly cross ethical lines. I think a key component that you have left out of the language of your statement is *consensual* sexual preferences or acts. 

There are numerous sexual preferences that by their very nature entail an inequality of power and therefore constitute abuse because of their coercive aspects. To name but a few: paedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, and rape.

All of these would, in my consideration, warrant persecution in addition to prosecution.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

screature said:


> All of these would, in my consideration, warrant persecution in addition to prosecution.


I see your point, but I think the ethically important aspect of these is the harm to others. So it's not the preferences that are inherently evil, it's the consequences of acting on these preferences with non-consenting victims.

So if someone is a pedophile, but they only manifest this by getting their consenting, adult partner to dress up/pretend to be a child, it's certainly very creepy and not something I want to hear about, but there's no harm being done, so no ethical cost is associated with it.

Realistically, however, someone with those sorts of preferences will inevitably be either frustrated and unhappy or causing harm to others (or both), which is why I see these things as mental health problems.

Cheers


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bryanc said:


> Realistically, however, someone with those sorts of preferences will inevitably be either frustrated and unhappy or causing harm to others (or both), which is why I see these things as mental health problems.


Which begs a question. Can one act immorally/unethically if one is mentally ill? Or alternatively, Is it inherently a sign of some form of mental illness to act immorally/unethically?


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

screature, I'm wondering, in this day and age, if one who only acts morally and ethically is not mental ill?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bryanc said:


> I see your point, but I think the ethically important aspect of these is the harm to others. So it's not the preferences that are inherently evil, it's the consequences...
> Cheers


Nothing in the abstract is evil. It is always in the context of consequences that render *actions* to be judged "good" or "evil".


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

screature said:


> Which begs a question. Can one act immorally/unethically if one is mentally ill? Or alternatively, Is it inherently a sign of some form of mental illness to act immorally/unethically?


Great question... and as usual, I think the answer is not a simple yes/no.

To the extent that an individual is able to predict the consequences of their actions, they are ethically responsible for the consequences of their actions.

So if someone is mentally ill and it causes them to want to harm others, but they are fully aware of the fact that doing so will cause harm, then they are ethically responsible.

But if someone is mentally impaired to the extent that they cannot understand that their actions are causing harm, then they aren't ethically responsible.

Most cases will fall somewhere between the two extremes. For example, if a 2 year-old child does something that causes harm, we don't hold them accountable, but we do hold a 9-year-old somewhat accountable, and an 18-year-old fully accountable.

Philosophically, this is fairly simple, but practically, it may be effectively impossible to determine the extent to which any individual really understands the consequences of their actions, which is how the lawyers make their money.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

screature said:


> Nothing in the abstract is evil. It is always in the context of consequences that render *actions* to be judged "good" or "evil".


One of the great challenges in ethics is to establish what is "good" or "evil" in as objective a way as possible. J.S. Mill achieved this by defining pleasure as "good" and pain as "evil", which obviates the need for proving the logical validity of the position; we all behave this way anyway.

It's obvious that not all pleasurable things are really ethically good... but when you examine why this is the case, it is because they cause more long-term pain (or prevent the achievement of long-term happiness/pleasure), and are really a bad deal on the pleasure/pain scale. Given that you also have to consider the pleasure/pain consequences an action has on others, as well as the long-term effects, the pleasure/pain definition of good and evil actually works very well.

The great beauty of this definition is that it requires no gods, or complex logic to support it. Humans and other animals will act to maximize their pleasure and minimize their pain naturally, so this definition provides a naturalistic foundation for an ethical framework.

So, while I agree that nothing is ethically good or evil as an abstract, actions (or, more properly, their consequences) can be objectively good or evil, although we may not be able to objectively measure it.

Cheers


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bryanc said:


> Philosophically, this is fairly simple, but practically, it may be effectively impossible to determine the extent to which any individual really understands the consequences of their actions, which is how the lawyers make their money.


Exactly so. 

What one could conclude from your statements is that in your estimation the concept of "knowingly do no harm" is a moral imperative. As you indicate while in theory this may be an admirable or desirable ideal, in practice it is rarely so simple. In fact, there are so many forms of harm (emotional, psychological, physical, economic, environmental, etc., etc.) and the possibilities of a "butterfly effect", it almost impossible to "know" all of the harm one may be causing through ones actions. 

So given this "real world" scenario and the ethical imperative to "knowingly do no harm", does then it not become ones moral responsibility, to as fully as possible, be aware of all the possible consequences of one's actions? 

In fact if one did not make such efforts one could be accused of being "wilfully ignorant" of the consequences of ones actions in which case one could say that it was the ignorance itself that was unethical, a sin of omission if you will.

Which brings us back around to why lawyers make their money... because where is the line of ethical responsibility for how much effort one must or should put into determining the possible harm that may come from ones actions.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bryanc said:


> One of the great challenges in ethics is to establish what is "good" or "evil" in as objective a way as possible. J.S. Mill achieved this by defining pleasure as "good" and pain as "evil", which obviates the need for proving the logical validity of the position; we all behave this way anyway.
> 
> It's obvious that not all pleasurable things are really ethically good... but when you examine why this is the case, it is because they cause more long-term pain (or prevent the achievement of long-term happiness/pleasure), and are really a bad deal on the pleasure/pain scale. Given that you also have to consider the pleasure/pain consequences an action has on others, as well as the long-term effects, the pleasure/pain definition of good and evil actually works very well.
> 
> ...


It is certainly the predominate ethical model that is manifested in *Western* society.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

screature said:


> Exactly so. What one could conclude from your statements is that in your estimation the concept of "knowingly do no harm" is a moral imperative.


Yes, exactly. But it's worth pointing out that this 'principle of Utility' is based on objective reality, rather than some religious dogma or esoteric metaphysics.



> So given this "real world" scenario and the ethical imperative to "knowingly do no harm", does then it not become ones moral responsibility, to as fully as possible, be aware of all the possible consequences of one's actions?


Yes again! And this logical consequence also answers one of the philosophical questions that many have pondered, what is the ethical value of rational intelligence? 



> Which brings us back around to why lawyers make their money... because where is the line of ethical responsibility for how much effort one must or should put into determining the possible harm that may come from ones actions.


One of the fundamental differences between law and ethics is that the legal system has to draw lines. The process of making the arbitrary lines employs lots of lawyers (often in the guise of politicians), and the process of establishing on what side of any of these arbitrary lines a given case lies makes more money for lawyers.

Cheers


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

bryanc said:


> Yes, exactly. But it's worth pointing out that this 'principle of Utility' is based on objective reality, rather than some religious dogma or esoteric metaphysics.
> 
> 
> Cheers


Ok so how do you deal with this scenario.

You are out in the wilds on your own miles from civilization and you come upon a man who has a tree fallen on him and he is pinned by it as his arm is stuck underneath it. 

You cannot despite your best efforts free him. But you do have an axe. You could cut off his arm to free him but while you are thinking about this option the man drifts into unconsciousness so you cannot ask if this in option he would entertain.

If you leave him to get help will almost surely die. If you cut off his arm you will have maimed him and may die anyway, but you could possibly save his life. So what do you do?


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

screature said:


> So what do you do?


 The answer depends on your prior knowledge and background. If you are an experienced first aider your view of the situation and what "common" action would take is markedly different from one who has no knowledge of what they are seeing. To act without a proper assessment is unethical, no matter how moral your intentions.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

screature said:


> If you leave him to get help will almost surely die. If you cut off his arm you will have maimed him and may die anyway, but you could possibly save his life. So what do you do?


This would be a very tough call, and again illustrates how the educated, intelligent individual has an advantage. It would come down to how certain I was that the victim would die without my intervention... If I was sure he was going to die if I did nothing, and there was no other alternative, I'd try cutting his arm off to save him. The worst that could happen would be that he'd die anyway. If he survived and hated me for having amputated his arm, that'd be his problem, because I'd be comfortable that I acted in his best interest to the best of my ability.

Cheers


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> To act without a proper assessment is unethical, no matter how moral your intentions.


You have ethics

Your society has mores..

You need some help with your conceptual framework....

Most societies more's would suggest you help in some manner.....so you adhere to the morality of your society which matches your personal ethics.

You might have an ethos that engages fatalism in which case interfering would in that circumstances be unethical and if your society also embraced that say through a religious dogma you would be both moral and ethical in leaving him to his *fate*.

That's why I maintain you cannot separate the three concepts - they are always intertwined with the legal system busy drawing lines.

•••



> If he survived and hated me for having amputated his arm, that'd be his problem, because I'd be comfortable that I acted in his best interest to the best of my ability


One makes the best assessment with limited info and acts according to ones ethics and lives with the consequences.
Our current moral climate would dictate some form of aid but offer little or no guidance beyond that.

Chop or walk away are both choices with potentially fatal outcomes.

Flipping a con might make you feel better...


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

So basically, MacDoc, it may come down to luck? I understand how fate enters into the picture, but most societies also have a level of competence they accept in all decisions. If you are deemed competent, you may have better luck with your decision. However, I think I agree that no matter what course of action, fate always plays her card.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

MacDoc said:


> You have ethics
> 
> Your society has mores..
> 
> You need some help with your conceptual framework....


Actually,



> Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is (meta-ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations (applied ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology), and what moral values people actually abide by (descriptive ethics).


So at an individual level (descriptive ethics), the morals that you abide may interchangeably be referred to as your ethics or your morals.



> In its third usage, 'morality' is synonymous with ethics. Ethics is the systematic philosophical study of the moral domain.[2] Ethics seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific situation (applied ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), what morals people actually abide by (descriptive ethics), what the fundamental nature of ethics or morality is, including whether it has any objective justification (meta-ethics), and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology).[3]


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

I thought this was an interesting ethical and social problem....



> *Dutch court delays 13-year-old's solo sail around the world*
> 
> CORNE VAN DER STELT/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
> 
> ...


continues

TheStar.com | World | Dutch court delays 13-year-old's solo sail around the world

She's obviously extremely competent...



> Laura was born on a boat in New Zealand and spent the first four years of her life sailing around the world with her parents. She also spends her holidays sailing off the Dutch coast. In May, British authorities briefly detained her after she arrived alone in the eastern port of Lowestoft and said she planned to sail home alone, De Lange said.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
Sometimes there just has to be some limits imposed, simply because this could turn into reductio ad absurdium. So a 13 year old sails around the world, followed by a 9 year old, a five year old, a toddler, and when technology improves, a fetus. Maybe one day an individual sperm cell may attain the record. Reminds me of that Blackadder episode with Pitt The Younger.

I don't think it has anything to do with ethics or morality - but is simply a case of someone wanting to do something that is both stupid and useless being intruded upon by some common sense.

It also serves to show that "records" have jumped the shark. A 9" tall dude was a cool record, dude eating a Cessna aircraft was a cool record, the 4 minute mile was a cool record. Now, it's all about minutea. Who cares is some dude can eat 68 hotdogs in five minutes, it's not cool. Same with the youngest and oldest doing anything. Who cares about the oldest astronaut or the youngest to run for election in Zimbabwe?

Sailing around the world has been done - Magellan handled that, and Drake was the first from the UK. It has now jumped the shark simply because millions of people have gone around the world, there is no thrill, nothing new or anything. That it is a 13 year old is only a demonstration of how pretentious a 13 year old can be these days - and how the media is so stupid as to believe that this is something worthy of reporting. It's a waste of bandwidth, especially when their could be important breaking news on the Michael Jackson Death Investigation...


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Hi Evan, I think this is where LAW steps in. To me, society operates on a 3 legged stool, you have laws, ethics, and morals of the society, all working to keep the thing up right and sound. A savant sailing around the world does not have any ethical or moral implications, at least to me, but the law may step up and say "we generally think this is wrong". I don't think we can also say " if the parents thinks its fine, its fine", sometimes the law also has to protect the children from the parents, and the parents from themselves. In this case, I'm not sure what the call is, we only have the 10 second sound bite to make the judgement.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

I agree. There are lots of issues with such a venture. They talk about "mental development" - that is the least of anything. Judging by my high school experience, students would have been far better off not going, with the exception that it was a demonstration of what drugs can actually do do people's minds, especially when layers of indoctrination and perversion were heaped upon students by some rather rancid teachers.

I think safety is a big issue. Many parts of the world are infested with pirates. I don't mean swashbucklers with chests full of gold and jewels, with parrots on their shoulders - but AK-47 weilding nutcases who see nothing wrong in taking over supertankers or giant container ships for profits. Some areas are extremely notorious - like the zone around the island of Socotra and the coast of Somalia, the area around the Andaman Islands, the Straits of Mollacca, and the Sunda Sea. This does not mention the dangers of foreign ports, or even the seedy disctricts around our own "western" ports.

I can't imagine the protest that would ring out if this girl was accosted and butchered by pirates, or raped by drunken sailors, or if her boat happens to disappear in some freak storm. Instead of "oh, why won't the authorities let her go on an adventure", it will be "oh, why didn't the authorities do something to protect and save her."


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*New Question: When is lying ethical?*

I just wondering your thoughts on when it is ethical for a politician to "lie" to us.

Or maybe I should rephrase that to be " not tell the whole truth". We often hear our elected members tell us that information is often held back in national interests ... I thought the voters were or held a national interest... thoughts?


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
When "the truth" would imperil national security, and threaten the society as a whole, or would do grevious damage to individuals.

However, politicians engage in far too many lies, much of which has nothing to do with national security or anything, except to protect themselves from the exposure of being engaged in furtive behaviour.

I think it was proper for Churchill to "tell lies" when he did not announce that Normandy was the invasion zone, since such knowledge would have been used to grevious effects against the Allied forces.

It is not proper for McGuilty to continually issue lies and cloak the truth when it comes to Caledonia, since uttering the truth would not imperil security, or the privacy of the individual, but would simply bring to light the criminals that brought about a crisis by engaging in the criminal acts of issuing title deeds for land the government did not own.

Government and politicians engage in not telling the truth because it serves to bolster their weak position, and aggrandizes their image because having things that are "top secret" is an image booster for the vainglorious.

As for ethics - with the exception of those things that need to remain sensitive because of the need for some national security interests, or to refrain from tainting on going judicial inquiries, it is entirely unethical for a politicians to engage in endless lies since it is an attack against the people that is used solely for short term political profits and corruption.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Bryanc I thought you might be interested in this long article exploring an event during katrina...

It's a microsm of some of the decisions the larger society will face in increasing numbers over time and ongoing with the increase in natural disasters....

*Strained by Katrina, a Hospital Faced Deadly Choices*

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30doctors.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

MacDoc, that is a very good article, I, too, am interested in bryanc reply.... I usually read the The Times, missed this piece.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

This sounds like a situation where stupid laws and religious beliefs proscribing euthanasia (not to mention the unmitigated train-wreck the US government made of evacuating the disaster area) made a bad situation worse.

These were essentially battlefield conditions, and the MD at the center of the controversy did the best job of triage she could, and euthanized those patients that could not be saved.

While you can argue with her judgment, I don't think you can argue with her ethics.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Hi bryanc, I agree. However, this has become a political problem, and as we all have come to know, political problems are viewed in geologic time, where the shoulda-coulda are examined in detail, and alternatives debated.I would have found it quite difficult to debate the ethical alternatives under the trying situation those people were subjected to with the limited time and chaos they were exposed to....but then again, that is what considered judgement is all about.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

I do not think one can talk about The Big Easy with it's notoriously corrupted political system with any sense of morality or ethics. Katrina was a disaster because the lives of people were trivialized, and politicians off all stripes engaged in endless posturing - something that still continues because all of the money that was supposed to be used for reconstruction has been siphoned off into a myriad of pet projects and graft. Of course, it didn't help that the dude in charge of the disaster did so by relying on his astute qualifications as President of the Arabian Horse Association, appointed to that posting by President Bush, who if not elected President, would have been in the Washington Zoo with the other Bonobos munching out on bananas...


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

So here is the situation. Hummer coming towards you pulling a couple of ATVs on a trailer. 

Do you flash your headlights to warn him of the radar trap around the corner or is the ethically correct course to allow him to gather in a ticket?


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## Clockwork (Feb 24, 2002)

A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox Second Edition by Anthony Weston. This is an excellent book on ethics, and I really enjoyed reading it  Worth taking a look at if you can get your hand on it.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

eMacMan said:


> So here is the situation. Hummer coming towards you pulling a couple of ATVs on a trailer.
> 
> Do you flash your headlights to warn him of the radar trap around the corner or is the ethically correct course to allow him to gather in a ticket?


For me, if someone is breaking the law [ assumed speeding ] if you warn them aren't you assisting the crime? I've had similar discussions on the topic of speeding with many people .... we seem to think that the speed limit is an invitation ... notice how only others speed on the highway and never you .... even if you are over the limit ... is 10, 20, kms over the limit okay, what if everyone else is doing it ...is it okay.

What if the incident wasn't speeding but robbery, or beating someone up .... how would you feel about warning the "criminals" then .....


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

eMacMan said:


> So here is the situation. Hummer coming towards you pulling a couple of ATVs on a trailer.
> 
> Do you flash your headlights to warn him of the radar trap around the corner or is the ethically correct course to allow him to gather in a ticket?


I do not think such a decision if ethical - if the dude is driving in such a manner that they are bound to get a ticket, so be it, because it would be unethcal to deny them of their destiny. Plus, since they plunked down large cash on a Tahoe, urrr, Hummer - they can well afford whatever fine they get.

Aslo, it is ethical to not flash the lights because the fine is revenue for the Government, and perhaps a half cent of that $250 fine might go to a food bank or homeless shelter, or some other venture, where it will do some good. The other $249.995 will go to scum like that Kramer chick and her band of carpetbagging morons - so maybe it is more ethical to flash the lights... It's really a sitting on the fence thing.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Rps said:


> What if the incident wasn't speeding but robbery, or beating someone up .... how would you feel about warning the "criminals" then .....


I think it is entirely ethical to warn the criminals with bullets...


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

eMacMan said:


> So here is the situation. Hummer coming towards you pulling a couple of ATVs on a trailer.
> 
> Do you flash your headlights to warn him of the radar trap around the corner or is the ethically correct course to allow him to gather in a ticket?


So let's make it more interesting. Suppose a 50km/hr speed zone on a main highway has been deliberately extended further from the edge of town than safety requires. Further suppose that it is a downhill stretch with a curve ideal for a cash cow variety of speed trap. 

Now which is the ethical way to go: Do you leave him hung out to dry because he is an eco-terrorist or do you treat him the way you would like to be treated.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

First and foremost, who said he was an ecoterrorist. The issue is, does warning someone who is breaking the law constitute a breach of ethics? You could have made the question is it ethical to have a speed zone which physically may make drivers fail and ethical choice .... you would think that if you take Evan's approach that fines are a cash grab, then you would rephrase, are fines ethical when you know the law they support can rarely be obeyed?


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

For clarity sake; Legal ≠ Ethical. Some laws are just plain wrong others were deliberately created to repress certain individuals or groups. 

If I see someone speeding in a clearly marked school zone the ticket is all his. If I see someone speeding in a speed zone that exists only to generate revenue I will warn them.

OTH someone pulling ATVs behind a Hummer is clearly intent on doing environmental damage. So does that outweigh the courtesy I would otherwise extend to him?


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*New Question*

With the announcement that Green Party Leader Elizabeth May's intention of running in the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding in British Columbia, I would like to ask the following question:

If we elect our members in our ridings to represent us in Parliament, is it ethical for a party to parachute a candidate into a riding where that individual has had no residential, cultural, or historical attachment?


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Rps said:


> If we elect our members in our ridings to represent us in Parliament, is it ethical for a party to parachute a candidate into a riding where that individual has had no residential, cultural, or historical attachment?


No, but it is politics. Politics is the highest and most polished state of corruption possible, at least with the laws of physics as we know them.

If the individual needed to have residential, cultural or historical attachments, that would leave us with a tribe mostly based in Ottawa that has a culture based on sodomy and rape, and where packs of them go roving to loot money from the innocent. So in other words - we'd be run by Vikings.

Wait, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland are all run by Vikings - so maybe that's the system we should have?


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> No, but it is politics. Politics is the highest and most polished state of corruption possible, at least with the laws of physics as we know them.


Pretty sure the laws of physics no longer apply. It used to take months of explosives preparation to make a skyscraper collapse in freefall. Now all you have to do is crash a plane into a nearby skyscraper.beejacon


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

I know of no other way of stealing $10 Billion from taxpayers, then converting it into waste quite as fast - well, outside of stuffing cash into a massive spaceship and flying it into a supernova. Even then, the politician can do it much faster, because it would take at least a few thousand years to fly at near light speed to a potential supernova. Plus, the supernova wouldn't utterly destroy the cash, it would be recycled into future planets, while not even anti-matter could destory the money as utterly and ruthlessly as the politician... beejacon

The response to 9/11 proved that politicians can come up with the most inane solutions possible. They are like "oh, that Bin Laden dude is evil and needs to pay for his crime - let's go invade Baghdad and execute Saddam!" Bush and his gangsters really should have had GoogleMap because they were really lost...


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

And relates to the question of parachuting how?????


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
Politicians are not bound to follow any ethics, just like they can entirely defy the laws of logic and physics...


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*New Question: Is the coverage of the U.S. debate on Health Care ethical?*

Unless we have been living in a wireless cave somewhere, it would be hard not to gaze upon the current Health Care debate in the U.S. with astonishment. We've even have threads on ehMac on the subject.... so here is the question, and I open this to all aspects of the debate: media, government, lobby groups .... is the current coverage of the debate ethical ... and why?


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*New Question: Should Roman Polanski be punished?*

In recent days much has been written and broadcasted on the issue of Roman Polanski's rape case. The issue has been taken up by the entertainment industry in a " it's old news let's forgive and forget". Even the victim has indicated the coverage did more damage than the "actual crime" ... I'm thinking she means over time. So the question is .... should he be let off .... forgive and let bygones be bygones?


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

Rps said:


> In recent days much has been written and broadcasted on the issue of Roman Polanski's rape case. The issue has been taken up by the entertainment industry in a " it's old news let's forgive and forget". Even the victim has indicated the coverage did more damage than the "actual crime" ... I'm thinking she means over time. So the question is .... should he be let off .... forgive and let bygones be bygones?


There is no grey area here. He should pay. The arts community is horribly mis-guided on this one.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Rps said:


> In recent days much has been written and broadcasted on the issue of Roman Polanski's rape case. The issue has been taken up by the entertainment industry in a " it's old news let's forgive and forget". Even the victim has indicated the coverage did more damage than the "actual crime" ... I'm thinking she means over time. So the question is .... should he be let off .... forgive and let bygones be bygones?


My understanding is the victim doesn't even see the need for him to be punished. I think for those directly involved it seems they want to move on. That being the case I think the State of California should do the same.


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

screature said:


> My understanding is the victim doesn't even see the need for him to be punished. I think for those directly involved it seems they want to move on. That being the case I think the State of California should do the same.



Drugging and raping a minor. Do you think that should be forgiven and forgotten?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chasMac said:


> Drugging and raping a minor. Do you think that should be forgiven and forgotten?


I think given that the victim has chosen to do so, yes.


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

screature said:


> I think given that the victim has chosen to do so, yes.


Is the law directed, or punishment meted out based on what a victim desires?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chasMac said:


> Is the law directed, or *punishment meted out based on what a victim desires?*



At times, they do yes. Victim impact statements are taken into account before sentencing for example. (Also there are cases in which if a victim chooses not to press charges then the law does not take further action. In other words an illegal act may have taken place but if there is not a complainant, the law turns a blind eye.) This is a very old case with extenuating circumstances, not at all a typical run of the mill case. 

If one wants to take a black and white cut and dry view as you appear to then there is no discussion to be had. If it is your view, that the law is the law and no intervening details are relevant (a view to which you are certainly entitled) then there is no point in trying to flog a dead horse. 

I personally don't view that the law is so cut and dry, that is why we have judges and jury's and sentencing hearings and the like. Because life is complicated and so each individual case needs to be ruled upon based on its own merits and extenuating circumstances.


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

screature said:


> If one wants to take a black and white cut and dry view as you appear to then there is no discussion to be had. If it is your view, that the law is the law and no intervening details are relevant (a view to which you are certainly entitled) then there is no point in trying to flog a dead horse.
> 
> I personally don't view that the law is so cut and dry, that is why we have judges and jury's and sentencing hearings and the like. Because life is complicated and so each individual case needs to be ruled upon based on its own merits and extenuating circumstances.


The state has pressed charges. And the facts are not in dispute. 

As this thread is entitled the Ethical Thread, I will pose it so: 

Do you think it is right for a man to drug and rape a 13-year old and get off scott-free?


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Rps said:


> ...it would be hard not to gaze upon the current Health Care debate in the U.S. with astonishment. We've even have threads on ehMac on the subject.... so here is the question, and I open this to all aspects of the debate: media, government, lobby groups .... is the current coverage of the debate ethical ... and why?


It defies ethics because both sides of the debate marginalize people and commoditize misery all around.

Those that are "opposed" simply point to the case of Canada, where our health care system has been entirely corrupted and no longer can supply affordable heath care in a timely manner, and is further being cabbaged by the closings of many local hospitals, making heath care impossible. It is pretty easy to "oppose" the implementation of such a system in the US because it is opposed by so many people in our own nation.

Those that are "for" it can simply not guarantee that their plan will be equitable and will not lead down the path to the same ruin that the system in Canada is in.

Of course, the media can't seem to get anything together, but that is because the message is entirely muddied. The whole "plan" is obfuscated and cryptic, while those that oppose it only oppose it because Canada's system is such a lame piece of poop.

I think all sides have acted without any ethics simply because they have not included the victims of the "for massive profit" health system that get left to die on the streets our front of hospitals because they can not afford insurance, or they are no longer covered by an HMO.

The ethical way is to implement a real system, with stringent cost controls, not on procedures or equipment, but on much much loot hospital executives are allowed to cart way.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chasMac said:


> The state has pressed charges. And the facts are not in dispute.
> 
> As this thread is entitled the Ethical Thread, I will pose it so:
> 
> Do you think it is right for a man to drug and rape a 13-year old and get off scott-free?


No off course what he did was not right. What essentially we are taking about is not the morality of the act, but the ethics of the punishment (or lack there off). To turn the question on its head, "Is it ethical for the state to punish the perpetrator of a crime when the victim has forgiven him and desires that nothing further be done?" 

This was a crime of the most personal kind and you are ignoring the victim's impact in all this, she has said herself that everything surrounding this has been worse that the deed itself, and this is only serving to dredge up old wounds. I think the human concerns here should trump the abstract ethical concerns. Given the fact that we are talking about a case that happened over 30 years ago and the victim appears to have forgiven her assailant and so his punishment only serves to satiate the state and those that feel he needs to be punished, I don't feel that the desire of the state or individuals to "see justice served" should trump the desires of the victim herself.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Rps said:


> In recent days much has been written and broadcasted on the issue of Roman Polanski's rape case. The issue has been taken up by the entertainment industry in a " it's old news let's forgive and forget".


It goes to show that the "justice" system is a scam, because this proves that getting drunk and raping a girl while on drugs is a bad thing if you are Roman Polanski, but entirely fine if you were in the Mamas And Papas or Woody Allen.

Wait, I guess it simply shows that if you are going to get drunk while on drugs and rape an underaged, she should be your daughter or at least an adopted child.

Justice is peculiar, since it was fine for OJ to hack off his wife's head and stab her boyfriend to death because she shouldn't have been sleeping around; while it was not fine for OJ to liberate his football from a collector because waving the gun around was a bad idea.

Whoopie Goldberg is nuts because she can babble all she wants about rape and rape rape, but she was the one that dressed up in blackface with Ted Danson to do a minstrel show at the Friar's Club...

Of course, the entertainment industry really has to side with Polanski because that justifies the decades of such abuse by the kings of Hollywood on the casting couches of the studios.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

screature said:


> Given the fact that we are talking about a case that happened over 30 years ago and the victim appears to have forgiven her assailant and so his punishment only serves to satiate the state and those that feel he needs to be punished, I don't feel that the desire of the state or individuals to "see justice served" should trump the desires of the victim herself.


Didn't this woman end up hooking up with Polanski for a number of years later on?

And what does it say about the state of affairs when people like Mary Kay Laterno end up serving hard time, even though she didn't drug and rape her younger beau - and that after, when he became an adust, they hooked up and got married anyways?

I think the Polanski affair is sad simply because it is inconsistent, with many famous people engaging in illicit affairs and engaging in such activities but never being prosecuted at all.

Of course, in Canada, the girl would be the one charged and serving time for her crimes of looking attractive and prepubescent. Just look at the case of the St. Catharines Masturbator - the court said that it was his Constitutional right to peep into windows and pull on his thingy because the women inside the house should have blacked out windows and wear four layers of burkahs...


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

> To turn the question on its head, "Is it ethical for the state to punish the perpetrator of a crime when the victim has forgiven him and desires that nothing further be done?"


That is a very good point. But as I alluded to, completely irrelevant. 99% of the time the victim is calling for a greater punishment to be applied, calling our justice system a travesty, etc... They are paid no heed. The law is above such emotional cries. This particular case should follow the same course (albeit, as you say it is turned on its head, with the victim calling for leniency.)



> Given the fact that we are talking about a case that happened over 30 years ago and the victim appears to have forgiven her assailant and so his punishment only serves to satiate the state and those that feel he needs to be punished, I don't feel that the desire of the state or individuals to "see justice served" should trump the desires of the victim herself.


Again, with what the victim wants. I am sure family members would love to see murderers get the chair, instead of 10 years plus time served, etc. Unfortunately, what they want is not the law.

(BTW, 30 years have passed because the perp was on the lamb living in luxury on the continent, being showered with accolades in France. Not like it has been overlooked or forgotten by the courts.)


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

EvanPitts said:


> I think the Polanski affair is sad simply because it is inconsistent, with many famous people engaging in illicit affairs and engaging in such activities but never being prosecuted at all.


Not sure what you are saying: that other celebrities have engaged in this sort of behaviour, it should give Polanski a get out of jail card? Fatty Arbuckle paid a higher price and that was a true miscarriage of justice.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chasMac said:


> That is a very good point. But as I alluded to, completely irrelevant. 99% of the time the victim is calling for a greater punishment to be applied, calling our justice system a travesty, etc... They are paid no heed. The law is above such emotional cries. This particular case should follow the same course (albeit, as you say it is turned on its head, with the victim calling for leniency.)
> 
> Again, with what the victim wants. I am sure family members would love to see murderers get the chair, instead of 10 years plus time served, etc. Unfortunately, what they want is not the law.
> 
> (BTW, 30 years have passed because the perp was on the lamb living in luxury on the continent, being showered with accolades in France. Not like it has been overlooked or forgotten by the courts.)


If you want to talk the law, that is one thing. If you want to talk ethics it is another. 

Decide which you want to talk about and perhaps a fruitful dialogue would be possible. But to try and argue an ethical question based on the law is unfortunately based on the presupposition that our laws, peace keeping practices and courts are essentially ethical which is a basic premise that I personally do not necessarily believe to be the case.

I talk about what the victim wants because I believe that in an ethical argument it a crucial element in the equation of dealing with the perpetrator of a crime. In a legal one it is less so (although you have ignored the fact that victim impact statements are taken into account at sentencing hearings).


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

screature said:


> If you want to talk the law, that is one thing. If you want to talk ethics it is another.


??? But that is the point of this dialogue, is the law ethically consistent with the matter at hand. 



> Decide which you want to talk about and perhaps a fruitful dialogue would be possible. But to try and argue an ethical question based on the law is unfortunately based on the presupposition that our laws, peace keeping practices and courts are essentially ethical which is a basic premise that I personally do not necessarily believe to be the case.


That you do not believe it to be the case, does not make it so. I happen to believe our laws are ethically sound and correlate soundly with our ethics (it is our concept of punishment, or lack thereof which could use some tweaking).



> I talk about what the victim wants because I believe that in an ethical argument it a crucial element in the equation of dealing with the perpetrator of a crime. In a legal one it is less so (although you have ignored the fact that victim impact statements are taken into account at sentencing hearings).


Got it. A case's outcome may be based on the wishes of those affected by it.

Is that not a slippery slope (even if I have overstated and over simplified your argument)? The case of this young women in California, held captive for 18 years: there is a good chance that she harbours no ill-feelings towards her captor (so say various psychiatrists). Indeed, Natascha Kampusch of Austria, held captive for years in horrible conditions, has admitted to a great deal of sympathy towards her captor. Should victim impact statements influence these examples? Purely in terms of ethics, the victim's _opinion_ is moot. 

Maybe if we reduced the case to a hypothetical: if a man drugs and rapes a child should he be held accountable? Then we can go from there.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

chasMac said:


> Not sure what you are saying: that other celebrities have engaged in this sort of behaviour, it should give Polanski a get out of jail card? Fatty Arbuckle paid a higher price and that was a true miscarriage of justice.


I am saying that the justice system is fake, since America sees fit to attack Polanski for a crime committed long ago - while not even lifting a finger while John Phillips was diddling his own daughter, or when Woody Allen was diddling his adopted daughter.

Same with murderers, as they see fit to give Bundy the chair, while not lifting a finger to prosecute filth like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for the murder of tens of thousands in a fake war in Iraq - not to mention the sentence of death dished out to a few thousand soldiers.

Not to mention the fact that they prosecuted Polanski not because he drugged and raped a girl, but because he made better movies than any of the spank artists in Hollywood ever could. Which is just like Bush, who started a war not because he wished to liberate the people of Iraq from a corrupt Baathist regime, but because he wanted to liberate their oil so he and his cronies could cash in big on a fake energy crisis.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

chasMac said:


> Maybe if we reduced the case to a hypothetical: if a man drugs and rapes a child should he be held accountable? Then we can go from there.


From a point of pure justice, the man deserves to be castrated and serve at least 20 years of hard labour for his crime. If we had a real justice system, a crime would be counteracted by a set and severe punishment, based on the degree of the crime and of damages done. Small crimes would have small punishments, large crimes would have large punishments. This is the only ethical way of dishing out justice, since it puts everyone on equal footing within a society.

If we talk about our actual justice system - it varies, since we have one case where someone has been convicted and then persecuted for three decades, while in two other cases, not one finger was lifted. It just demonstrates that the actual justice system is inconsistent and entirely open to manipulation. It demonstrates that sometimes we impose some kind of ethical high ground, while other times, ethics is thrown out to door for whatever reason.

It is also true than in every case of rape, it's the black man. Like the Scarborough Rapist, when the cops could not believe that a blue eyed white dude could do such a thing, because racism and bigotry obviously point the finger at some Jamaican strung out on dope. Polanski has been persecuted because he is an outsider, plain and simple; while figures like John Phillips, well, he sang California Dreaming, so he gets off scott-free, and same with Woody Allen because he made movies in New York or whatever.

To not make the mistake and equate our system of justice with anything resembling morality or ethics...


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

EvanPitts said:


> It demonstrates that sometimes we impose some kind of ethical high ground, while other times, ethics is thrown out to door for whatever reason.
> 
> 
> > Bingo. Then we are in agreement. From the above, you are saying that to prosecute him for his actions to the fullest extent of law is ethically the correct thing to do. However, at the same time you are stating that in the great majority of cases of this nature, justice has gone astray (...ethics is thrown out the door...), resulting in pitifully few convictions.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chasMac said:


> ??? But that is the point of this dialogue, is the law ethically consistent with the matter at hand.



No the question was, New Question: Should Roman Polanski be punished? You decided to make it about the "law" persay.



chasMac said:


> That you do not believe it to be the case, does not make it so.


The point being made is that unless there is an agreement as to the basic presumption entering into the discussion, the argument is destined to run in circles and not be fruitful.



chasMac said:


> I happen to believe our laws are ethically sound and correlate soundly with our ethics (it is our concept of punishment, or lack thereof which could use some tweaking).


That is quite apparent and the point I tried to make in an earlier post. As I was trying to allude to we are going to have to agree to disagree. I could foresee the basic road block in our beliefs and why I tried to indicate that this would be a fruitless debate (at least between you and I). 



chasMac said:


> Got it. A case's outcome *may* be based on the wishes of those affected by it.


It is a simple matter of fact (although I would not say *based *on the victim's wishes but affected or influenced) and this is already the case as per the example already provided where in some cases unless charges are pressed it is as if no crime were committed even though an illegal act took place.



chasMac said:


> Is that not a slippery slope (even if I have overstated and over simplified your argument)? The case of this young women in California, held captive for 18 years: there is a good chance that she harbours no ill-feelings towards her captor (so say various psychiatrists). Indeed, Natascha Kampusch of Austria, held captive for years in horrible conditions, has admitted to a great deal of sympathy towards her captor. Should victim impact statements influence these examples? *Purely in terms of ethics, the victim's opinion is moot.*


This is true relative only to the ethics of the act itself, not relative to the ethics of the punishment where the victim's opinion can and at times (even within the courts) does matter.



chasMac said:


> Maybe if we reduced the case to a hypothetical: if a man drugs and rapes a child should he be held accountable? Then we can go from there.


Yes but, this is reducing something to a black and white scenario and I am not willing to follow you down that path because I know where it is going.


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

screature said:


> No the question was, New Question: Should Roman Polanski be punished? You decided to make it about the "law" persay.


The punishment is derived from the law. If the law is ethical, so follows the punishment.




screature said:


> Yes but, this is reducing something to a black and white scenario and I am not willing to follow you down that path because I know where it is going.


It is an honest question, and I will meet you half way. You agree such an act, in a vacuum is deplorable. In this real world instance, you state there are mitigating factors, factors that ought to compel the state of California to 'move on', by which I understand you to mean drop the charges:

1. The victim has forgiven him.
2. It was 30 years ago.

Is that correct?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

chasMac said:


> The punishment is derived from the law. If the law is ethical, so follows the punishment.
> 
> It is an honest question, and I will meet you half way. You agree such an act, in a vacuum is deplorable. In this real world instance, you state there are mitigating factors, factors that ought to compel the state of California to 'move on', by which I understand you to mean drop the charges:
> 
> ...


No, I'm not suggesting that the charges be dropped, my understanding is that he already pleaded guilty to the reduced charges and he fled before sentencing. 

I am suggesting that because of the victim's wishes, leniency is in order and possibly something can be worked out amongst the powers that be so that they don't have to drag him back to California to create the freak show that would be sure to ensue so as to save the victim from having to go through all this all over again thirty years later, after she has healed and laid it to rest.

It is my belief that ethics without pragmatism can lead to pure demagoguery, which I believe would be the case here if they "threw the book at him".


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

This brings us an interesting point.... if the prosecution uses impact statements in sentencing, which are usually to increase the possibility of the sentence, doesn't it seem logical that the victim can use her impact sentence to, at her option, plead for leniency? What is interesting in this case is that it is still open .... in that, I mean, that Polanski was supposed to have a plea deal worked out, but rumours indicated the judge was going to relent, so he skipped. This means he is not prosecuted, since it was not formally captured in the courts. Also, Polanski had vehicles in the appeal process at his disposal but chose run instead of appealing. This means he is also open to other charges for skipping his court appearance. To me, the way he smiles when he talks about this case makes me shiver .... that smirk bothers me .... I guess 13 is border line in the pedophile business.......


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Rps said:


> This brings us an interesting point.... if the prosecution uses impact statements in sentencing, which are usually to increase the possibility of the sentence, doesn't it seem logical that the victim can use her impact sentence to, at her option, plead for leniency? What is interesting in this case is that it is still open .... in that, I mean, that Polanski was supposed to have a plea deal worked out, but rumours indicated the judge was going to relent, so he skipped. This means he is not prosecuted, since it was not formally captured in the courts. Also, Polanski had vehicles in the appeal process at his disposal but chose run instead of appealing. This means he is also open to other charges for skipping his court appearance. To me, the way he smiles when he talks about this case makes me shiver .... that smirk bothers me .... I guess 13 is border line in the pedophile business.......


Hmm, OK that isn't the impression I was under. I thought his plea had been accepted and he fled before sentencing. Well, in which case we are still looking at a full blown trial. Yikes, if I was the victim 30 years later and had healed and moved on, I sure would rather say, "lets just drop the whole thing" as well.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

screature you are partially correct with your assumption. Under U.S. law, it isn't accepted until captured in the court. This is a technical point that was lost in the media ... but what isn't.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Bingo. Then we are in agreement. From the above, you are saying that to prosecute him for his actions to the fullest extent of law is ethically the correct thing to do. However, at the same time you are stating that in the great majority of cases of this nature, justice has gone astray (...ethics is thrown out the door...), resulting in pitifully few convictions.[/QUOTE]

Yes, and even the system is inconsistent, seeing that the courts persecute Polanski thirty years after the fact, but did nothing when John Phillips and Woody Allen were doing the nasty with their under aged daughters.

The problem is not the law, the law is clear - but in the system that allows for gross inconsistencies. We saw the same thing when they threw the book at Bernie Madoff, while being lenient on Conrad Black; or when they threw the book at Enron but treated WorldCom and Adeplhia with kiddie gloves.

Polanski does deserve to serve out his punishment for the crime he committed - but to be consistent, one would have to lock up half of Hollywood, and three-quarters of the music industry because of pretty much the same things that happened countless times.


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

EvanPitts said:


> Polanski does deserve to serve out his punishment for the crime he committed - but to be consistent, one would have to lock up half of Hollywood, and three-quarters of the music industry because of pretty much the same things that happened countless times.


There must countless murderers of prostitutes who have never been caught. So we should turn a blind eye at the pig-farmer? Obviously not. Snaring one out of every 100 deviants is better than nothing.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

chasMac said:


> There must countless murderers of prostitutes who have never been caught. So we should turn a blind eye at the pig-farmer? Obviously not. Snaring one out of every 100 deviants is better than nothing.


Sure, but ignoring the crimes of John Phillips because he sang California Dreaming while persecuting Roman Polanski (who unlike Phillips, did not sodomoize his own, underaged daughter) simply because he was a Hollywood outsider who bested the directors that the Studios had, is what is wrong with the system.

The lack of ethics is in how uneven justice is applied, not in whether or not someone is charged.

The murder of prostitutes is another case in point.  The system really does ignore such things, treating them as somehow lesser crimes than say, some other murderer who kills a doctor or something. We have a case where a nutjob killed a doctor and has the book thrown at him, while scum like Picton and Bernardo get off lightly. And really, if it wasn't for the limited amount of public outrage, those cases wouldn't have been carried through because, you know, the murders were of prostitutes and the rapes were of loose women that perhaps were drunk or something. Bernardo never paid the price for over 50 rapes, but rather, ended up in jail because of public outrage at two murders (while charges were never brought forth against him on two other murders). If Bernardo was black, or "foreign", or "Indian" - things would have been different because our perverted justice system acts without ethics or morality. Same with Picton - if he was "of colour", he would have been stuffed into a Maximum security prison in seconds.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*Is YouTube ethical?*

We've had a number of "YouTube" postings in the various threads on ehMac in recent days, and many have caused a considerable debate amongst the participants. However, what I have noticed is that "YouTube" postings are solely about content and not the context. Case in point was the recent post about the campus people's use of excessive force [ granted consensus was they may have used too much force ] and the "drunk in the convenience store" ... we see a guy fall down, but we presume he was drunk [ based on the posting ]. So the question is, does YouTube pose a threat to society as there appears to be limited context supplied to its subject matter when it is e-mailed or lifted and posted in other on line communities ... is YouTube ethical?????

Your thoughts.....


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Rps said:


> So the question is, does YouTube pose a threat to society as there appears to be limited context supplied to its subject matter when it is e-mailed or lifted and posted in other on line communities ... is YouTube ethical?


I don't think this is an ethical question, but it is a very important question. YouTube is only one current example of what Chomsky and others have been trying to draw attention to for decades. While people may, to a greater or lesser degree, have the ability to think reasonably and critically about what information they have, the vast majority of people will choose the most superficial, titillating and/or trivial information over rigorous, complete and authoritative information. It's just more fun to watch the drunk falling down or the girl loosing her bikini top than to spend the time learning about and thinking about alcoholism and sexual exploitation.

This is probably an aspect of 'human nature' (i.e. it's a function of our evolutionary history) and can't really be changed, but it has the consequence that most of society is grossly under/misinformed about most important issues.

As far as I can tell, this is the fundamental flaw in the philosophical underpinnings of democracy. It's not that people can't be wise, it's that they largely choose to be idiots.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Hi bryanc, I agree to some extent. Yes we may choose to be idiots, but do we have to make it so easy. To me, this electronic world is eliminating privacy. It doesn't matter who you are... now .... and we all do some not so clever things, but become someone special and within 2 seconds some obscure act is on the web or YouTube. I see in the media the tendency to "get it first" rather than get it right. YouTube is just an extension of that mentality. Get it out, without knowing what the "it" actually is ....


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

What's ethical is not always right, what's right is not always legal, and what's legal is not always ethical.

Arguing justice, fairness, or what is ethical as being the same thing is not correct. They are all different and they cannot and will not ever align, there will be overlap but never the same.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Rps said:


> So the question is, does YouTube pose a threat to society as there appears to be limited context supplied to its subject matter when it is e-mailed or lifted and posted in other on line communities ... is YouTube ethical?


I don't think it matters - since our own media engages in the same slanted style of "news bites" with no context. Half the time they do it so they can push their own perverted agenda forward, something the CBC is infamous for, especially if it is done in the worship of anything Liberal, or if it puts down Conservatives or NDP, or trivializes the Green Party.

At least on YouTube - one has the option of posting the other side of the story, so I think it is more of a fair platform when it comes to such things. It is no different from any other postings, like the gobbledy-**** the Global Warming fanatics love to post, you know, the satellite pictures from 1880, or graphs and charts of weather fluctuations and random articles for various communist operated newspapers.

Of course, is is a more democratic way, since someone like myself is entirely entitled to post pictures of things like our cold and wet summer, the early arrival of fall, or any toxic waste spot that I wish to access in support of a return to living smarter and more efficiently. I could even post pictures of perverted "investors" who wish to create a Ponzi Scheme based Carbon Market.

I do not think there is any "consensus" on the campus beating. It s more like the deal with Tori Stafford, where everyone was all about the kidnapping scenario, or attacking the various family members that were supposedly hiding her for some reason. Of course, I went against that "consensus", thinking that it was all about some deranged scum high on drugs and that she was already murdered in cold blood, of which I took a lot of heat until the real story came out, and the "consensus" magically changed.

Campus beating - it's all about drugs, and if the dude was on hard drugs, as it is starting to be revealed because the "victim" can not recall any of it at all. It's just too easy for armchair enthusiasts to believe we live in some sort of Taliban state, where all the cops want to do is punch people out - while those who have witnessed the drug culture up close, would have a different opinion of the situation, knowing the real facts about what drug abuse does to people. So the "consensus" is that the police went over the top - but I expect that to change once people realize that this was entirely propelled by drugs, and that if the police hadn't subdued the "victim", he could have accomplished some real achievements in assault, battery and possible manslaughter while in that state of mind.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*New Question: Isms.... The Ways of their errors*

There has been much press lately from the U.S. on the policies of the Obama government [ and soon to be ours ] . What I have noticed is the coverage highlights on certain "keywords" which I feel slant the reporting.

Often the TV sound bite has protestors either holding signs or stating that the government is: Fascist, Marxist, Socialist, Communist or other "ists" and "isms".

It is obvious that all of the protestors can't be right in branding their governments policies. So here is the Question:

Is it ethical for news organisations to broadcast stories which participants indicate an "ism" without correcting the impression or accurately defining the ideological differences? Thoughts....


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Rps said:


> Is it ethical for news organisations to broadcast stories which participants indicate an "ism" without correcting the impression or accurately defining the ideological differences? Thoughts....


The news organizations are simply showing what people's opinions are, so it is ethical because it is showing the reality of a situation, and is allowing the free speech that is a cornerstone of democratic ideals.

I think attempting to "correct" such things would be unethical, because it would be no different from the disinformation that was disseminated by Pravda during the reign of the Soviet Union, where a select cabal decided what was proper, and used that for their own ends.

It is that which has shown up in recent television polls, where CTV has been picking up viewers because they choose not to peddle a peculiar political view, while the CBC has done it for ages and is now being clocked for it because people are tired of the old Trudeau Is God theme they peddle on a nightly basis. People simply want a more balanced and truthful style of news, not the ceaseless indoctrination peddled by people like Mansbridge...


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

If this is true, Evan, then if the people's opinion is, say in error on the definition of a used term, is it still ethical to broadcast it as true. That being said, and to your point on free speech, is the free speech even ethical under the current broadcast environment?


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> ... CTV has been picking up viewers because they choose not to peddle a peculiar political view


This is deeply naive. Not to mention quite funny. Please - continue with the fanciful colour commentary.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*Is a War Tax Ethical?*

We all have our opinions on the current NATO activities in Afghanistan, however what seems to be getting the headlines lately in the U.S. [ and maybe here as well ] is the cost of the war. What seems to be the major issue is the cost of the war.

The Obama government is rumoured to be considering a "War Tax", which to me would suggest that the concern is more about cost than whether the action is just [ if there is such a thing in military actions ] .... so here's the question:

Is a War Tax ethical? Evan if you are out there I would love to read your point of view.........


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

An interesting question, Rps. Can war ever be ethical? Therefore, can taxes to fund this war be an extension of this ethical code? Interesting point to ponder. Paix, mon ami.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

I would say without doubt war can be ethical. Is self defence not ethical? Is defending innocent victims not ethical? These are at least two cases in which war I believe war is definitely ethical.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

screature said:


> I would say without doubt war can be ethical. Is self defence not ethical? Is defending innocent victims not ethical? These are at least two cases in which war I believe war is definitely ethical.


Valid points, screature. Then, there is the issue of killing, a direct result of war. It is ethical to kill someone to protect yourself, or your loved ones, from being killed? No easy answers from an ethical perspective. From a preservation and/or biological perspective, the answer is somewhat simplier. Paix, mon ami.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

A war tax. Maybe it should be a voluntary contribution that the taxpayer can check off on his tax return. Thus the right wing nuts who like the idea of killing people and sending their money directly to Haliburton and the rest of the MI complex can do so to their wallets contents.beejacon 

The rest of us can have an effective say by diverting our funds to more peaceful endeavours such as putting food on the table or heating our homes.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Dr.G. said:


> ...It is ethical to kill someone to protect yourself, or your loved ones, from being killed? No easy answers from an ethical perspective...


They are as far as I am concerned Dr. G.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

screature said:


> I would say without doubt war can be ethical. Is self defence not ethical? Is defending innocent victims not ethical? These are at least two cases in which war I believe war is definitely ethical.


I believe that an ethical case can be made for wars of self defence. But in all the bloody history of war, rarely have wars been waged strictly for those reasons. Most wars are tainted with mixed motivations of greed and conquest, even if they can be reasonably argued to have been unavoidable and done for reasons of self-defence. Most wars have been primarily waged for completely unethical reasons but cynically given some manufactured fig leaf of self-defence - see Bush/Cheney's Iraq adventure.

War should be avoided at all costs and engaged in when there is simply no other option. War is not glorious in any way, it is a brutal and evil blunt instrument that inflicts horrible costs on both sides and the innocent populations of the places where it is waged.

If a killer was threatening my family, I would fight and kill if necessary, but there would be no glory in it, it would be a tragedy that it had to happen. I would be traumatized and so would my family if they witnessed such a horror. The killer's family would also suffer a loss and a tragedy. If I was successful in defence I might be commended for bravery, but that would be no comfort. Soldiers are to be commended for unquestionably doing what our societies ask them to do, unfortunately they are too often asked to sacrifice their lives for unethical wars.

So while war can be an ethical choice if there is simply no other one, it is not ethical if there is a some way to avoid entering into such a horror. Those who march into war full of smugness and pride, or more correctly march others into war, since the leaders rarely do any real fighting, are contemptible criminals. Some recent leaders come to mind.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> I believe that an ethical case can be made for wars of self defence. But in all the bloody history of war, rarely have wars been waged strictly for those reasons. Most wars are tainted with mixed motivations of greed and conquest, even if they can be reasonably argued to have been unavoidable and done for reasons of self-defence. Most wars have been primarily waged for completely unethical reasons but cynically given some manufactured fig leaf of self-defence - see Bush/Cheney's Iraq adventure.
> 
> War should be avoided at all costs and engaged in when there is simply no other option. War is not glorious in any way, it is a brutal and evil blunt instrument that inflicts horrible costs on both sides and the innocent populations of the places where it is waged.
> 
> ...


I would agree with pretty much everything you say here GA.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Good points from all. My position in this is that I think this is not an ethical war .... why because the principles are only worried about the cost first, then the reason for next. I find it almost evil that a government [ ours included ] can wage a war during one administration, then when the next comes in say " sorry ...so sad, we bad" and it's okay. What is worse is to fight a war just because you can, but when money is tight, think about withdrawal .... if the financial crisis didn't happen we wouldn't be hearing about the "debt cost" of this war .... did we hear about it in Vietnam ..... I don't think so. My second issue with this adventure [ and I have a vested interest in this ] is that historically no one has ever won a battle here .... probably as far back as the Romans..... so why repeat past failures.

My final issue is with NATO itself ..... why do we need it when most of the countries it was designed to defend us against have joined NATO?


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

Rps said:


> ..... why do we need it when most of the countries it was designed to defend us against have joined NATO?


Yes, well there is one glaring omission. As for the nations of eastern Europe which I assume is what you mean, self-determination being non-existent during the period in question, they had little choice in being declared an opponent of the west. Maybe, Russia's neighbours are joining NATO because they still believe there is a reason for NATO....


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## MACenstein'sMonster (Aug 21, 2008)

No such thing as ethics in the real world. In books, yes. In a war, no. There's only perspective, yours vs theirs. Their point of view is as ethically correct as your point of view. Nobody but God can see the whole picture without being biased. And who is He to judge us?


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

MACenstein'sMonster said:


> No such thing as ethics in the real world. In books, yes. In a war, no. There's only perspective, yours vs theirs. Their point of view is as ethically correct as your point of view. Nobody but God can see the whole picture without being biased. And who is He to judge us?


Huh? You go through your life in the "real world" without exercising any ethical judgement? I kind of doubt that.

Regarding war, the idea is that a country and it's leaders should use some ethical judgement when they are deciding whether or not to get into a war. Most don't. And though war is horrifying and forces combatants to make decisions no one should have to make, it can be conducted with some limits, even though the chaotic nature of war will mean those limits will almost surely get breached from time to time. Hence things like the Geneva Conventions.

A country can choose not to torture it's prisoners, not to bomb civilian areas and attempt to avoid non-combatant casualties. A country at war can still attempt to hold to some standards. But it would be best to avoid the war in the first place, if possible. If a country enters a war for reasons of conquest and hegemony, rather than self-defence, then all their actions related to pursuing that war will be criminal and unethical.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

. If a country enters a war for reasons of conquest and hegemony said:



> I'm think Sadam would agree with you on this point.


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## MACenstein'sMonster (Aug 21, 2008)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Huh? You go through your life in the "real world" without exercising any ethical judgement? I kind of doubt that.


Ethical judgement? No. Judgement based on what's right for the moment? Yes.

Take any ethical idea of how one should act in a given situation and it would at best be a vague guideline which may or may not apply.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

MACenstein'sMonster said:


> Ethical judgement? No. Judgement based on what's right for the moment? Yes.
> 
> Take any ethical idea of how one should act in a given situation and it would at best be a vague guideline which may or may not apply.


It's sounds like we're just using different terms. So "what's right for the moment" doesn't rely on any ethical standards that you may have previously thought about or learned?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

MACenstein'sMonster said:


> Ethical judgement? No. Judgement based on what's right for the moment? Yes.
> 
> Take any ethical idea of how one should act in a given situation and it would at best be a vague guideline which may or may not apply.


Depends on who you are and your Weltanschauung... sounds like you may be a utilitarian/pragmatist.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Well there is a temporal nature to all things .....including ethics..... isn't there?


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

screature said:


> Depends on who you are and your Weltanschauung... sounds like you may be a utilitarian/pragmatist.


I don't know about anyone else here, but I think I misplaced my Weltanschauung years ago.  It might have been at that bus station outside of El Paso.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> I don't know about anyone else here, but I think I misplaced my Weltanschauung years ago.  It might have been at that bus station outside of El Paso.


Little rusty on my philosophy, but isn't a weltanshauung something like our world view of what's going on? Screature, is that close?


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## MACenstein'sMonster (Aug 21, 2008)

screature said:


> Depends on who you are and your Weltanschauung... sounds like you may be a utilitarian/pragmatist.


I'd like to state for the record what my Weltanschauung is but it was just soundly defeated by a clawless cat. Besides right now it would be unethical of me to do so. But check back again tomorrow at 2pm and it might all have changed by then.


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## MACenstein'sMonster (Aug 21, 2008)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> It's sounds like we're just using different terms. *So "what's right for the moment" doesn't rely on any ethical standards that you may have previously thought about or learned?*


Yes.

But that doesn't mean they'll hold up when put to the test.

A university dude I knew gave me one of his books called "Beyond the New Morality". Right off the bat it confirmed what I had learned elsewhere when it stated the following:



> "Finally, once one is in a position to take a reasoned view of moral issues, it is possible to ask and try to answer the question 'To what extent can I close the gap, in my life and in society, between the way I think things ought to be and the way they are?"


"a reasoned view"??????????????

"close the gap"??????????????

There's your reality, there's my reality, and there's everyone else's reality. No two are the same no matter how close you believe them to be. We simply skim over stuff to get on with it otherwise we'd never have time to watch _Survivor_ or play shuffleboard down at the legion hall. So how the heck can we believe that ethics is something real when we don't even know for sure what is real? Faith maybe? You could say that you believe in yourself but who is the self you believe in? That's a whopper of a question that waaaaay too many of us take for granted. Usually it gets dismissed because it's just flaky mumbo jumbo jibber jabber which is another way of saying, "I dunno, that's calculus hard, and I gotta return this text message which is fun and easy."


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

removed


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Rps said:


> Little rusty on my philosophy, but isn't a weltanshauung something like our world view of what's going on? Screature, is that close?


Yep that is pretty much it.



> A comprehensive world view (or worldview) is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing natural philosophy, fundamental existential and normative postulates or themes, values, emotions, and ethics.[1] The term is a loan translation or calque of German Weltanschauung [ˈvɛlt.ʔanˌʃaʊ.ʊŋ] ( listen), composed of Welt, 'world', and Anschauung, 'view' or 'outlook'. It is a concept fundamental to German philosophy and epistemology and refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Thanx Screature, so in what it is, is our paradigm of how we see the world ....


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Rps said:


> Thanx Screature, so in what it is, is our paradigm of how we see the world ....


In a sense yes... analogous to a personal paradigm I suppose you could say. 

However, when I think of a paradigm I think of it as being external to oneself. Whereas when I think of weltanshauung I think of it as primarily related to an individual's worldview (although strictly speaking it can be a collective view as well).


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*Should the 20 remaining charges against Pickton be stayed?*

The following is from the Toronto Star via Canada Press: I was wondering about the justice of this.....


Charges against serial killer Robert Pickton for the first-degree murder of 20 women were stayed Wednesday. Some facts about those women:

Cara Louise Ellis — Known on the street as Nicky Trimble, Ellis was born April 13, 1971 and was last seen in January 1997.

Andrea Fay Borhaven — Born Jan. 19, 1972 in Armstrong, B.C. Borhaven was reported missing to police on May 18, 1999 but was last seen in 1997.

Kerry Lynn Koski — Born Aug. 14, 1959, Koski had three daughters. She was last seen Jan. 7, 1998.

Wendy Crawford — Born April 21, 1956, Crawford had a son and a daughter. She was last seen in December 1999.

Debra Lynne Jones — Born in 1957, she was last seen in December 2000.

Tiffany Louise Drew — Born Jan. 31, 1975, Drew had three children. She was last seen March 2000.

Sarah de Vries — Born May 12, 1969, to a troubled mother and adopted at 11 months. De Vries’ journals and poetry have been widely published since she was last seen April 21, 1998. Her sister, Maggie de Vries, wrote about her sister in the award-winning book Missing Sarah.

Cynthia Feliks — Born Dec. 12, 1954 in Detroit, Feliks was a mother and grandmother. She was last seen in December 1997.

Angela Rebecca Jardine — Born June 23, 1971, Jardine was mentally disabled and said to have the intellect of an 11-year-old child. She was last seen Nov. 10, 1998.

Diana Melnick — Born Aug. 26, 1975, Melnick was last seen Dec. 27, 1995.

Jacqueline McDonell — Born June 6, 1976, McDonell had a daughter. She was last seen Jan. 16, 1999.

Diane Rock — Born Sept. 2, 1967, Rock had five children. She was last seen in October 2001.

Heather Kathleen Bottomley — Born Aug. 17, 1976, Bottomley had two children. She was last seen April 2001.

Jennifer Furminger — Born Oct. 22, 1971, Furminger grew up in St. Catharine’s, Ont. She had a son and police say she was last seen in December 1999.

Helen Mae Hallmark — Born June 24, 1966, Hallmark had a daughter. She was last seen June 15, 1997.

Patricia Johnson — Born Dec. 2, 1975. Johnson had a son and a daughter, and was last seen March 2001.

Heather Gabrielle Chinnock — Born Nov. 10, 1970 in Denver, Colo. She had two children. Last seen April 2001.

Tanya Marlo Holyk —Born Dec. 8. 1975, Holyk had a son. She was last Oct. 29, 1996.

Sherry Leigh Irving — Born March 19, 1973, Irving was last seen in April 1997.

Inga Monique Hall — Born in 1952 in Germany, Hall had two daughters and two granddaughters. She was last seen in February 1998.

Pickton was convicted in December 2007 of the murder of six women from Vancouver’s gritty Downtown Eastside. Some facts about those women:

Mona Lee Wilson — Born Jan. 13, 1975, Wilson had a son. She was last seen in November 2001.

Sereena Abotsway — Born Aug. 20, 1971, Abotsway suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and lived with a foster family most of her life. She 29 when she was last seen in August 2001.

Andrea Joesbury — Born Nov. 6, 1978, in Victoria. Joesbury had a daughter. She was last seen in June 2001.

Georgina Faith Papin — Born March 11, 1964, Papin had seven children. She was last seen in March 1999.

Brenda Wolfe — Born Oct. 20, 1968, Wolfe had a son. She was last seen in February 1999.

Marnie Frey — Born Aug. 30, 1973 in Campbell River, B.C. Her daughter, Brittney, was born five years before she disappeared and gave an impact statement at Pickton’s trial. Frey was last seen in August 1997.

Police also found the DNA of six more women on Pickton’s farm. No charges have been laid in the cases of Nancy Clark, Stephanie Lane, Jacqueline Murdock, Dawn Crey, Sharon Abraham and Yvonne Boen.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

No they shouldn't be stayed. Each of these cases needs to be legally identified as a "murder" and the additional jail time needs to be added to Pickton's sentence.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> No they shouldn't be stayed. Each of these cases needs to be legally identified as a "murder" and the additional jail time needs to be added to Pickton's sentence.


He's currently been given a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years, which is the longest sentence possible in Canada.

Pragmatically speaking, would it really change anything?


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Sonal said:


> He's currently been given a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years, which is the longest sentence possible in Canada.
> 
> Pragmatically speaking, would it really change anything?


I can see your point, but what of the families of the 20, shouldn't they have a right to see justice done on behalf of their daughters? I struggle with this, I believe that the justice system must speak for everyone and especially for those who now cannot speak for themselves. I believe the staying is a form of denial of what I consider victim rights. I might be more in agreement if he was sentenced to jail until his life ended.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Sonal said:


> He's currently been given a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years, which is the longest sentence possible in Canada.
> 
> Pragmatically speaking, would it really change anything?


Still an additional trial after five years after the first could just possibly put him in the can for another five years... and more importantly might improve the chances of having him declared a dangerous offender thus making him a true lifetime fixture.

Usually I oppose the death sentence as it is extremely difficult to undo, should it turn out the target was innocent. In this case and a handful of others I would certainly support it.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

Rps said:


> I can see your point, but what of the families of the 20, shouldn't they have a right to see justice done on behalf of their daughters? I struggle with this, I believe that the justice system must speak for everyone and especially for those who now cannot speak for themselves. I believe the staying is a form of denial of what I consider victim rights. I might be more in agreement if he was sentenced to jail until his life ended.


Hence my use of the word "pragmatically." I understand the point, but I think the sticky part is that we do not have a life-without-parole sentence in Canada. 



eMacMan said:


> Still an additional trial after five years after the first could just possibly put him in the can for another five years... and more importantly might improve the chances of having him declared a dangerous offender thus making him a true lifetime fixture.


Is there a statute of limitations on murder trials? I don't know. 

I have a feeling he will likely be declared a dangerous offender regardless. After all, Bernardo was, and he was charged with just 3 victims, though there were other victims.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

There is also the issue of dragging the families of the victims that have already gone through a horrendous process, though another one all over again. It is my understanding based on a CBC report that they would be required to go through a new trial as well. That being the case I am sympathetic toward those people and really don't see the ordeal as being worth it.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

screature said:


> There is also the issue of dragging the families of the victims that have already gone through a horrendous process though another one all over again. It is my understanding based on a CBC report that they would be required to go through a new trial as well. That being the case I am sympathetic toward those people and really don't see the ordeal as being worth it.


+1 
Not to mention the other families. Hopefully those who have lost sisters or daughters or mothers can view the original conviction as vindication for their loved one as well.

To me the most important thing is keeping this piece of 5#!t behind bars.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I would probably ask the families if they wanted to see a further trial including their loved one. If they did, then I think the courts have no reasonable grounds to refuse a trial.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Rps said:


> I can see your point, but what of the families of the 20, shouldn't they have a right to see justice done on behalf of their daughters? I struggle with this, I believe that the justice system must speak for everyone and especially for those who now cannot speak for themselves. I believe the staying is a form of denial of what I consider victim rights. I might be more in agreement if he was sentenced to jail until his life ended.


If he gets put away for the rest of his life, wouldn't that be best result, save for capital punishment? Running additional trials increases the odds of making a mistake, and no one wants to see this man get off on a technicality. Sometimes good enough has to be good enough.


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

Rps said:


> Now I'd like to change the plot. Let's say the father decided to accept the daughter's advances, thinking she was 9. Let's further change the plot that he is found out and arrested. Now during the trial it is confirmed that she was actually 32 years old.
> 
> Other than the issue of marital fidelity, what other issues are there...


Hmm... tough one. Ethically speaking, it's easy - he's guilty. He knowingly intended to commit statutory rape. But legally speaking, no crime was committed. I don't know what he could be convicted of. If you could convict him of statutory rape because he thought she was underage, then you would have to set free lots of convicted statutory rapists who claimed "I swear I thought she was 19!"


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

I know we have a thread currently running on Wikileaks, but that thread seems to be about U.S. bashing and how the U.S. deserves the most recent "leaks"

The Ethical Thread seeks a different view. One of the issues I have is that just because something has been "wiki-fied" doesn't mean that the "documents" are valid. In fact, for those who are conspiracy theorists, one could make a case that leaked documents could be used by governments to sway popular opinion. Take the case of Iran and the so-called nervous neighbours .... rationale for military action on the nuke sites.....

So the question is: Is Wikileaks ethical in publishing these documents. Does the fact that they openly communicated to governments that they were in the process of "leaking" these documents, and going against [ and I would probably suggest predictable ] protestations from those governments constitute a breach of ethics.... or does communicating the intention a form of ethics in itself?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

WikiLeaks seems to operate on the premise that all information must be made public, regardless of whether someone might be hurt by it. I'm not suggesting that this round of 250,000 documents actually contains anything woefully harmful that I've seen, but I'm also certain that all 250,000 documents were not pre-screened for potential to damage. There was no ethical consideration of whether these documents might harm innocent people.

So if Wikileaks' ethical stance is that all secrets are wrong, I suppose it meets its own weak ethical standard.

I doubt very much that ethics are at play here at all. It's more a cult of dour celebrity for the guy behind WikiLeaks.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Macfury, do you think that a site like Wikileaks should be shutdown? Or is this another case of media frenzy spiking the hits on the site..... there is a thought that there are truly no real secrets between governments....only ones that are made public and those that aren't......


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Rps said:


> I know we have a thread currently running on Wikileaks, but that thread seems to be about U.S. bashing and how the U.S. deserves the most recent "leaks"
> 
> The Ethical Thread seeks a different view. One of the issues I have is that just because something has been "wiki-fied" doesn't mean that the "documents" are valid. In fact, for those who are conspiracy theorists, one could make a case that leaked documents could be used by governments to sway popular opinion. Take the case of Iran and the so-called nervous neighbours .... rationale for military action on the nuke sites.....
> 
> So the question is: Is Wikileaks ethical in publishing these documents. Does the fact that they openly communicated to governments that they were in the process of "leaking" these documents, and going against [ and I would probably suggest predictable ] protestations from those governments constitute a breach of ethics.... or does communicating the intention a form of ethics in itself?


There does seem to be some basis for this. Seems to be a lot of less than subtle content directed towards justifying attacking N. Korea and/or Iran. Also seems very strange that the Israeli's have escaped the sharp-tongued barbs aimed at every other nation, especially given their West Bank history.

Bottom line as a Can-American: I would hate to see more Canadian and American lives wasted in MIC conflicts where these documents are used to partially justify our involvement.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

eMacMan, I couldn't agree more. I just can't help myself from sensing the gentle whiff of contrivance here....


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> Macfury, do you think that a site like Wikileaks should be shutdown? Or is this another case of media frenzy spiking the hits on the site..... there is a thought that there are truly no real secrets between governments....only ones that are made public and those that aren't......


No, it shouldn't be shut down. But the guy needs to accept full legal responsibility for what he's done if it causes any direct damage attributable to those leaks.

I was a little astounded at how weak the U.S. voice has become in international affairs. Its bluster clearly wasn't taken seriously here.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

*New Question: Is the naming of the current U.S. financial debate ( calling it the Fiscal Cliff ) ethical?*

Much as been made of the so called Fiscal Cliff, and I have a question on this that may lead to divergent discussions. Is the naming of the debate the Fiscal Cliff ethical? Does the use of these terms create an unneeded amount of stress under the guise of "communicating" this issue? I have often thought that the tag lines used by the media ( which often instil fear ) are created by the governments of the day.... thoughts/


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## margarok (Jan 16, 2009)

I am so glad you posted here RPS... I had not seen this thread before and will certainly give your question some though and try to respond. We had discussed briefly once before how meaning is assigned to words and your bringing this up (using Fiscal Cliff) is very thought provoking. I'll return later...

(and will read a lot in this thread... as I said, so glad you brought it forward)


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

It's not just the media who come up with unique names for events or causes. 'Fiscal Cliff' was coined to point out the dire consequences of the U.S. government 'doing nothing' and its effect on the American taxpayer. Not even close to unethical, instead pointing to the reality of the situation.

As for names, many coin there own for causes that reflect their actions, as does the media to draw attention to an issue, i.e.: Idle No Longer, Occupy Wall Street, Iron Curtain, PETA, etc. and none of them unethical in any way.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Sinc, I can see your point. But the fact is the fiscal world will not come to an end if these budget items are not passed. The U.S. will not collapse, and the economists are only speculating that a recession will be enacted. All this talk about the "fragile" U.S. economy is really a farce. All economies are fragile and the U.S. has entertained a slow and steady growth......this means a sustaining strategy, which is a good thing. Large swings only hinder growth. The use of the term Fiscal Cliff, in my opinion, deliberately communicates political drama and really sends the wrong message to the constituents. And that is what's unethical in my opinion.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

So then Rp if Fiscal Cliff as you say, "deliberately communicates political drama", and the circumstances certainly strikes me as being exactly that, how can you possibly find the telling of the truth by use of a descriptive phrase, unethical in any way? Sorry, but I just don't buy that view at all.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

That's my point Sinc, I don't think it does tell the truth .... but the proof will be if the thing doesn't pass .... be that a cliff or a bump in the road.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> All economies are fragile and the U.S. has entertained a slow and steady growth......this means a sustaining strategy, which is a good thing.


A bad thing here. It's "sustaining" at a level far slower than the growth in employable citizens.

There's nothing unethical about the term "Fiscal Cliff" any more than it's unethical to call a hair care product "Exciting." LIkewise, any fool who wants to check will realize that falling over "the cliff" means nothing more than higher taxes and lower spending. 

The Republicans want no rise in taxes and lower spending. The Democrats want higher taxes and higher spending. I'd take the FIscal Cliff over the Democrat deal any day.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Rps said:


> That's my point Sinc, I don't think it does tell the truth .... but the proof will be if the thing doesn't pass .... be that a cliff or a bump in the road.


So then, just so I understand you, you're saying that "deliberately communicates political drama" is untrue? I fail to see how that is unethical and I think it is certainly the truth.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> A bad thing here. It's "sustaining" at a level far slower than the growth in employable citizens.
> 
> There's nothing unethical about the term "Fiscal Cliff" any more than it's unethical to call a hair care product "Exciting." LIkewise, any fool who wants to check will realize that falling over "the cliff" means nothing more than higher taxes and lower spending.
> 
> The Republicans want no rise in taxes and lower spending. The Democrats want higher taxes and higher spending. I'd take the FIscal Cliff over the Democrat deal any day.


higher spending than now?

It seems you're falling victim to the republican smoke screen. Or just parroting it.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

SINC said:


> So then, just so I understand you, you're saying that "deliberately communicates political drama" is untrue? I fail to see how that is unethical and I think it is certainly the truth.


No, the Fiscal Cliff denotes more drama than reality..... example, payroll taxes, if you earn 20K you potentially, and I mean potentially might pay $500 more per year, 100K potentially $1200 more...... the operant word here is potentially..... hardly the end of the world and there is much more drama here than the appropriation debates a couple of years ago. That's all I'm saying..... too much drama not enough facts in the general stream of media coverage.......


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> No, the Fiscal Cliff denotes more drama than reality..... example, payroll taxes, if you earn 20K you potentially, and I mean potentially might pay $500 more per year, 100K potentially $1200 more...... the operant word here is potentially..... hardly the end of the world and there is much more drama here than the appropriation debates a couple of years ago. That's all I'm saying..... too much drama not enough facts in the general stream of media coverage.......


The U.S. government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Any strategy that does not address spending in a serious fashion now--instead of years from now as Democrats propose-- -will fail.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Macfury said:


> The U.S. government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Any strategy that does not address spending in a serious fashion now--instead of years from now as Democrats propose-- -will fail.


Actually, they have both.


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## margarok (Jan 16, 2009)

bryanc said:


> I'm glad to see this thread has sprung back to life... these are things I've always enjoyed discussing and arguing with intelligent people with different perspectives.
> 
> Firstly, I just want to give a nod the disscussion that's gone before:
> 
> ...


Am simply perusing this thread after it being brought to the fore by friend rps.

I did return the wallet (to campus security with a phone call to owner to keep everyone honest) found under a desk in lecture hall on day of a class final one cold December day over a decade ago. Being rather proud of my honesty, I called my parents to brag on what a great job they did raising me. My father promptly told me I'd ruined any blessing I might receive from doing it by bragging about it. 

Quite a dilemmer, isn't it?


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## margarok (Jan 16, 2009)

Rps said:


> This brings us an interesting point.... if the prosecution uses impact statements in sentencing, which are usually to increase the possibility of the sentence, doesn't it seem logical that the victim can use her impact sentence to, at her option, plead for leniency? What is interesting in this case is that it is still open .... in that, I mean, that Polanski was supposed to have a plea deal worked out, but rumours indicated the judge was going to relent, so he skipped. This means he is not prosecuted, since it was not formally captured in the courts. Also, Polanski had vehicles in the appeal process at his disposal but chose run instead of appealing. This means he is also open to other charges for skipping his court appearance. To me, the way he smiles when he talks about this case makes me shiver .... that smirk bothers me .... I guess 13 is border line in the pedophile business.......


RPS! What an interesting dialogue to read! This certainly reminds me why I was drawn to join and lurk and listen (read) the comments on this forum two or three years ago! Thank you for pointing this topic out for me to read. However, as you can see, midnight approaches and I shall drink a glass of champagne with my family and toast the new year and be thankful for days gone by! And I will continue reading this as I have opportunity! Thank you, my friend. I hope you and yours are enjoying the day as well!


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> Actually, they have both.


Why do you think so?


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Macfury said:


> The U.S. government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Any strategy that does not address spending in a serious fashion now--instead of years from now as Democrats propose-- -will fail.


Both! Given the $16 Trillion$ hole they have dug. Best place to start would be to trim military spending back to pre-shrub levels.


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## margarok (Jan 16, 2009)

Trimming military spending is something the U.S. really needs, but is nearly impossible to attempt with so many corporations relying on military contracts to fund their donations to politicians, who then bring home the "jobs" to local communities where voters re-elect them to do more of the same.

Having spent the last 30 years in both military service followed by government contract work taught me a lot about how to waste as much money as possible doing as little productive work as possible.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Macfury said:


> Why do you think so?


First Happy New Year MacFury! I hope you and yours had a great evening and truly wish in the year to come much health and happiness....

The reason the U.S. has the duel problem of revenue and debt is they are, first, borrowing their way out of recession..... it still remains to be seen if this was a poor strategy, the U.K., on the other hand, is cost cutting its way out .... that, too, is without conclusive results as to which was the better path to go.

On the revenue side the U.S.'s wealth distribution is almost dichotomous .... to much of a spread leaves little room for monetary and fiscal policy to be evenly effected across all economic strata .... in a way it is a diminishing return.... they need to cut spending in needless areas, and prop up sectors which spawn true growth so one can begin to narrow the gaps within the economic strata. So, in many ways I agree with your fiscal views, but one has to be wary of cutting significant social programmes .... these are the bridge from one strata level to another .... it's like ticket prices at a sporting event, most start with the cheap seats and work their way across the ticket stream to the best seats they can afford ... thus keeping the team viable ..... if you don't grow the business that way you will fall to the tragedy of the commons, so to speak, ....


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

margarok said:


> Having spent the last 30 years in both military service followed by government contract work taught me a lot about how to waste as much money as possible doing as little productive work as possible.


I think it was Ike who stated "beware of the military-industrial complex"... he was right. There is defines and then there is over kill........... like how many nuclear weapons does a country need to have .......... and this isn't just a whack against the U.S., all countries who have a significant military do this at the expense of more beneficial programmes, like health care, pensions, job creation, an my favourite, infrastructure.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> First Happy New Year MacFury! I hope you and yours had a great evening and truly wish in the year to come much health and happiness....
> 
> The reason the U.S. has the duel problem of revenue and debt is they are, first, borrowing their way out of recession..... it still remains to be seen if this was a poor strategy, the U.K., on the other hand, is cost cutting its way out .... that, too, is without conclusive results as to which was the better path to go.
> 
> On the revenue side the U.S.'s wealth distribution is almost dichotomous .... to much of a spread leaves little room for monetary and fiscal policy to be evenly effected across all economic strata .... in a way it is a diminishing return.... they need to cut spending in needless areas, and prop up sectors which spawn true growth so one can begin to narrow the gaps within the economic strata. So, in many ways I agree with your fiscal views, but one has to be wary of cutting significant social programmes .... these are the bridge from one strata level to another .... it's like ticket prices at a sporting event, most start with the cheap seats and work their way across the ticket stream to the best seats they can afford ... thus keeping the team viable ..... if you don't grow the business that way you will fall to the tragedy of the commons, so to speak, ....


Happy New year to you and yours!

If they cut back unnecessary military spending, stopped giving away free cell phones, limited food stamps to those who are actually hungry, and adjusted the retirement age for Social Security to 66 and eventually 67 in monthly increments, there would be little need for tax increases.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

I agree. FIrst to go is military spending......


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

_First of all SS age has been 66 for I believe at least 20 years. SS is self supporting, what it cannot support are all the other things Congress steals SS funds to do._

Onto another subject.

A neighbours son was paralyzed last summer. He recently returned home from a very long hospitalization. His family bought him a new van.

Interestingly the newspaper implied it had been donated by the auto dealer. That was far from the truth, they gave him the normal end of the year discount. Beyond that they are still looking at almost the price of the van again, to get it to where it is fully wheel chair accessible and drivable.

I talked to the editor and he said the dealer had led him to believe that the Van had been significantly discounted, hence the story.

Now I see that as a very sleazy way for the dealer to try to grab a bit of free publicity.


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

eMacMan, I agree, but, the editor should have had the reporter check out the story....so it's not just the Dealer here. Maybe Sinc can chime in on this to comment on whether I'm wrong or not on this.....but to me the media's job was half done.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> eMacMan, I agree, but, the editor should have had the reporter check out the story....so it's not just the Dealer here. Maybe Sinc can chime in on this to comment on whether I'm wrong or not on this.....but to me the media's job was half done.


In my opinion, it's just the dealer. If a reporter interviews a dealer who says he gave these people a discount, and the family agrees they received a discount, why would the reporter go any further?


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## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Vehicles, like all products, have natural price points during the year ... year end discounts are usually advertised, and are a promotional item, which, to me means they are not a discount at all ... check the print ads and you will see this. The real issue here is the up-fitting. As a note to you eMacMan, many manufacturers have assistance with these type of up-fitters.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Rps said:


> eMacMan, I agree, but, the editor should have had the reporter check out the story....so it's not just the Dealer here. Maybe Sinc can chime in on this to comment on whether I'm wrong or not on this.....but to me the media's job was half done.


From what I understand the dealer submitted a photo and short blurb to the paper, claiming they were "presenting" the new van to this individual. While they did deliver it to his home, which was 25 miles from the dealership, the wording was deceiving. I am afraid the editor is getting on in years and the dealer is a consistent advertiser.

I think most small town papers are on a financial knife edge and that may have something to do with running the story as it was handed to them. I mean for crying out loud, even in a small community, delivering a new vehicle is not a newsworthy article unless the dealer was doing something unusual. In this case the individual paid the going price and on top of that was still looking at big bucks to make the van useable to him. Not crow worthy in my books.

OTOH every day we see the big network stations deliver as news, what is essentially well packaged corporate advertising. Guess cause it's a small town and I know the editor I expect a little more of him, but then maybe he expected better of the dealer as well?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> Vehicles, like all products, have natural price points during the year ... year end discounts are usually advertised, and are a promotional item, which, to me means they are not a discount at all ... check the print ads and you will see this. The real issue here is the up-fitting. As a note to you eMacMan, many manufacturers have assistance with these type of up-fitters.


The reporter would not likely have been told the price, or known the exact value of the vehicle. The dealer would not have been obliged to reveal it.


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