To be fair, I responded to Foolos4 right before I sent that to you (: So there is no possible way you would have seen that. The bottom-line is that Trump has done sexually immoral things, for sure. I didn't realize he was actually convicted in court, and got off of a rape charge on a technicality. So that's a fair point Foolos4 was making there.

To be honest, though, I would still vote for Trump over Kamala knowing that. Of course, I do not intent to condone that behavior; but every election is like picking the lesser of the two evils ):

I really wish a philosopher would run for office.

If you are suggesting that Western culture (whatever that may be) is better in EVERY single way that matters I would want to see how you are calculating this?

Because it is the only set of values that separates church from state; gives people as many equal liberties as possible; has the right to bear arms; and is merit-based (or at least used to be). Any society which is missing some of things is not as good (I would say). Maybe we can disagree on the 2nd amendment; but the others seem obviously better than any alternatives.

The best parts, ironically, of eastern countries are the westernized aspects of it—in terms of what really matters politically. Sure, the food may be way better; people may live more healthy lifestyles; etc. But if they don’t have basic rights than that doesn’t really matter—does it?

One such example would be how well other countries around the world have managed to separate religion from state (China and Japan had to create a concept for Religion to talk about monotheistic traditions in the late 19th century)

I don’t know enough about Japan to comment; but China, really? China sends people with religious beliefs to concentration camps….

In Australia the culture has survived in spite of the attempts of erasing it during colonization.

What’s survived? I didn’t follow.

The difficulty is in showing how we can evaluate this in any objective manner.

I am viewing it through an Aristotelian lens, ultimately.

I created a thread sometime ago regarding the premise of 'better languages' and it was met with equal hostility. Some people are just not willing to talk about such ideas.

:up:

I do think European Culture is probably better than US Culture simply because it is not anywhere near as homogenous as US culture. European culture is a patchwork of various traditions and ideas that have rubbed up against each other, and contended with each other (often violently), for millennia.

Interesting, why would diversity make a culture better? I would imagine that a society which is homogeneous and in alignment with the Human Good is the best—not one which has various opinions on what the Human Good is, nor whether to follow it.

The biggest issue is defining what is meant by Western Culture and whether or not the term is at all useful.

True. I am talking about the core western ideas; like democracy, liberties, rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms (for the US at least—Britain, e.g., can take that L on this one), tolerance, etc.

Is supremacy, nationalism and imperialism necessarily 'bad'. I think not.

I have a feeling you are the only one that is going to agree with me on that, lol.

There is no actual objective wrong, only conventional wrongs, yes

Then, you have to deny that there is such a thing as a bad farmer.

Usefull for what, to be able to declare war?

Morality is useful for knowing what the right thing to do or not do is.

It's neither totally realist nor anti-realist I think. Morals are very real in that they exist as conventions for people to follow within certain groups, and are therefor not merely subjective expressions or choices of individuals... but they are also not the things you go looking for and can find as objective facts in the world. We create them over time.

Ok, so it sounds like your view is a form of moral anti-realism; because you are denying that moral judgments express something objective; instead, they are inter-subjective. This is just as meaningless to me as if it were straightforwardly subjective: why should anyone care what some group of people think? It literally doesn’t matter, because you are denying that there is anything that actually matters.

True, and I recanted that claim to @Fooloso4: Trump is definitely a sex offender. There's too much evidence to support this for me to overlook.

That's what I've been trying to tell you: democratic nations don't "take over" other countries to fix those other countries' morality

No, no, no. You missed the point: democratic nations don’t go to war at all based off of a vote—that’s not how it works. You are acting like a democratic nation only goes to war if we vote to.

This opens up the discussion to the question: “what reasons can a democratic nation go to war, which is despite whatever their citizens think?”. I am tacking on one more than you: if another country is doing something really bad—like genocide. So, why do you think otherwise? You can’t say it’s because people wouldn’t vote for it….

Who attacked the Nazi regime just to improve its morals?
And why do you think shifting the subject in every exchange is going to convince anyone of your own moral rectitude?

I didn’t shift the discussion. Here’s what I said:

A war of aggression, for me, is always immoral.

Is going to war with the Nazis to stop the Holocaust a war of aggression? Sure. Is it immoral? Not at all.

You said that a war of aggression is always immoral; so I was asking if you think that a war to stop genocide is then immoral? That’s the logical implication of what you said, and I want to see if you are willing to bite that bullet.

:heart:

I suggest the opposite is the case: you cannot unify any member of government with any of the people it rules over. It’s impossible for someone to represent people she’s never met, for example, and the wants and needs of the people she has met shift to such an extent that to keep track of them all would be impossible. People are only nominally represented by politicians.

Well, it’s about the values that she would profess (and hopefully stick to) which people would vote her in for: that’s the connect between them that you seem to be missing.

I’m not saying the state should do that, only that they cannot do otherwise.

To a certain extent I agree, because I do believe State’s slowly becoming tyrannical over time; so I see your point there. However, that’s one of the main reasons we have guns…..

Look, Jefferson was no dummy: he explicitly stated that a rebellion from time-to-time in a republic is as necessary and good as a storm for the earth’s ecosystem:

Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

- Jefferson to Madison, January 30, 1787

That’s my boy, Jeff.

Imperialism is the expansion of power and jurisdiction. One cannot give aid by establishing a permanent institution and ruling over the victims.

Imperialism is “a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force”. I am just saying that, in giving aid, influencing them into the same values as the West isn’t a bad idea. Is that not Imperialistic to you?

Imperialism suggests occupation and the expansion of power. Implying that this is an act to save victims is nonsense.

You don’t think a US version of Iran would be better? I think so.

The caste system was officially outlawed in 1950 but it still persists in certain parts of India. From what I understand, it is highly controversial in India. It is wrong to say that it persists everywhere in India.

There is overwhelming evidence that it is upheld in the vast majority of their society. There are tons of crimes reports, and tons not reported, that never get investigated because the police there do not care at all.

The Taliban is a wicked force and promotes wicked policies, but I wouldn't say that Afghan society is degenerate. There was pre-Taliban Afghanistan.

Perhaps: I would have to look into it. If it was like Iran, then it was definitely degenerate. However, this sidesteps my point: I was talking about specifically Talibanian rule.

We have Trump's admission that he grabs women by the pussy.

This is what he said:

when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy

That is not a sex crime to grab a woman “by the pussy” if she let’s you do it.

Either way, I see your point and recant my statement:

On Tuesday, May 12, 2023, the Manhattan jury of nine men and three women found the former president liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

He was also, upon reading in to it, found guilty of rape under the common definition but not charged because the definition of rape in that state required the unconsensual penetration to be with a penis and not fingers. So, yeah, Trump definition is a sex offender—good point Foolos4.

Please cite those facts. You like to throw around terms such as 'objectively'. I know you will not agree but values are not facts. The fact is, however, that the belief in equality comes from Christianity not secular sources.

Traditionally, yes, it comes from Christianity. I am not sure how deep we want to get into this, but I am a neo-Aristotelian; so I believe that the chief good is to be a eudaimon because this is what is required to realize and preserve the objective, internal goods to mindhood; and this is just to say that one must be virtuous, in the pre-modern sense, as it relates to the natural functions of the mind. One of those virtues, and the highest of them, is Justice. To be just is to respect a thing for what it deserves relative to what it is (or does); and, so, persons—i.e., beings with a free and rational will—cannot be treated as a mere means but also simultaneously an end-in-themselves. This is what rights are grounded in, and this is also true for Christianity; insofar as it borrows heavily from Aristotle’s ethics.

Objective goods are internal goods, in that Aristotelian sense. I will leave you, for now, with an easy example: the good farmer. The fact that a farmer is good at farming is not hypothetical: it is not relative to the beliefs or desires you have about it, nor that I have about it. This is a form of objective goodness: if you are really a moral anti-realist, then you must deny that there is such a thing as a good farmer, or deny that this sort of objective goodness has any relevance to morality.

What does this mean? Do you think this stands as a reasoned argument?

I was just affirming your question.

In his recent book constitutional scholar Jeffery Rosen argues that the term 'the pursuit of happiness' as used by the Founders traces back before the philosophers of Liberalism to the classical philosophers such as Aristotle and Cicero. The pursuit of happiness is deliberative and public minded. It is not self interested but a matter of the 'common good' and 'general welfare'.

Absolutely; and this goes back to the Aristotelian idea that the state should be trying to facilitate the Human Good. ‘Happiness’ should really be translated here as ‘eudaimonia’.

The right to the pursuit of happiness is not the right to do whatever you think will make you happy or even the right to do whatever you want as long as it does not impinge on the rights of other

Oh, I see. That’s not what it means to people in America nor how it is taught. ‘Happiness’ is used in the modern, non-Aristotelian sense now: you follow your own conception of the good—not some objective good. You are right, though, to point out that the founding father’s were entrenched, because of their predominant Christian beliefs, in Aristotelian thought.

No, if we only had to the right to be a eudaimon, then we would not have the right, e.g., to eat McDonald’s everyday—that’s not how Aristotle envisioned it.

No. the fact is that the dilemma of abortion does not resolve. It is a stand off of conflicting rights.

I can tell you that is certainly not the case; although, like I said, people think that because they don’t understand how normative ethics works. You cannot throw someone in front of a train, thereby killing them, to save five people on the tracks: there is not conflict of rights here. That’s not how it works.

Your hypothetical? Do you mean "without grave consequences"? The actions taken by one nation against another should not be based on improbable hypotheticals.

Correct. I was never denying this. The OP is trying to tease out that there actually are forms of these views which are permissible, per se.

Do you think that real world problems are like the difference between stopping the Nazis and stopping people from eating vanilla ice cream?

No, but my point is that we don’t have to have an exact formula of what to tolerate to agree that a nation should step in to stop the Nazis. That’s obviously bad enough to go to war over it—no?

And this is why people will get upset of a troll-like thread called "in support of Western supremacy, Nationalism and Imperialism".

There’s no trolling intended: there are good forms of nationalism, imperialism, and supremacy. Liberals just get butt-hurt when people use the proper terminology, because they conflate it with the bad forms.

Perhaps a similar thread like "in support of of Marxism-Leninism, the good aspects of the Marxist ideology" would be for someone reasonable, but for others it would be deliberate trolling

That title would, either, suggest trolling. Trolling is when you are purposefully messing with people: you seem to think it is when someone makes a controversial statement. I have no problem with someone creating a thread titled “in support of Maoism”, even though I disagree, as long as they are trying to have a productive and legitimate conversation about it—that’s the whole point of freedom of speech.

So no, Bob, you simply cannot bypass the ugly aspects of ultranationalism and jingoism as "a different form of nationalism" and then contnue talk about it positively.

This is an equivocation. If I say I like gala apples, then it is not valid to critique honey crisp apples as a retort: you cannot say, as you analogously are now, that I like all apples because I like gala apples. This is nonsense.

. But in that case, the whole ideology is against democracy, portrays other human beings as the enemy and justifies a violent revolution to be justified, as least as the 19th Century ideas went.

What??? Patriotism is not anti-democratic. I don’t know why you would suggest all forms of nationalism, like Patriotism, are against democracy.

Except the US didn't go to war to stop the Holocaust.
…
Have the historical facts straight, Bob.

I never claimed to the contrary: I even predicted this point in my response! With all due respect, please take your time in reading my responses; because we are both wasting our time if either or both of us are skimming each other’s posts and addressing irrelevant or already addressed points. I presented you with a counter example to your own, and addressed this already:

Is going to war with the Nazis to stop the Holocaust a war of aggression? Sure. Is it immoral? Not at all. Explain to me my flaw in reasoning here, without pointing out the red herring that in WW2 the US didn’t join until they were attacked (or a more general statement outlining it for other countries and when they joined).

No worries at all, Philosophim!

He is a sex offender, and not because he engages is consensual acts that some might find offensive.

Send me a link to the sex offense that he was charged with, or the reasonable evidence that he should have been convicted (of some sex crime).

A meritocracy guided by secular values may be your preference but others may hold to religious values as superior, that it is religious values that have elevated us above the savagery, cruelty, and viciousness of secularism.

And they, my friend, would be objectively wrong. I don’t care about people’s opinions—this theory is governed by facts.

Do you mean something like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

:smile:

One troubling example: the rights of the woman versus the rights of the fetus versus the interest of the state and the country.

There are certainly tensions and dilemmas to be explored; but that’s how rights work. A right is absolute.

Most of the dilemma revolve, like abortion, around people not understanding how rights actually work. No, you are not allowed to violate someone’s right to life to uphold your own right to bodily autonomy—that’s not how rights work.

You do not know that we could take over North Korea without grave consequences. This points to a problem with ideological wish fulfillment.

I never claimed to the contrary—you sidestepped my hypothetical, as noted by underlining it.

Interesting example since Gandhi was opposed to the very thing you say is needed - power and domination

Red herring.

I agree that toleration should have its limits, but the problem remains as to what ought to be tolerated?

Fallacy of the heap. There are clear examples of what is a pond and what is a lake: I don’t have to give an exact line where one becomes the other. Stopping the Nazis is a clear example of what should be done, and stopping people from eating Vanilla ice cream is a clear example of what shouldn’t be done.

I'm saying people don't vote for it.
…
If you convince them of what they should want, they'll vote differently.

People haven’t ever voted on when to go to war—that’s not how republics work I’m afraid.

A war of aggression, for me, is always immoral.

Is going to war with the Nazis to stop the Holocaust a war of aggression? Sure. Is it immoral? Not at all. Explain to me my flaw in reasoning here, without pointing out the red herring that in WW2 the US didn’t join until they were attacked (or a more general statement outlining it for other countries and when they joined).

Forgot to ask, why we should spend blood and treasure liberating members of the out-group. How is that putting in-group needs first?

It isn’t. The point is not to always prioritize the in-group over out-group; but we still have to do it oftentimes. E.g., every time I save a stranger I am putting myself, to some degree, at risk and thusly it is at the detriment of the family. I see your point though: when there are grave consequences of helping the out-group, then we shouldn’t. I’m fine with that. E.g., I first have a duty to take care of my kids and this conflicts with risking my life to save that stranger from the burning building.

Is that purely because we believe we have the status of moral agents, and a duty to carry out acts we deem moral? Or is it because North Koreans also have the status of being moral agents, and that's why we have a duty to them?

All persons are moral agents, so both people in the West and North Koreans are moral agents. I would say that (not in all but) in some circumstances moral agents have a duty to help other people; and those people needing of help should also be trying to help themselves too.

The answer to those questions would clarify for me whether we are supposed to consider North Koreans members of the in-group or the out-group

In- and out- groups are relativistic and contextual. E.g., someone of another nation is in an out-group to your nation; someone not in your family is in the out-group to your family; etc.

There is not “The in-(or out-)group”.

If they are moral agents toward whom we might have a duty, that sounds like we ought to consider them in-group.

No, but they are in-group if you universalize it as “all humanity”. Then, e.g., aliens would be a part of the out-group.

But if they are out-group, why would we have any duty to liberate them?

Because we have a duty to properly respect—i.e., be just towards—other persons. This doesn’t negate the fact that we, in practicality, have to prioritize our own people over others.

But if they are out-group, why would we have any duty to liberate them?

This is straightforwardly a false dilemma. People in out-groups are still people; so they are moral agents.

When you've decided you don't understand the question, I'll happily rephrase it.

:lol: ???

The population is usually not asked whether it wants to go to war; it's told (often untruthfully) why it should or must go to war.

Firstly, people get told to go to war no matter what in a republic—that’s not unique to my position here. If my country goes to war, then I could legitimately get drafted—are you saying that’s bad too?

Secondly, the idea is that, just like a citizen should want equal rights for their fellow citizens (and to sacrifice potentially for it), so should they with helping people out from another country by taking them over or at least having influence there to help out.

Oh, he doesn't care about the US, either. If he's convinced you otherwise, I've overestimated your acuity.

What makes you think that? I get that he is egoistic, but you don’t think he cares at all about the US?

. If your principles cause innocents to be killed or bereaved, I reject your principles.

So war, for you then, is always impermissible. Got it.

and there is such a thing as having a view which should not be tolerated (e.g., a supporter of sex offenses). — Bob Ross

One will become president of the US in a few months!

Trump is not a supporter of sex offenses. He definitely engages in immoral sex with prostitutes, but that’s not a sex offense—unless you are suggesting that they were coerced into doing it, instead of it being their normal job.

Why must we have a vested interest in its flourishing. How does this differ from cultural relativism?

Cultural relativism is a form of moral realism such that moral judgments are evaluated relative to the objective legal or moral law of the society-at-hand; whereas being vested in the national-interests is just the idea that you should be interested in your nation prospering so that you can too.

Which is substantially better,

A meritocracy guided by secular values (e.g., of rights, liberties, etc.).

What we end up with is where the US is clearly headed plutocracy.

Arguably, it is already a plutocracy and an oligarchy.

While I share your concern with the human good, there has always been a tension in Liberalism between the human good and what individuals may regard as their own good. Some regard the notion of a 'human good' as antithetical to the rights of the individual.

I facially agree; because I think we should think about it as having rights just to let everyone pursue their own conception of what is good; but, upon deeper reflection, this is utterly self-undermining. In order to argue for this, we would have to claim that it is actually good to let people pursue <…>, and this implies that we have not extracted all of ethics out of politics.

The human good is what grounds, in my theory, why it is actually good to let people pursue their own good. It is just.

... if we could take over North Korea right now without grave consequences (such as nuclear war), then it is obviously in our duty to do so—and this is a form of imperialism. Why would you not be a Western supremacist? — Bob Ross

For one, because of the consequences

:lol:

Two, because supremacy, whether it is some version of Western supremacy or some other, has more to do with power and domination than with ideology

Yes, and you need that. This is exactly the absurdity with hyper-liberalism: it is hyper-tolerant. Are you really going to say that Hitler didn’t have inferior values to Ghandi? Are you really going to say that North Korea has at least on par values as the US? This is utter nonsense. Yes, to some extent, we must admit that we have a duty towards what is good; and that includes stopping really bad societies from doing really bad things.

Three, because ideology itself poses a grave threat when it is imposed through action. The lines between persuasion and coercion, no matter now noble one's intentions, blur whenever there is an attempt to move from an ideal to an actuality via political action.

All I got out of this is that it would be difficult to implement; which I do not deny.

I do believe they are doing something wrong according to my own (non-realist/non-universal) moral framework, but I don't necessarily think that should be a or the (only) determining factor in deciding to go to war with another country.

If there is no ‘objective’ morality, then your ethical theory isn’t really useful. It doesn’t matter if you believe that they are doing something wrong but not in the sense that it is actually wrong.

I'm a social constructivist

Is that like moral cultural relativism?

so yes morality would typically only apply within a certain group

It sounds like, contrary to your previous statements, you are a moral realist. Moral cultural relativism is a form of moral realism—although I don’t think it works.

I am open-minded: give me some examples of countries which are officially Islamic that have freedom of religion. I can't think of a single one that actually will not persecute you for exercising a different religion or being homosexual; except for countries that have a separation of church and state.

I don't really disagree with your post here: I think we have to be careful when using violence to impose values on other people...but I am saying it is necessary sometimes and a duty we have.

Overall, I think yes. In many ways other cultural attitudes surpass more Western ideals.

But do they surpass Western culture in the areas that really matter? I don't think so. A representative republic, with liberties and freedoms, where everyone is able to practice what they want, in a merit-based economy, so long as they don't violate other peoples' rights is by far the best culture to live in. I think some of the better aspects of other cultures that you may be talking about, like eating healthy, is something which definitely needs to be worked on in Western society but isn't a part of the core cultural values.

:up:

Yeah see, this is, on it's face, a totally contradictory set of claims. It represents nothing, unless there is a real thing to which you are referring. In which case, it represents that. It can't really cut both ways. This is one of my personal gripes with the CRP that makes it come apart in some of its most important aspects. This reply would go to a couple of your further paras too.

I am not following the critique here: a thing-in-itself represents something real—it represent “that”. It doesn’t represent nothing.

I am saying that seeing a true disconnect

Ok, I was misunderstanding what you mean by “disconnect”. It would be, then, under my view that there is “connect” between the object which excited the senses and the phenomena of it insofar as the former is required for the latter but is not knowable, in terms of its properties, from the latter.

there is simply no reason whatsoever to assume the object which causes perceptions would be significantly different to the perception

You would have to experience the world as it were independently of your experience of it to verify how accurate your perceptions are; which is impossible. All you can know, is that when you strip out the way your brain is pre-structured to experience, then there’s nothing intelligible left. Take the coffee, e.g., and remove space, time, the twelve categories of the understanding, logic, math, etc. … what do you have left? Nothing but an indeterminate object.

These "ideas" are really deliberate propaganda against non Europeans and especially Muslims.
There is no society at large that has these ideas that @Bob Ross is claiming.

Actually, Europeans usually have pretty good countries: I don’t know why you roped them into it. All my examples have been in the middle east and in Asia. I am sure, though, there’s probably some bad apples in Europe as well.

Most of Islam is still what Christianity looked like 500-1000 years ago; so, yeah, I am not generally that supportive of the religion because it hasn’t been domesticated by secular morals yet (enough). Before you quote me out of context, I recognize that there are peaceful Muslims, some of which I know, and I am not saying we should inhibit their ability to peacefully exercise their religion.

Christianity got domesticated more than Islam so far, but they used to be by-at-large just as bad. E.g., wanting the combination of church and state, persecuting different religious sects, persecuting homosexuals, hell-bent on Crusades, etc.

Why should it be so?

The in-group is more important than the out-group. Each group has to protect its own viability first and foremost.

E.g., if I can only save my mother or a stranger, then I go for my mother; because my family—e.g., the in-group—is more important to me than the out-group.

Sovereignty is one crucial thing for any nation. And

This completely sidestepped what I said.

So are jingoism and ultra-nationalism also part of nationalism,

They are a different form of nationalism.

then why promote a term that has also such much negative aspects and can be misunderstood?

There’s nothing confusing about it: nationalism is just the idea that one should have a sense of pride and commitment to their nation over other nations.

And how did that end up?

I think the US could have wiped out the Taliban, just like Al Quaeda, but they gave up because most Americans don’t believe in Imperialism; and, to some extent, I sympathize with it. Afterall, the US has so many problems that they don’t address because they are too busy meddling in other nation’s affairs—but this is irrelevant to the OP. If your nation has glaring issues that need to be addressed, then address them first before trying to expand one’s values to other nations.

So what society is OK with their daughters being raped?

1. North Korea: they collect the women to make ‘pleasure squads’ and it is considered an honor there (to be a sex slave to the elites).

2. Iran: they legalized a form of temporary marriage so that men can pay parents to sell their daughters into temporary sex slavery. It happens all the time there: it’s a sex slavery version of arranged temporary marriage that is sanctioned by and considered normal in that society.

3. China: they do not prosecute and they actively encourage the sexual abuse of female North Korean defectors. Their societies views them as vulnerable scum that do not align with the goals of the Communist Party, and so they do what they like with them.

Need I go on?

I don't think it frequently works historically. I am not denying that most of the historical examples are catastrophic failures; but the OP is pointing out, in principle, that imperialism is not the issue itself. What you are noting is not that imperialism is wrong, but that it is often impractical to try to conquer another nation for the sake of Imperialism (if done in a morally permissible way). I am not saying we go in and conquer each other for dumb reasons or when it is highly impractical to do so; but we should have the disposition that it is our duty to try to subject our better values on worse nations in every practical way possible.

:up:

I'm not a moral realist, and I don't think this is how we should do ethics at all.

Ehhh, then I submit to you that you should be amoral: don’t meddle into matters of right or wrong behavior—because you don’t think there is such a thing. I don’t know why you would even care if North Korea is committing mass genocide because you don’t believe they are doing anything wrong.

:lol:

A nation does not impose its values on other nations. The individuals in government impose their own values on individuals in another nation, whether the rest of the nation approves or not.

It sounds like you don’t believe in personifying the State; and I would just briefly note that in a representative republic you have to—the government represents, to some sufficient extent, the people. You can’t separate any member of the government, or the government in totality, from the people in proper republics.

Human flourishing is not the goal of the state. Its goal is to secure its power and advance its own interests

That’s incredibly immoral. That’s like saying that an individual should only secure their own power and advance their own interests as much as they can—what about caring about other people? What about moral law?

Imposing values on another group of people is wrong for the same reason it would be wrong for them to do it to a western nation: it isn’t up to them. They have not been afforded any right to do so.

This is so obviously wrong, though. You are saying, e.g., that an nation shouldn’t interfere with mass genocide in another nation. It’s nonsense.

Candidates don't run on aggressive foreign policy.

There’s nothing about a representative republic that prevents this; nor why would it? What do you mean by “aggressive”—that’s a very vague term here.

The American people have just elected an isolationist president who doesn't give a sweet ff about other countries.

It’s not that he doesn’t care: it’s that he cares more about America—as it should be. Why would, e.g., Spain care more about the US than itself?!?

conquest is far more expensive than aid, and many representatives oppose even the barely adequate level of aid that might prevent those bad effects you want to march in to remedy.

This can be true, but isn’t always the case. I think you are denying my OP on the grounds of practicality, when it was meant in principle.

I absolutely do. By prevention - like, not propping up and arming bad leaders; like not bombing civilians or supplying bombs to those who will; like empowering the common people; like supplying medicine and technology. Not by conquest.

Do you think there’s a certain point where the Nation would have to use conquest, as a last resort? It seems to me that it is possible that all these alternative measures you spoke of, which certainly should be deployed first could fail and conquest ends up being the final resort.

I view national conquest—i.e., imperialism—as it relates to inferior societies like violence as it relates to evil perpetrators: violence is a just last resort, just like conquest is a just last resort. Do you agree with that? Otherwise, you are saying, analogously, that violence is not a resort at all.

I'm opining that your subset is a pipedream.

I can see it being impractical most of the time, if that is what you mean.

Importing a revolution only works if people want it internally.

Historically, as far as I can tell, it usually was either internally induced or an external government exerted brutality on them to get them in line—the latter being, obviously, immoral.

If I grant your point, then that just means that it is really hard to use sheer force to subjugate a population to fundamentally different values—does that mean we should just leave them be? I don’t think so.

Most of the cases, of which I can think of, the vast majority of the people would actually want the revolution, but they do not have the means (like North Korea, Afghanistan, etc.); and in some cases most of them wouldn’t because that would not be in their own interests (like in India). Sometimes you just have to force people to do the right thing, which is what the entire prison system is based off of—no?

When nationalism is defined as identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations, then it's totally logical to oppose this idea.

The nationalism I was advocating for can sometimes be at the detriment of the interests of other nations but it is NOT necessarily so: countries behave this way all the time. The in-group matters more than the out-group---just not always.

I surely do love my country, but I won't think that my country and it's people are better than others as I've met a lot of foreigners too

Is there any disparity in values between your country and another that would make you think it is better? What if we kept slowly making your country better and better and another worse and worse—when, roughly, if at all, would you say “yeah, my country is objectively better”?

So what's wrong with patriotism then?

Nothing is wrong with it; nor certain forms of nationalism. Patriotism is a form of nationalism.

Just what do you mean by "want to expand its values to the more inferior ones"?

E.g., westernize Talibanian Afghanistan.

But don't be so cocky and full of hubris that you think you have to expand your values to others

Why is that cocky and full of hubris? We do this all the time. E.g., if my neighbor likes different food than me, then no big deal; but if they like raping women...now I am going to intervene and subject them to better morals. What you are saying, e.g., is that we shouldn’t ever intervene because it is ‘cocky’. Confidence is not the same as arrogance.

If it works well, they can copy it from their own free will

You think North Korea is willingly going to stop torturing their citizens?!? Do you think a serial killer is going to magically decide to stop raping and killing women? This is hyper-liberal nonsense.

Besides the point you are trying to make maybe, but

You are absolutely right to note, in practicality, the consequences matter.

I don't think you get to strip away everything that is salient about a concrete situation, and still have something usefull or applicable to say about how to act in that situation.

Of course you can. That’s how ethics is done. What you are arguing for is moral particularism—which doesn’t work.

The reason it matters to analyze imperialism on its own merits, is that it changes how one thinks about politics ideally. If you are absolutely anti-imperialism; then you will never try to subject another nation to one’s nation’s values out of principle—irregardless of the consequences.

China is at least acknowledging the problem and trying to do something about it.

None of this is true. China abuses the environment and does nothing about it. They are the largest annual emissions since 2006, and their total energy-related emissions is twice that of the US.

Does it really need to be an existential threat?

It doesn’t. My point is that it has to be severe enough to warrant taking a nation over. Not all cultural differences are worth fighting about—worth imperializing over.

So maybe my counter-example wasn't the best example for the point I was trying to make, that morality by itself seems like a poor reason to attack a country.

Then you have no good reasons to ever attack a country; for you are not basing it off of what is actually good, which belongs to ethics.

Like what? The UN is a charade.

Like the US and its allies did for 20 years?

The US did not do anything remotely similar to what the Taliban is doing: am shocked you are trying to make that comparison. Perhaps I am misunderstanding.

The US public isn't even willing to support Ukrainians, who are actually willing to fight for their freedom in large numbers and seem plenty competent enough to win if given decent support.

The US isn’t in a position to be funding external wars right now; that’s why US citizens are fed-up. They have a serious budgeting problem that needs to be fixed.

However, to your point, I agree that most people would rather trade the lives of innocent out-group members a bit more flourishing in their in-group.

And note: the US didn't try to push democracy on South Korea originally. It applied some pressure, but that was largely internal, as it generally has to be.

Hmmm, let me ask you this:

if the US could take over North Korea with zero casualties (across the board) without threatening a war with other countries (like China) nor a nuclear war, then should they do it?

Think of different societies as being like plants. Some are corn plants, some are palms, and some are cacti. Each evolved to survive its own set of challenges

That’s an oddly good analogy.

Governmental systems are about the survival of a society rather than about some higher good. Basically, what's healthy for a corn plant will kill a cactus.

Ughhhh, cultural relativism—yet again. Nope. There are moral facts.

It's framed in an extremely inflammatory way. It's one thing to criticize say, the Chinese or Iranian (or Indian) government; it's a whole other thing to call their society degenerate and inferior. OP completely lost me there. The phrase to use is "repressive government" not "inferior society."

The reason I used those terms, is because it is true; and your terms do not accurately portray the point.

For example, india doesn’t have just a problem of a repressive government: their society, the legacy of castes, is still enforced by everyone at a societal level. The society itself still embodies the view that the untouchables are worthless scum—you can’t mask that with “it’s a repressive government”.

I do believe certain societies can warrant that label, but we need to be very careful.

That’s true; but wouldn’t you agree Talibanian Afghanistan is a prime example where it is warranted?

I dream of a state of universal human flourishing; where each person, not just human, has equal, fundamental rights and liberties......or do you mean when I am sleeping?