From: matus@matus1976.com
Date: Fri Jun 13 2003 - 18:30:08 MDT
Emyln said:
>
> I've not included it here, but Michael Dickey posted a quite emotional
> response to my reply to him. Nothing wrong with emotions.
> However, I find it
> extraordinarily difficult to respond to. I feel that my comments have not
> been interpreted with the subtlety that many of them deserve, and am not
> about to try to correct that, point by point. This communication is very
> clearly a tar baby, who I refuse to beat further.
My apologies if I have mis-interpreted what you are saying, I make no
intentional effort to do so, but when you say things such as 'Wars always
result in loss of liberties' (paraphrasing) I must take issue with such
comments, as it seems obvious to me that WWI, WWII and the Cold War all
resulted in significantly greater liberties for the entire world.
>
> Michael accuses me of, amongst other things, being a moral relativist. I
> don't think that I am; I think that I have some strong moral principles
> which feel absolute. However, I don't understand what they are
> grounded on -
> I believe logically that they can have no absolute basis, which
> leaves me in
> a bind. Fixing this is definitely on my to-do list, and will
> probably occupy
> a large portion of my entire life.
I honestly appreciate the sincere response and I appreciate your personal
dilemma, I too have strong moral principles (obviously), but could not
accurately and objectively defend each and every one. I am a fan of Kant,
Aristotle, Rand among others. I feel Rand makes compelling arguments for an
objective basis for ethics, but I admit I am not yet intelligent enough to
fully defend or even comprehend them. Recently I have read of Shermers
efforts to promote a system of 'provisional' ethics, and attempt to draw a
reasonable, objective and scientific system of moral principles, deriding
acts which, for example, hurt most of the people most of the time, but I
admit it is a difficult subject. However, I am fully cognizant of the need
to draw a reasonable line, that murder, oppression, enslavement, coercion,
etc, are wrong. The fundamental libertarian notion that assaults on person
or property are always wrong reverberates strongly within me. However, I
make the claim that your are a moral relativist based on the fact that it
seems (to me) that you do not hold all peoples, and all countries to the
same absolute moral standards. You seem to judge moral actions differently
depending on who is the perpetrator of those actions. (cont)
>
> I wish to leave aside the previous discussion, because I think we'll get
> nowhere. Hopefully we can agree to disagree (even though that
> means that at
> least one of us is not a bayesian rationalist :-)
>
> (Oh, and I don't mean to ignore Michael's oft ask question. No, no one has
> the right to be a dictator (perhaps excepting if his/her citizens
> choose it,
> but maybe not even then))
That being said, I still can not understand how you can acknowledge that no
one has any right whatsoever to be a dictator, but blame the deaths
resulting from the coalitions actions on the coalition, and not the dictator
whom, as you acknowledge, had no right to be a dictator, and as I have
noted, only goal was to remain an oppressive murderous dictator. This is
what leads me to call you a moral relativist, that you do not stand by your
moral principle that no one has a right to be a dictator in the case.
Unless, perhaps, you feel that the coalition had even *less* of a right to
attempt to remove said dictator than dictator had to stay in power? An even
more shocking stance to me if true.
I would invite you to consider how things might have turned out had Saddam
instead used this as an oppertunity to better the Arab people, presenting a
speech that perhaps told the history of the Arab people and Islam, which
focused on their lead in the world for so many centuries in science,
culture, and math, while the west was burning witches and building new
torture devices. Make it a rallying cry for the Arab people and Islam, to
show the world the great creative and intellectual power inherient in middle
eastern peoples that can be unleashed in the first free democratic arab
nation. To once again lead the world in science, culture, and art. But
that is not what he did, instead he cowered in bunkers and insisted his
people throw themselves at the coalition forces to certain death, only
because he wanted to remain a dictator.
In any case, as you insist, you wish to leave aside this discussion, and if
you so request I will drop the topic with you and consider and respond to
your question in an later response.
Regards,
Michael Dickey
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