{"id":209,"date":"2002-07-21T12:20:00","date_gmt":"2002-07-21T17:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/?p=209"},"modified":"2002-07-21T12:20:00","modified_gmt":"2002-07-21T17:20:00","slug":"morality-and-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/?p=209","title":{"rendered":"Morality and War"},"content":{"rendered":"

(posted in response to radi0actv<\/a>‘s slew of comments<\/a> on an earlier entry of mine)<\/p>\n

Comment #1: A stylistic suggestion. There are no limits on entry length, even though there are on comments, so it would probably be simpler to put the one entry in your journal, then provide a link to in via a comment in mine. <\/p>\n

Comment #2: The way I see it, we’re looking at this from two different perspectives, aptly summed up with the difference between a couple of prepositions in spanish (and in french, as I understand it). Among many other things ‘por’ means ‘because’, as in, “I smacked him because he smacked me.” It sums up the conditions that led to an action, or, a reaction as I tend to think of it. The corresponding meaning of ‘para’ is harder to sum up in one word. Usually, in english we construct the concept with an infinitive, but without a preposition, as in, “I smacked him to stop him from smacking me”. But indicates the ultimate intent of an action. You’re talking ‘por’, I’m talking ‘para’. <\/p>\n

Perhaps I’m a bit odd in my thinking on morality, in that the ‘por’ angle doesn’t matter to me. I care about the future. I do not approve of punishment or revenge. I approve wholeheartedly of prevention. And I can see situations where even capital punishment is a valid and morally justified form of prevention. In general, I oppose it only due to the fallibility of human judgement.<\/p>\n

I do not accept prior crimes alone as justification for response. Whether he hit me, killed my parents, or destroyed everything I ever loved. From a moral perspective, I care about that only as an indicator of future actions. In general one is justified in taking action where the predicted net consequences do not outweigh the harm of inaction. <\/p>\n

What I’m predicting is that by our action over there we’re building resentment which will result in at least as many kamikaze terrorists as we took out. We’re doing this by killing more people than they ever did, and imprisoning more, under conditions we don’t have much information on, but you can guess aren’t meeting the Geneva Conventions. I fail to see how this is a moral war, from the ‘para’ perspective. <\/p>\n

If we go back to another ‘por’ v ‘para’ perspective on post-war treatment, and the consequences thereof, we have only to look at the end of WWI, and compare it to the Marshall plan at the end of WWII. Tell me whether you’d rather live through the Great Depression again, or, far that matter, WWIII, with nuclear technology far more widely spread?<\/p>\n

As was put quite eloquently on a poster I noticed on my way home last night: “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” You may believe that the U.S. performed no hostile act against the Afghanis prior to the attacks on the world trade center, but I assure you, they do not. No one will ever agree that it’s all even ‘now’, no matter when now is. Someone has to be willing to let the last word go to someone else. And it’s hardly likely that the side that lost most will be the first to forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(posted in response to radi0actv‘s slew of comments on an earlier entry of mine) Comment #1: A stylistic suggestion. There are no limits on entry length, even though there are on comments, so it would probably be simpler to put the one entry in your journal, then provide a link to in via a comment … Continue reading “Morality and War”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}