So you morally ought to do nothing to have people abide by your moral principle, except engage in dialogue perhaps. So I guess nobody else morally ought to do anything to have people abide by your moral principle, except engage in dialogue perhaps. Clear enough.
So imagine someone is bombing the neighborhood where your family and friends live (some die a horrible death, others are severely injured or maimed), they lost where to live and all basic services in the neighborhood, some even jobs if working in the neighborhood, does anybody (you included) morally ought to do anything about it?

I would consider even a single person dying against their will to be an enormous cost that was unjustly imposed, on the moral ground that no person has the right to tell another to give their life against their will, under any circumstance. — Tzeentch

Clear enough. Question: do you yourself ought to do anything to have people to abide by your principle?

you have neomac literally arguing that Western influence is so instrumental in improving a country's human right record that it's worth fighting a bloody war for, — Isaac

Side comments to this otherwise misleading summary:

• "literally arguing that Western influence" yet the starting point of my views is not "Western influence" and "human right" was just a good starting point.
• "so instrumental" suggests a degree of conviction that I do not have, nor need to have. We are assessing likelihood under uncertainties.
• "it's worth" always in relative terms (like letting Russia subdue Ukraine and get away with it)

So you admit that you cannot possibly derive anything from them about Ukraine's likely trajectory by knowing only one such factor (sphere of influence). — “Isaac

I disagree. Notice that the reasoning was focusing on “human rights” only (e.g. we didn’t talk other benefits: economic, security etc. which may also be very much relevant for well-being [1]). Accordingly, based on some related charts and despite the uncertainty (about the driving domestic/foreign factors) anybody can notice that:

• The collapse of the Soviet Union + ensuing independence is correlated with boost in human rights support to the top for many countries in eastern block and post-Soviet countries.
• After some of those countries joined EU/NATO, they managed to keep their positive trends relatively stable, and for those which experienced a noticeable decline (like Poland) still the trend doesn’t look as bad as it looks for other post-Soviet countries still under Russian influence

And since we know that Soviet Union (and Russia’s Putin) have shitty policies in terms of human rights and hegemonic ambitions, while the EU has conditional requirements (which may have been influential in the years prior to the entrance to the EU), policies to monitor and promote human rights [2] and pressuring means, we have good reasons to think that EU may have been a stabilising (if not a boosting) factor, while Russia may be a destabiliser and threat to human rights. So in relative terms, “human rights” may more likely benefit from joining EU/NATO than falling under Russian influence despite the uncertainties.

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/648145/IPOL_BRI(2020)648145_EN.pdf
https://european-union.europa.eu/priorities-and-actions/achievements_en

[2] https://international-partnerships.ec.europa.eu/policies/peace-and-governance/human-rights_en

So what improvements could you possibly anticipate, since electoral reform is petty much the only improvement that's consistent and even Russia achieved that with the break up of the USSR. I don't see any evidence of Ukraine's 'likely' path there.
What's more, at issue is not simply the question of whether Ukraine would be better off outside of Russian puppetry (undoubtedly yes). — “Isaac

First, it’s good that you see electoral reform and democracy in post-Soviet Eastern European countries have improved human rights. Yet Putin doesn’t seem to like pro-West democratic governments in Ukraine despite the fact that since the XIX century Ukrainians are striving for having an independent nation and resisting Russification and Russian subjugation pursued by any Russian regime (Empire, Soviet Union, Putin). So, democracy may very much need securing and NATO expansion has so far secured certain East block countries against the perceived Russian threat (besides allowing states to keep low military budgets in the interest of civil economy/society). Even more so if Russia under Putin doesn’t seem to be very sensitive toward just sanctions and diplomacy (as proven during this war and before). Second, from those stats, one can notice that the trend of human rights protection in post-Soviet states has improved immediately after the collapse of Soviet Union in all countries yet in later years it declined too in some countries, even sharply (see Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan [1]). So it’s important to not discount other promoting factors (like EU membership) that might counterbalance potential declining trends (e.g. before and after the accession for Eastern block countries to the EU). Third, “if Ukraine would be better off outside of Russian puppetry (undoubtedly yes)” (so also for the sake of human rights) how likely is that Russia will spare Ukraine from becoming Russian puppetry given all its strategic relevance (as the war is proving), wrt Ukraine joining EU/NATO? Even Kissinger changed his views about it: https://unherd.com/thepost/henry-kissinger-nato-membership-for-ukraine-is-appropriate/



[1]
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&time=1988..latest&uniformYAxis=0&country=MDA~TJK~TKM~UZB~BLR~RUS~ARM~KAZ~KGZ~GEO~UKR~AZE

It's whether a protracted land war is the best, or even acceptable means of achieving that, considering the enormous cost. — “Isaac

Wars often have enormous costs. Yet no country will likely capitulate if it has the means to fight. First reason, readiness to surrender to a foreign force can be a very disturbing moral hazard because it encourages further abuses (especially by an authoritarian ruler that pursues hegemony) that may lead to subjugation and degradation of standards of life (also in terms of human rights). Ukrainians know very well that from history. Secondly both subjection and freedom may affect not only current but also future generations.
For the West is the same. Even if Russia doesn’t constitute yet an actual existential threat to the West as it is to Ukraine, there is no reason for the West to let Russia take Ukraine for free (and enjoy related strategic benefits plus full military assets for further expansions) just to find out later what existential threat Russia might become, because then it may well be too late. So Western support for Ukraine is not just for the present generations but also for the future ones. This includes a greater integration that might benefit both the West and Ukraine.
Besides, you keep talking about “enormous cost” without giving any moral criteria to understand the moral relevance of such “enormous cost”. For example: exactly how many Ukrainian casualties count as morally relevant “enormous cost”? If Ukrainian casualties were 0.000001% of the population would it be an “enormous cost” in moral terms? How about 0.00001%, or 0.0001%, or 0.001%, or 0.01%, or 0.1%? On what moral grounds you choose that number?

None of the countries you cite as examples have come out of long protracted land wars, nor have such significant far right nationalist sentiment, nor have such influential natural resource reserves, nor have Ukraine's position strategically for Russia... Nor a dozen other factors. The charts I selected show that there's nothing causal about entering a Western sphere of influence. Some countries improve (Lithuania, Estonia), others don't (Croatia, Saudi-Arabia, Iraq). so there's no reason at all to believe that it's the Western influence, and not internal factors that drive the changes. — “Isaac

As already argued, I question the claim that there are no reasons to think that the West had an influence in terms of human rights as a driving factor. On the contrary, since the West is appealing for many good reasons we can understand why Eastern block people (including those who could care about human rights among other benefits) wanted to join EU/NATO after the collapse of Soviet Union instead of wanting to ally with Russia (now Georgia and Moldavia are also very much interested).
If the far right nationalist sentiment looks more significant in Ukraine, that’s because mainly nurtured by anti-Russians and philo-Russians tension. Otherwise it would likely be as intense as in other Eastern European countries given their more xenophobic culture wrt the Western European countries (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/) which also suggests that foreign conditions may more likely trigger social reforms and government response supporting human rights than just domestic ones.

. Joining the EU is unlikely to improve human rights in Ukraine based on the unequivocal evidence that it has not done so for any other country. — Isaac

But my hypothesis is not that joining EU improves human rights because: 1. when you roughly reached the top (the range is between 0-1) of course there is no much improving , at best you can preserve it 2. Those trends do not discriminate between driving factors (e.g. domestic vs foreign). Indeed EU/NATO membership could also contribute to inhibit/weaken adverse trends prior and after the membership was accepted e.g. through sanctions, monitoring and induced constitutional reforms etc.
As I explained several times but you keep playing dumb, I care comparing the likely trends concerning human rights institutions of ex-Soviet Republic between those which joined EU/NATO and those which didn't and remained under anti-West Russian influence. Why would I care about such comparison? For the obvious reason that Ukraine wants to join EU/NATO to escape from Russian sphere of influence. So it's relevant to understand what might happen to "human rights" institutions in the 2 cases. And since no trend in Russia/Belarus is close to reach any trend in ex-Soviet Republics that joined EU/NATO so far (EVEN WHEN IS DECLINING), my hypothesis is still very much plausible.

But I see you have a new favourite metric. — Isaac

What?! You were wining about the metric "physical integrity rights " (as you wined about the "democratic index" in the past). Then you wined about the examples I've selected. And now that I gave you the metrics you asked for, you are wining over trend variations [1] which aren't significant enough to challenge my hypothesis. Are you crazy?!

[1]
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&time=2004..latest&country=BLR~RUS~ROU~LVA~SVK~BGR~LTU~EST~POL

So because western countries have better human rights records than Russia, it's morally legitimate to support Ukraine's fight over territory?

If Ukraine would then join the west's approach, and if the west's human rights are not simply bought at the expense of others (1), and if the utter destruction of Ukraine's economy and the flooding of its black markets with weapons aren't enough to tip it back over into nationalist extremism (2)… then you might, just might, get an improvement in human rights.

And this slim chance is worth the deaths of tens of thousands? (3) — Isaac

Concerning claim (1), my reasoning is about the likely fate of human rights institutions in Ukraine once they join EU/NATO as other ex-Soviet republics did IN COMPARISON WITH the likely fate of human rights institutions in Ukraine under the influence of an anti-West Russia (e.g. as Belarus is). So unless you can bring actual arguments (what does it even literally mean “human rights are simply bought at the expense of others”? e.g. In what way the West is “buying” its human rights status out of say Iran’s, China’s, North Korea’s, Russia’s human rights?), evidences to support your bare conjecture, and argue for its pertinence wrt what I’m arguing, I don’t feel rationally compelled by it.
Concerning claim (2), again bare conjecture which still ignores the membership conditions of EU/NATO and Ukrainian motivations to join the West, as premised by my line of reasoning.
Concerning your moral question (3), first, I prefer to assess chances over actual pertinent evidences and arguments about their relevance, instead of rummaging biased conjectures as you do, but only when it goes against your opponents’ arguments (because you yourself don’t abso-fucking-lutely give a shit about chances when it’s matter to support your moral claims). Second, yes it’s arguably worth it as the lesser evil for Ukrainians and Westerners. But given the Western hesitancy to support Ukraine and the internal conflicts of national interests wrt this war my expectations about the evolution of this war change over time as much as my conviction about future consequences at the end of the war. So I too have my doubts. Obviously.

Tell me. Those other ex-soviet countries which came under western influence, did we fight a proxy war with Russia over each of them? Or did economic development, local political action and covert support bring that about? — Isaac

No to the first question. Yes to the second. Now you tell me: do you agree with that? If not, for what reason?

So in what way is fighting a long protracted proxy war with Russia necessary for this vague and speculative end goal of yours? — Isaac

The random charge of being “vague and speculative” is simply preposterous because I’m an avg dude (not en expert), we are reasoning under uncertainties of many relevant facts, and exchange in a philosophy forum from our armchair during leisure time. Didn’t we explicitly factor in all that in our claims many times already? Yet I care about the clarity/logic of my arguments and the evidences available to me to assess them (including the input from all sorts of news/stats/reports/experts of course). Since I take such arguments and evidence assessment to be affordable also by other avg dudes in a philosophy forum post format, I expect such avg dudes to reciprocate in intellectually honest and challenging ways. So in relative terms that charge is more apt to qualify roughly all your arguments and objections as I abundantly proved.
Besides the charge must be abso-fucking-lutely irrelevant especially to you: bare conjectures (nothing in any empirical theory excludes that things can’t go differently, right?) and “not enough imagination”-kind of objections are enough to you.
Finally, why on earth would I even care to answer such “vague and speculative” question of yours? In what sense, would this proxy war be “necessary” ? It you merely conjecture historical possibilities for Ukraine by comparison to the ex-Soviet republics, of course there is a counterfactual possibility that for Ukrainians things could have gone differently, the proxy war is “necessary” at all. Besides we should consider related choices by political strategic agents, so if those were free choices and free choice is understood as a non-necessary choice, then of course the proxy war is “necessary” at all. Still there are dramatic events, reasoning over them and choices by involved strategic players that led them step-by-step where we are. So I try to understand them as input for my arguments, whenever pertinent.

BTW, I forgot to mention the context where I extrapolated that line of reasoning from:

As compassionate outsiders, our concern should solely be for the well-being of the people there. — Isaac

What is the well-being of the people? — neomac
That's up to us to decide. Personally I think the notion of human rights is a good starting point. — Isaac

That’s what inspired the first step of my line of reasoning, namely "human rights is an acceptable way to identify collective well-being? Yes”, as a good starting point (not because I find it self-evident).

And you're using physical integrity rights as a proxy for human rights because…? — Isaac

Because physical integrity rights are covered by human rights, aren’t they? And I care to assess my claims against actual and pertinent evidences accessible to me. So if they support my claims, that’s good. Anyways you’ve got plenty of charts in that site. Here:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&country=~RUS
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&country=~USA
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&country=~UKR
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&country=~POL
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&country=~LTU
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&country=~ROU
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&country=~BGR
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&country=~SVK
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-rights-vdem?tab=chart&country=~BLR

Anything else you want to randomly quibble about?

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/physical-integrity-rights-fkr?tab=chart&country=HRV~BLR~IRQ~RUS~SAU~UKR~USA

1. Note Croatia, the most recent accession to the EU, whose record has gone down since joining.
2. Note Belarus, undoubtedly a Russian puppet state whose score is higher than the US.
3. Note Saudi Arabia, an ally of the US performing identically to Russia.
4. Note Iraq, a famous beneficiary of the US's military help, at the bottom of the list below everyone.

Even with your own cherry-picked proxy for human rights (which are so much more than just democracy and government freedoms), your argument falls flat on its face. — Isaac

The charge of “cherry-picking” is random (as it was when you raised the same charge months ago, so re-looping again over the same stuff). You evidently don’t even understand what the charge of “cherry-picking” actually means.
My speculation concerns specifically the fate of Ukraine which wants to enter EU and NATO, so it makes perfect sense to make comparisons with other countries to the extent they share relevant similarities with Ukraine for that hypothesis (cherry-picking happens when part of the dataset falling within the scope of the hypothesis is ignored to support the hypothesis, defining the theoretical scope of the hypothesis is not cherry-picking at all!). Ukraine, ex-Soviet Republics, Belarus and Russia share part of recent history and many aspects of their social background again due to historical and geographic reasons. Due to these similarities it makes perfect sense to compare them more than including Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the US in the comparison, and delimit the scope of the hypothesis accordingly. Besides certain ex-Soviet republics joined EU/NATO, which is also what Ukraine wants. While Russia and Belarus didn’t. So we have a test for COMPARING their trends wrt question “what could happen to ex-Soviet countries joining EU/NATO instead of remaining under Russian sphere of influence in terms of human rights?”.
Getting back to your random objection: you can take the examples of US, Saudi Arabia and Iraq into the garbage. And leave them there forever and ever.
How about Croatia? Well it wasn’t an ex-Soviet Republic, it wasn’t even an ex-Warsaw pact member. So it’s the least similar in the group and we could throw Croatia into the garbage for ever and ever too. But I get that it’s an interesting case for comparison if the scope of the hypothesis was extended to ex-communist European countries. However the decline is not so sharp to significantly question the extended hypothesis either, so I don't mind if you play with it. Just don't forget to throw it in the garbage once you finished.

In any case, what you fail to understand is much deeper. There is no need for me to ignore deviant cases because I’m talking in terms of relative likelihood (and supporting evidences) wrt alternative hypotheses (like having Ukraine fall under Russian influence as Belarus). So not mathematical certainties. Besides I’m not assuming anywhere that the original hypothesis (nor even the extended one which I didn’t make) identifies the only relevant driving factor in the evolution of a country wrt human rights, because there may be other domestic or foreign factors that can get in the way.
Nor I’m assuming anywhere that a boost in human rights is the main motivating factor for countries to join EU/NATO: there are also economic/security benefits too, of course. For that reason I’m not even assuming that joining EU/NATO is necessarily a booster in human rights (indeed, the main booster looks national independence after the collapse of Soviet Union and ensuing reforms). Still the membership may be a relevant counterbalancing factor against potential declining trends due to domestic politics (like the EU for Orban’s Hungary).

BTW, I forgot to mention the context of our exchange in introducing that line of reasoning:

As compassionate outsiders, our concern should solely be for the well-being of the people there. — Isaac

What is the well-being of the people? — neomac
That's up to us to decide. Personally I think the notion of human rights is a good starting point. — Isaac

That’s what inspired the first step of my line of reasoning, namely "human rights is an acceptable way to identify collective well-being? Yes”, as a good starting point (not because I find it as a self-evident, or the only possible, or the best starting point).

Here's it's chart that it achieved all on its own first ...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/physical-integrity-rights-fkr?tab=chart&time=earliest..2004&country=~LTU

Notice the difference? In 2004 Lithuania joined the EU and NATO. That move ended all progress in your chosen metric of human rights. — Isaac

Mind blowing, innit?

Apparently neomac is capable of comparing two entities only by looking at data on one of them — Isaac

Where did I do that?

If we were to do a side by side comparison of human rights violations in the 21st century of the United States and Russia, I'm not sure who would come out on top, but my bet would be on the Americans taking the cake. — Tzeentch

Here all the stats you want:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/physical-integrity-rights-fkr?tab=chart&country=RUS~CHN~IRN~DEU~ITA~ESP~POL~LTU~ROU~BGR~SVK~GBR~USA~AUS~CAN~JPN~KOR
Ukraine is better than Russia, and the US is better than Ukraine and Russia. The rest of Western countries (including ex-Soviet republics) are much better than the US, Ukraine and Russia.

We're all up in arms about supposed Russian torture of Ukrainian POWs (which if true is horrible and inexcusable, don't get me wrong), but have we already forgotten Guantanamo? — Tzeentch

No we didn't. It simply doesn't abso-fucking-lutely have anything to do with the line of reasoning I was making (is Ukraine going to be like the US by joining EU/NATO?) and you two keep abso-fucking-lutely ignoring.

Here is a summary for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Russia — neomac

John is taller than jack because John is 6 foot.
See any problem with that argument. — Isaac

I gave you the chart:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/physical-integrity-rights-fkr?tab=chart&country=RUS~CHN~IRN~DEU~ITA~ESP~POL~LTU~ROU~BGR~SVK

The wikipedia article was to make you appreciate the remarkable breath of evidences one can find about the poor status of human rights in Russia (especially under Putin).

Christ! You didn't even put Ukraine on the fucking chart (which if you had, would have put them next to Russia).
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/physical-integrity-rights-fkr?tab=chart&country=UKR~RUS
It's like arguing with children. — Isaac

Why would I need to put Ukraine? I was comparing Russia with the West (including ex-Soviet republic joining the West) not Russia with Ukraine, for the obvious reason that I expect that the Western integration process of Ukraine will improve its human rights conditions as it did with other ex-Soviet republics (indeed it's one of the condition of EU membership https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/enlargement-policy/conditions-membership_en). That's exactly the line of reasoning that you can't even follow on a step-by-step basis.
But good you posted your chart, because it still neatly fits into my line of reasoning: Ukraine outside the Western influence, under Russian sphere of influence or in conflict with Russia, shows as poor human rights conditions as Russia wrt West (according to those charts). Not to mention that Ukrainian very poor human rights conditions may very well include the human rights violations of the pro-Russian Ukrainian regions [1] during the years of the conflict (including the tragedy of the Crimean Tatars). So the resulting border changes may also positively impact Ukrainian stats in terms of human rights.


[1]
UN monitoring of abuses

At a press conference in Kyiv on 15 December 2014, UN Assistant Secretary-General for human rights Ivan Šimonović stated that the majority of human rights violations committed during the conflict were carried out by the separatists.[115] He also said, however, that this could not be used as an excuse by Ukrainian forces to commit human rights violations.

UN observers also registered multiple episodes of sexual abuse against locals, mainly women, at the border checkpoints run by both Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian armed groups. The presence of combatants in civil communities also brings up a danger of sexual violence against their population and increase the risk of rape and human trafficking.[116][117]

During 2014 and 2015 the UN Monitoring Mission documented multiple reports about people abducted by pro-Russian armed groups and Ukrainian military forces.[118][119]

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_situation_during_the_war_in_Donbas

Second step: are human rights better implemented within Western countries? Yes — neomac

This step does not support your argument. To do so it would have to be possible for all countries to be like western countries, but if the human rights in western countries are bought at the expense of human rights in chattel countries, then it is not. You’d have to demonstrate not only that human rights are better in western countries, but that western countries do not worsen human rights elsewhere in achieving that state. — Isaac

I don’t mind to review my past arguments once again (for the thousand time?), however it wasn’t the reason why I quoted them in the first place. The point was that I can argue for my moral claims only if there is sufficient understanding on how I conceptualise them because otherwise you will likely make outlandish objections. As the one you just made. The question “are human rights better implemented within Western countries?” is a question, not an argument, so you should address it as a question. And that question can be answered affirmatively or negatively independently from the possibility for all non-Western countries to be like western countries. Besides I do not need AT ALL to exclude that human rights in Western countries are bought at the expense of human rights in non-Western countries, maybe human rights institutions can emerge only as a result of zero-sum game (and if you had read my “entire wall of text”, you would have imagined why). So no, I do not have to demonstrate that “not only that human rights are better in western countries, but that western countries do not worsen human rights elsewhere in achieving that state” AT ALL.

is Ukraine more pro-West than Russia? Yes. Asking to join NATO and EU, and be ready to suffer a war against Russia to defend their choice wrt anti-Western rhetoric and hostility from Russia are unquestionable evidences for that. And if this is no evidence I don’t know what is. — neomac

Seriously? A bit of pro-western rhetoric is the gold-standard evidence of a desire to adopt western human rights values?
The human rights record of Ukraine is on record for all to see. You can't bluff your way out of it. Read the reports. — Isaac

Again the question is “is Ukraine more pro-West than Russia?”, the answer can be affirmative or negative independently from your further clumsy objections. That’s why I was reasoning step-by-step to make you follow my line of reasoning to the end instead of jumping in all random directions as you did when you objected to it in the past, and as you are re-doing it now. So it's pretty symptomatic that you can't follow such a simple exercise.
Anyways, being pro-Western for Ukraine means at least what I exactly wrote: wanting to enter the Western sphere of influence through 2 organisations EU and NATO, and the readiness to suffer the consequences for this choice intolerable to the Russians corroborates it.
Said that, even though being pro-West doesn’t equate to the desire to adopt western human rights values, I don’t find that troubling at all, for 3 reasons:
1. The West imposes certain conditions that need to be satisfied before becoming an actual EU/NATO member, so nobody will accept Ukraine if it doesn’t comply enough to Western requirements. Its integration will require time before happening and even after to deeply reform the Ukrainian society (as for all post-Soviet republics).
2. This war proved that Ukrainians have great tolerance for sacrifices, so making the necessary institutional steps to satisfy Western conditions to membership should be a much more tolerable sacrifice.
3. Two potential problems in Ukraine, corruption and ultranationalism, persisted so far due to historical conflicts and ties with Russia: many Ukrainian ultranationalist (including Nazis) are essentially anti-Russian, Ukrainian corruption was abundantly nurtured by past pro-Russian regimes (Russia itself being a renowned example of “mafia state”). So if entering the Western sphere of influence means severing these ties and downgrading such historical tensions, the 2 problems may be more easy to deal with.
And if all that’s not enough to you (to me it is), a 4th reason will most certainly be: nothing in those reports says that Ukrainians can't act differently.

anti-West Russia with a poorer implementation of human rights — neomac

It does not have a poorer human rights record. Again, this is all on record. Read the reports. — Isaac

The claim that anti-West Russia does have poorer human rights record than most Western countries comes from reading the records (as already reported in our past exchanges).

the democracy index is telling — neomac

Democracy is not exhaustive of human rights, not even close. It's one of 30 articles. Usually the one chosen by neoliberals like you to excuse nations for trampling over the other 29. — Isaac

Indeed, that’s not the only evidence I reported. We are just looping all over it again:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/physical-integrity-rights-fkr?tab=chart&country=RUS~CHN~IRN~DEU~ITA~ESP~POL~LTU~ROU~BGR~SVK

Is this enough evidence? If not why not? — neomac

See above. What could possibly make you think that the satisfaction on one out of thirty articles of human rights would be all the evidence needed? — Isaac

Here is a summary for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Russia

these categories as “ingroup” and “exploitation” (cooperation to exploit an outgroup) moral norms but now prefer Eisler’s names. What do you think? — Mark S

I find Eisler’s names more appropriate:
- “ingroup” is expected to be the antonym of "outgroup" while in your name convention is unexpectedly contrasted to “exploitation” (which according to your definition presupposes the notion of "outgroup" anyways),
- besides "ingroup" and "outgroup" seem to refer to "groups", so they seem to suggest relations between groups, while cooperation can simply hold also between "individuals".
- if we do not stipulate a terminological contrast between "outgroup" and "exploitation" , then when can avoid to inconveniently equate "ingroup" with "partnership", and will leave room for the idea of forms of ingroup's exploitation.

Which do you think communicates better, “marker norms” or “signaling norms”? — Mark S

"signalling" sounds more appropriate and it may fit well with analogous notions used in animal ethology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory)


I'm very much interested in this topic and I'm sympathetic to your views so I hope we can discuss it further but I would like to finish to read Oliver Curry’s Morality as Cooperation

think military supporting Ukraine is morally right — neomac


Yet...

I’m describing and not making moral claims — neomac


Make up your mind. — Isaac

There is no contradiction between those extrapolated claims, because I made both moral claims (like "I actually support the military aid to Ukrainian resistance" and repeatedly argued for in our earliest exchanges even months ago [1]) and claims about how I conceptualise moral claims (i.e. "national security can be a moral imperative" and the like which again are nothing new in our exchanges [2]). And since you have hard time to process them separately, or you are playing dumb, I'll add clarifications which you ignore to re-loop over your clumsy random objections.
Clarifying our conceptual framework to deal with ambiguities and misunderstandings is a form of intellectual cooperation useful to better understand each other (which again is nothing new in our exchanges [3]), if you care to have a fruitful exchange. In addition we are in a philosophy forum so that's the right place to discuss them, as far as I'm concerned.


[1]
I’m reasoning on a step-by-step basis :

• First step:human rights is an acceptable way to identify collective well-being? Yes
• Second step: are human rights better implemented within Western countries? Yes
• Third step: is Ukraine more pro-West than Russia? Yes. Asking to join NATO and EU, and be ready to suffer a war against Russia to defend their choice wrt anti-Western rhetoric and hostility from Russia are unquestionable evidences for that. And if this is no evidence I don’t know what is.
• Fourth step: how likely is that a pro-West country can implement human rights by being within the Western sphere of influence (so within NATO and EU) than by being within the sphere of influence of an anti-West Russia with a poorer implementation of human rights (see first step), if not now in the future? I say it’s more likely, based on historical evidence (see Germany, Italy and Spain after WWII) and ex-Soviet Union countries that joined EU and NATO after the Soviet Union collapse. Also the democracy index is telling (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/democracy-index-2022-europe.jpg, https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking): Russian democracy index is lower than any country in the EU and Belarus which is under the sphere of influence of Russia is even lower than Russia, Kazakhstan better of Russia for few points. Is this enough evidence? If not why not?

[2]

No evidence, no 'proof'. — Isaac


No evidence, no 'proof' of what exactly? I was just exposing a conceptual framework.

The requests for 'proof only started when I objected to that position. — Isaac


That's false. Your objection started with: "How? I don't see the mechanism. Representation is definitely an important tool, but that's not the same thing as sovereignty" (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/746158)
To which I answered: "I didn't equate representation and sovereignty anywhere. I was talking about pre-condition for the implementation of state institutions that support human rights. State institutions, as I understand them, presuppose authoritative and coercive ruling over a territory." (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/746177)
So no, I didn't ask you for proofs in this case. On the contrary I exposed once again my conceptual framework. You might have objected that it's incoherent or with little explanatory power and consequently I would have asked you for proofs. But such a random objection like "representation is not the same thing as sovereignty" simply means you didn't understand what I was talking about. That’s all. — neomac

[3]

wanting a war to continue — Isaac


Then by your definition I'm not warmongering. I didn't want a war between Russia and Ukraine nor I want it to be continued. I was talking about my expectations about what the Ukrainians want not about what I want. BTW were the Russians warmongering when fighting back the Nazis out of their country in WW2? — neomac

No it isn't. I'm a member of the electorate in one of them, I hold them to account. It matters tremendously what I think they out to be concerned with. — Isaac


I wasn’t questioning the relevance of your moral standards to you nor the relevance of your political choices in a democracy. Again, I am questioning its relevance to establish what individuals, collectives or States are capable of. A part from that, people can surely have all the unrealistic expectations and set their moral standards arbitrarily high as they like, of course. — neomac

I’m describing and not making moral claims — neomac

Then your entire wall of text was a waste of time. If I want 'description' I'll consult an expert, not some bloke off the internet. — Isaac

I'm asking for your moral view. the thing all of us are experts on, the thing for which there is no body of fact to draw on and so no expertise to be gained. What you think is right and why. — Isaac

It wasn't a waste of time because my wall of text is very much part of the "why" i think military supporting Ukraine is morally right. What I described wasn't for the purpose of informing you about facts that require fact-checking and experts' advice. But for the purpose of illustrating to you the conceptual framework that makes intelligible any exchange on morality issues with you or others over Ukraine and any other political issues you may consider. It's essential part of my basic background knowledge (they are my "hinge propositions") and what was still missing in support of my moral claims about the Ukrainian war I argued for many times in our previous exchanges (so there was no point for me to rehash them). They are essential, because if we can't converge enough on conceptual frameworks, you simply do not make sense to me. So these very objections of yours are totally self-defeating. Not surprisingly though.

Partnership moral norms – Parts of strategies that solve cooperation problems between people with equal moral standing. These include heuristics “Do to others as you would have them do to you”, “Do not steal, lie, or kill”, and “Be loyal to your group” which advocate initiating indirect reciprocity. (Cross-culturally moral norms are partnership moral norms.)

Domination moral norms – Parts of strategies to cooperatively exploit an outgroup to benefit an ingroup. These include “Slaves must obey their masters” and “Women must be submissive to men”.

Marker moral norms – Markers of membership in and commitment to a more cooperative ingroup. Preferentially cooperating with members of an ingroup can reduce the chances of being exploited and thereby increase the benefits of cooperation. These markers include “eating shrimp is an abomination”, “masturbation is immoral”, and other food and sex taboos. — Mark S

Where did you get this classification? Is it yours?

How could a government govern if it does not have the means that allow it to govern?! — neomac

There’s no moral requirement for any specific government to govern any specific peoples or land. — Isaac

If that’s an objection to the quotation, it doesn’t make much sense, because the quotation is not even talking about moral requirements. If that’s a moral claim you believe, is it supposed to be self-evident or do you have an argument for it? As far as I’m concerned governments of people and lands can be morally justified, of course. And that’s all I care arguing for (more on this below).

Governing in compliance with some moral commitment still needs enabling means to govern. — neomac

No it doesn't. Clearly some other government could bring about the same committent. If I'm committed to building the biggest sandcastle ever, I can easily step aside and let someone else finish the job. Building the biggest sandcastle doesn't require that I have the ability to build sandcastles, only that someone does. Likewise a government committed to a moral objective does not require that they have the means, only that someone does. — Isaac

That’s a random objection. The claim of mine you quoted is NEITHER stating a bi-univocal relation between governments and moral commitments, NOR logically implying such a bi-univocal relation, NOR suggesting it. In a Western democracy, several governmental administrations with different political leanings can succeed one another, and yet they all may be morally committed to same moral principles like respect/support for human rights and respect/support for democratic institutions, and then govern accordingly. To the extent they do that and the people they rule over morally care about it, they gain moral legitimacy. In Russia, the same territory was governed by an emperor, by a soviet regime, by a post-soviet regime. To the extent they supported shared moral views and ruled people were morally approved it, they gained moral legitimacy.
BTW nobody can easily step aside from commitments taken with people, if those people do not agree or there is a price to pay for that. So it depends on what there is at stake and the trust between involved parties (see my example of the care giver). What's more is that governments have their own social and historical reasons that pre-exist and support specific administrations with or without any specific commitments. Therefore as long as governments are the products of a society, no society changes local governments for foreign governments just because it's possible to do that or test if foreign governments can be better. If it happens this is typically through imposition by the foreign government.

The territory delimits the community and the resources within a government’s reach, the perimeter of its sovereignty. — neomac

So? This clearly has no impact whatsoever on a government's ability to commit to programmes of any sort since borders are always changing. I listed above over 40 major internation changes in border in the last 30 years. In no case did the governments of those countries cease to be able to carry out their objectives in their remaining territory. — Isaac

Right, so Putin could still govern Russia without grabbing Ukrainian land. So why is he doing it? Why isn’t Putin giving all Siberia to China, Putin will still be able to govern Russia without Siberia right? Why Putin needs to govern at all? He could let Biden govern Russia, what’s the problem with Putin? Since you can already guess all answers from the international relation theory you champion, namely Mearsheimer’s “offensive realism”, I’m just getting to the conclusion: political governments are security maximisers over territorial resources wrt perceived threats, so much so that they may even need to project their power outside their land borders, and can do it offensively not just defensively. This is what history and geopolitical theories are teaching us. So the point is not the outlandish observation that government can still be able to govern if they suffer territorial resources losses (after all people can also live in prison or with a revenue below the poverty line, can’t they?), but what precisely history and geopolitics can tell us about states’ expected “securing” dispositions when facing security threats from rival states, their expected readiness to use coercive force to repel invasions and land grabbing, and the price to pay for failing that. BTW we may expect that even suffering land grabbing with little or no economic/logistic/demographic importance can likely trigger coercive responses from states if they perceive their authority threatened, and/or encouraging further land grabbing or invasions (as it likely happens for the smaller territories of the Sino-Indian border dispute).

even if different governments share the same commitments they would still need to secure a territory. — neomac

Why?

All Western, Ukrainian, Russian governments of all political regimes needed to secure their territory against invaders and/or separatist forces in their history. — neomac

This is just bare assertion. — Isaac

Yours is just bare assertion too. If your point is that you need examples backing up my claim, then check wikipedia. That’s basic history trivia which I can leave you waste your time on.

Nonsense. A government is not morally required to carry out all actions it's citizens request. Again, this just obvious nonsense if given even a moment's thought. If the Russian population unanimously voted to bomb a hospital, it would still be immoral for the government to do so and it would still be a war crime. Things are not made right by voting for them and governments are not automatons devoid of moral responsibility. — Isaac

Your objection is evidently grounded on a huge misunderstanding of my claims:
First of all, I didn’t make anywhere the moral claim that “a government is morally required to carry out all actions it's citizens request”. I’m being descriptive in talking about moral behavior, and relativizing the notion of “moral standard” to communities. So with the expression “moral legitimacy” I’m descriptively referring to the possible situation in which the government is committed to support (by means of its governmental functions) the moral standard X shared by the community X within the territory under its control: e.g. say Putin is committed to protect the Russians from annihilation by Ukrainian nazis and Western satanists. This would let Putin gain moral legitimacy among ordinary Russians who believe that Ukrainian nazis and Western satanists are set out to annihilate Russians. And if all the Russian population unanimously voted to bomb a Ukrainian hospital for those reasons, then it would be “morally legitimate” (it would be even if they didn’t vote at all: approving it might just be enough!).
Since the expression “morally legitimate” is ambiguous wrt its descriptive/normative usage, and despite all of my clarifications you can’t process my claims correctly, let’s put it this way: if the Russian population unanimously voted to bomb a hospital, it would be PERCEIVED as “morally legitimate” if the Russian population unanimously voted to bomb a hospital for their own PERCEIVED legitimate moral reasons. “Perceived” means that related moral claims may be right or not, and this epistemic possibility is all I care to maintain at this point of my analysis. But notice that anybody sufficiently mentally sound and convinced that his moral claims are right may in parallel only conjecture that his moral claims are merely “perceived” (i.e. ultimately or likely wrong/unjustified). And precisely because those who are really convinced their moral claims to be right won’t change their belief or falter by simply conjecturing in parallel the possibility of being wrong/unjustified, the word “perceived” may be misleadingly suggesting lack of conviction, or readiness to re-examine moral claims, that’s why we may as well avoid using the word “perceived” in describing moral behavior. In any case, I’m here describing a moral behavior irrespectively of what anybody’s moral claims and convictions actually are (so I don’t even need to exclude the possibility that some may believe the moral duty of a government is to do all people voted for, including destroying hospitals).
Secondly, you offered a decontextualised hypothetical example (“if the Russian population unanimously voted to bomb a hospital, it would still be immoral for the government to do so”) to support your a-priori moral claim, without considering the possible contextual and a-posteriori reasons Russians may have had, to morally justify their decisions. Maybe they have been convinced by the Russian propaganda that the hospital was a cover for stocking biochemical weapons to annihilate Russians, or building a nuclear bomb in an underneath bunker that would certainly have escalated the situation to nuclear world war so bombing the hospital was the lesser evil. One could argue that the decision may still be moral, if moral evaluation is limited to intentions, or immoral if it comprises consequences but maybe excusable by ignorance. Or, else, maybe it wasn’t propaganda at all: some Ukrainian neonazi with the help of Zelensky as a cynical henchman of American evil financial/military/oil lobbies did really stock biochemical weapons in or build a nuclear bomb under that hospital. Would this still be a good moral reason to bomb the hospital at the risk of committing a war crime? Would this be nearly as bad as Americans nuclear bombing Japan (and yet they got away with it)? Or maybe: bombing a hospital was a retortion for terroristic bloody attacks Russians suffered in 10 of their hospitals, so their retorition is even subproportional wrt what they suffered from the Ukrainian nazis. Would this still make Russian bombing unquestionably immoral? You may say yes, others may say no. The point is that real moral cases can be trickier than your a-priori assessments of decontextualised examples suggest, and that people (honestly or dishonestly) disagree over moral standards, over how they apply moral standards in different often unexpected circumstances, over how they assess them in isolation or in comparison with past cases, etc. Refusal to acknowledge this intellectual predicament may lead to outright rejection of opposing views. While acknowledging this intellectual predicament may trigger more civilised discussions over moral reasons for the disagreements. But at the end of the day discussions do not necessarily lead to convergence, they may escalate into heated disputes and can persist even after long hostile arguing. They may split communities or create bitter rivalries, even in everyday life, nurturing resentment and intolerance, or worst, leading to civil wars. Or agreement can be reached at some point but without significant impact on society at large or where it matters, because maybe competing moral views are having greater significant impact on society at large or where it matters. And even the fact that shared convictions about what is morally right don’t have significant impact on society at large or where it matters, can trigger deeply felt personal disappointment and outrage (at worst, along with fear of discrimination, persecution, oppression). Why is that? Why can’t anybody (including Isaac) just blissfully enjoy having intellectually identified what is morally right to do in all circumstances, and contemplating the sheer logically possibility that everybody acts in accordance with it, even in the hypothetical case that nobody acts, has ever acted, or will ever act like this (including Isaac)? After all, as Isaac will sermonize, “oughts” are different from “facts” so who gives a shit if they never match? Or else why can’t anybody (including Isaac) having intellectually identified what is morally right to do in all circumstances, act in accordance with it INDIFFERENTLY from whatever other people’s actually do or believe? Or keep their outrage for themselves? Or live a misanthropic eremitical life if outrage is so intolerable? After all, if one single person on earth is acting according to what is morally right, why should anybody be outraged if there aren’t more people acting morally?
Maybe because moral claims concern also what other people’s do or believe, and/or because PROMOTING morality among people against “moral bankruptcy” (starting with showing moral outrage to protest against immoral people) is part of the morally right things to do. And failing to do that would be immoral. However, the problem is that if discussing, disputing, evangelising, confronting at grass-root level is not enough to promote collective morality or impact wherever it morally matters then, what to do? Maybe one smart thing to do is to get some support from those in power (e.g. asking Western governments to just sanction and diplomatically pressure Russia for aggressing Ukraine, right?), so unite with like-minded people to beg, plead with, pressure, sermonise, lobby governments to be supportive and take them morally accountable accordingly. In other words, there is a pattern that people with certain moral beliefs (you included) are drawn to follow by their own moral reasoning in interacting with governments that can lead to what I was referring to as “government moral legitimacy”.
So, despite the fact that you have such a hard time in processing the anthropological pattern I described and you yourself neatly follow, that anthropological pattern is very much real and related implications as well: 1. Even if moral ought claims and fact claims about society are distinct, still people (you included) may very much morally care if their claimed moral “oughts” actually inform social life de facto, but then considering chances of success may matter very much 2. The desirable moral impact one can have in informing society may be practically better achieved by having those in power (i.e. governments) morally accountable, therefore in condition of responding in compliance with moral standards shared by a ruled community. But then, power may very much matter to moral agents (whatever their moral claims are) when it’s instrumental to promote moral standards by increasing the chances of informing society, and it is therefore morally legitimised by those moral standards. The toughest part (for you to admit, if not even to understand) is that governmental power is essentially grounded on centralisation and capitalisation of scarce resources (arms, money, manpower, knowledge, etc.) which can be easier to be consumed than accumulated. So in order to keep relying on government power any competing moral community must pragmatically ensure that this power is not only consumed but also capitalised, that the ratio between capitalisation and consumption is positive and sustainable in the best interest of the moral community too. Governments will likely reciprocate the interest by finding more appealing those moral views and communities that can ensure them greater possibility of capitalising power (typical dynamics of security demand/supply). So moral communities already competing for incompatible moral standards or issues with rival moral communities, will additionally compete for the government support depending on their tolerance for capitalisation of power by governments, including all sorts of implied costs and risks (like possible abuses by cynical politicians and hijacking by powerful lobbies). On the other side, governments too suffer other forms of competition, on top of the competition between rulers and ruled: namely, the internal power competition for leadership (by leaders and lobbies) within a state government, and the power competition with other state governments. So governments too may compete for the moral communities' support depending on their tolerance for committing to moral communities (typical dynamics of moral legitimacy demand/supply), including all sorts of implied costs and risks for their power capitalisation and capacity of copying with security dilemmas. Conclusion: 1. one way or the other any moral community that morally cares to have a social impact is morally compelled to care for power capitalisation (not just consumption) to the extent it needs to rely on government power to morally promote shared moral views against competing moral views in a context of political power struggles and related security dilemmas. And even if we remove central governments from the equation, but moral communities still need to survive in accordance to their moral standards and in competition with rival moral communities, they will still need to directly engage in struggles for capitalisation of power and related “security dilemmas”, as forms of self-government 2. These are core logically interrelated claims that constitute my understanding of moral behavior. They are logically immune to the random objections you raised (failing to distinguish normative from factual, morally claiming to be right for governments do whatever voters demand). They are transversal to political, moral, ideological views, so by no means favour a-priori my own moral claims wrt rival moral views. They simply point to the fact that our moral claims don’t free float in a social space void of power struggles (between moral communities, governments, political leaders, social lobbies), on the contrary, their chance of informing social life very much depends on such power struggles in all their dimensions. And that’s logically compelling for all those moral views that morally care about informing social life, and therefore acknowledge the importance of increasing the chances of success. For those moral communities who don’t care, I’ll leave them to whatever fate the other moral communities will let them experience.

I argued that “national security” can also be a government's moral imperative (this is true for all types of regime and ideologies). — neomac

No you didn't. You just said it. — Isaac

No, dude, I argued it abundantly (way more than you ever did in supporting your claims and objections). Here is where I summarised the argument:

To understand my point one needs to get one step back. Moral rules like legal rules do not grant compliance by themselves. What’s worse is that differently from any legal system moral rules do not offer a procedure to resolve moral disputes , so a community can rely on central governments that are committed to promote a certain moral code within their sovereign territorial domain. How can governments comply to their commitments ? Through power (coercion, wealth, propaganda, etc.). Securing power within a sovereign territorial domain is how governments can both exist/function and accomplish their moral commitments wrt their people. Notice that these are transversal considerations wrt regime/ideology (communist, fascist, capitalist, theocratic, democratic, authoritarian, etc.).
In other words, governments to gain moral legitimacy (whatever the ideology and regime are) are also morally compelled to pursue/secure power.
And that’s also how the notion of “sovereignty” can ground legal/political relations among states also in moral terms. — neomac

if Western governments believe (and I would add "reasonably so") to secure their sovereignty against Russian threats by supporting Ukrainian resistance, and act accordingly, they are morally warranted. — neomac

Nonsense. A government has no moral right to the territory it governs. All border changes would thereby become immoral. — Isaac

Again I’m describing and not making moral claims. If it helps I could rephrase it as follows: “if Western governments believe (and I would add "reasonably so") to secure their sovereignty against Russian threats by supporting Ukrainian resistance, and act accordingly, they are ‘PERCEIVED’ to be morally warranted by the community that morally approves it.
Here another conceptual claim: governments’ moral rights to the territory are grounded on governments “moral legitimacy”. And a government may have as much moral right to the territory it governs as an individual has a moral right to his owned flat. The normative notion of “sovereignity” is designed to conceptualise such right. And it’s false to claim that all border changes would thereby become immoral. Indeed there might be moral/legal legitimate transfers of territorial rights (e.g. the independent states resulting from Soviet Union collapse), as much as there are moral/legal transfers of flat ownership.

If states can’t act or are rationally expected to not act based on moral oughts as the offensive realism theory you champion would claim — neomac

Nothing about political realism says governments can't act differently. It's a descriptive theory, not a prescriptive one. — Isaac

Sure miracles can happen. Nothing in the standard model of physics says miracles can’t happen.
Yet the standard model of physics is taken to be a descriptive theory of physical phenomena. Related laws of physics rule out as most unlikely those possibilities that contradict such laws.
So the geopolitical theory of “offensive realism” is taken to be a descriptive theory of international relations. Related behavioural patterns of States facing “security dilemmas” rule out as most unlikely those possibilities that contradict such patterns. So when moral views prescribe actions that contradict such patterns they are most likely not going to be followed. Mearsheimer’s offensive realism theory doesn’t predict that Western states will stop military support Ukraine if the Ukrainian casualties or the Yemeni casualties or the zillions of dying African children for famine is morally intolerable by some people. It predicts that even if the Ukrainian casualties or the Yemeni casualties or the zillions of dying African children for famine is morally intolerable by some people, this will most certainly NOT be prioritised over security concerns that led to Western military support of Ukrainian resistance.
At best, one might argue that Western policy is the result of a miscalculation of Western security concerns because Russia is a declining power, while China is a rising power so the West increased security threat which China might profit from, and the like. Therefore the West could have processed better its security (not moral) concerns. On the other side, that argument doesn’t sound very much as a description because it’s a personal assessment of threat perception and response (suggesting related prescriptions), so they shouldn’t be part of a descriptive theory of international relations, right? Or worst, that argument is surreptitiously trying to hide a falsification of Mearsheimer’s “offensive realism” theory of international relations. Indeed, NATO enlargement could very much fit into the offensive realist pattern, if it wasn’t for the fact that “the West’s final tool for peeling Kiev away from Moscow has been its efforts to spread Western values and promote democracy in Ukraine and other post-Soviet states, a plan that often entails funding pro-Western individuals and organizations” [1] (in other words, certain States decide to support certain shared moral values, neglecting all relevant security concerns, contrary to the theory!)
Anyway, to recapitulate, a descriptive realist theory of international relations is not concerned with mere logical possibilities of states acting morally (as much as an empirical theory about human psychology is not concerned about the mere logical possibility of telepathy), instead it’s there to offer us empirical explanations and predictions on how states realistically behaved and most likely will behave, which in turn affects the chances for any moral standards to inform society. So that's why we may want to have reliable empirical theories in the first place, to inform our actions in a rational way and increase the chances for our actions so informed to succeed.
Conclusion: you are championing a theory of international relations that
1 - is predicting that Western governments will most certainly ignore any of your moral arguments/prescriptions in taking their decisions about security matters (Shit!)
2 - is totally irrelevant to morally justify what you claim Western states should do, and that makes perfect sense to you because of the logic distinction between “oughts” and “facts” (duh, right?), and absolutely nothing in that theory says that Western governments can’t act differently (but then why on earth are you championing it?! It’s like me saying: “I champion the Newtonian theory of gravity, but I’m gonna jump off that cliff anyway because nothing in that theory says I can’t fly!”)
3 - is totally relevant to question your opponents views of what Western states should do (ooooh, that’s why you are championing it!), because apparently you are mathematically certain that the already clumsy moves you just made to dodge the theory of international relations you yourself champion are some killer karate moves only you can master. Really impressive.

[1]
https://www.natur.cuni.cz/geografie/socialni-geografie-a-regionalni-rozvoj/studium/doktorske-studium/kolokvium/kolokvium-2013-2014-materialy/ukrajina-a-rusko-mearsheimer-souleimanov.pdf

it’s precisely because, according to your own understanding of international relations, oughts can never inform political action in the international arena that your claims about what states morally ought do in the international arena are irrational. — neomac — Isaac

It's not my claim... It's yours. Here...

I take national security to be the moral imperative of legitimate governments of sovereign states — Isaac[/quote]

I find your comment unintelligible, so until you rephrase it in English, I limit myself to add a few more clarifications to the two claims of mine you quoted.
Concerning the first quotation, as I previously argued, according to the theory of international relations you champion your moral prescriptions will most certainly never inform governments’ decisions about security matters. That’s what we should rationally expect by the theory. As far as I’m concerned, however, I do NOT champion Mearsheimer’s theory of international relations [1], nor his understanding of the interaction between moral and security concerns. That’s why I can argue for the possibility that moral oughts inform political action in the international arena in ways theoretically unavailable to you, and without believing in miracles as you need to do. Indeed, the second claim I made is precisely pointing at the solution of the riddle: only when national security concerns (and power capitalisation! [2]) are taken to be moral imperatives of governments, moral oughts can inform political actions while addressing “security dilemmas”. It’s very much realistically possible that governments act in support of shared moral views, if contextualised and a-posteriori moral reasoning can more “pragmatically” rely on governments’ in-built “security maximising” dispositions, instead of compulsively questioning them as your moral claims do in an a-priori, decontextualised, “idealistic” fashion. In other words, it can be moral for Ukrainians to keep fighting at the risk of sacrificing lives, and it can be moral for Westerners to support Ukrainians’ resistance if both are reasonably expected to effectively address security dilemmas favouring certain shared moral views (like the Ukrainian sovereignty and national identity, the Western countries’ sovereignty and democratic standards of life), despite all the other humanitarian emergencies the rest of the world is facing. Indeed I’m arguing for it and I morally support it (finally, these 2 are actual moral claims/commitments of mine!).

[1]

there are also non-pragmatic normative constraints (i.e. legal, moral) that one doesn’t need to ignore nor dismiss as Mearsheimer would do, like the ones related to the notion of “sovereignty”. — neomac

the goal is “national security” and not “to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can”. And even if maximising national security would somehow equate “to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can” under certain circumstances (like the ones prospected by Mearsheimer’s theory of International Relations that you champion) so be it. — neomac

[2]

“Capitalisation” and “power” and “capitalisation of power” must sound all “caca” expressions for exploitation of the working class to you, right?

How can governments comply to their commitments?...
In other words, governments to gain moral legitimacy (whatever the ideology and regime are) are also morally compelled to pursue/secure power. — neomac

Why would governments need to use power to comply with their commitments? If government A and government B both have similar commitments it's not morally necessary for either government to have power over that territory in order to bring about it's moral objectives. Clearly either government will do the job. — Isaac

How could a government govern if it does not have the means that allow it to govern?! Governing in compliance with some moral commitment still needs enabling means to govern. That's a rational constraint. Any government A,B,C,…,Z with exactly the same commitments or totally different commitments or half similar and half different needs means to govern people within a territory. The territory delimits the community and the resources within a government’s reach, the perimeter of its sovereignty.

The idea that governments need to secure territory in order to carry out their moral commitments only applies if the alternative government (the one competing for the territory) doesn't share those commitments. If it does (or if it's even better), then it doesn't make any difference, the moral commitments will be met, just by a different government. — Isaac

No, even if different governments share the same commitments they would still need to secure a territory. All Western, Ukrainian, Russian governments of all political regimes needed to secure their territory against invaders and/or separatist forces in their history. The territory is the geographic scope of governments’ governing activities so it's very much factored in the notion of governing activity. Congectures over what government is doing or can do better are still irrelevant at this point of the analysis.

It's as if I make a committent to care for an elderly relative and then set about murdering any rival carers on the grounds that I need to see them off so that I can keep the commitment I made. It's an absurd argument. — Isaac

I’m talking about political governments as we know them from history (city states, national states, empires): governments establish laws, impose taxes, have tribunals, law enforcement bodies, build infrastructures, hold their jurisdiction over a certain territory, etc. and they do it in a self-preserving way. They are political organisations that emerge as historical products from social dynamics within certain geographic coordinates and centralising certain public functions within those geographic coordinates. This is roughly what political governments are, with or without moral commitment. I’m just arguing that they can ALSO gain moral legitimacy wrt the people they rule over to the extent they are committed to support the moral standards of the people they rule over and exercise their governing functions accordingly.
Territorial disputes undermine governments’ resources (so their operative capacity and authority) if not their existence, with or without moral legitimacy. IN ADDITION to that they may threaten their moral legitimacy. For example, Ukrainians do not want to be governed by a pro-Russian regime, nor make territorial concessions. So if the Ukrainian government doesn’t commit itself to do what the Ukrainians want nor act accordingly, the Ukrainian government will lose also moral legitimacy in addition to see its sovereignty severely shrunk.
So the argument you take as a good analogy, not only looks absurd, but it’s very poor analogy. So poor that it’s even hard to improve. But I’ll give it a try anyway, here: X’s only job ever is to take care of client Y, but a rival carer Z wants to replace X in part or completely (so X may lose in part or completely his means of subsistence), and to that end Z is trying to convince Y accept him by forcefully entering in Y’s flat and repeatedly kicking in his stomach as hard as he can just in front of X. If X doesn’t intervene to defend Y, not only X may lose part or all of his revenue (were Z to succeed in his “special persuasive operation”) but X also betrays his deontological commitment as a care giver if there is one.

Russia violated Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty. And the West is helping Ukraine to secure its Western countries’ sovereignty (NOT Ukrainians’ sovereignty, that’s the Ukrainian government’s task!) against Russian strategic threats. — neomac

So? What's any of that got to do with the moral case? Why would anyone else care about Ukrainian sovereignty? — Isaac

I’ve already answered both questions. I argued that “national security” can also be a government's moral imperative (this is true for all types of regime and ideologies). So if Western governments believe (and I would add "reasonably so") to secure their sovereignty against Russian threats by supporting Ukrainian resistance, and act accordingly, they are morally warranted.

You are championing a theory of international relations which is incompatible with the kind of moral imperatives you think States should comply with. — neomac

If you can't understand the difference between how things are and how things ought to be then that explains a lot about your failure to engage with any moral arguments. — Isaac

It isn't made so just by you saying it. If states can’t act or are rationally expected to not act based on moral oughts as the offensive realism theory you champion would claim, your claims about what states morally ought to do are doomed to be frustrated, not occasionally but systematically whenever they clash against state security concerns. So it’s precisely because, according to your own understanding of international relations, oughts can never inform political action in the international arena that your claims about what states morally ought do in the international arena are irrational. It’s like a farmer yelling at a cow: you morally ought to stop to eat grass over there because that’s not our field, and failing to do so it’s immoral! This would be a moral ought claim distinct from a fact, yet an absurd moral claim because addressed to a subject that can’t act or is rationally expected to not act according to moral claims. Now imagine the farmer objecting me like you did: "Dude, you do not understand the difference between facts and moral oughts that's why you can't engage with any moral arguments". Apparently you have a very poor understanding of your own conceptual framework.

Why does a nation gathering more resources become moral when a person doing so would not? — Isaac

Your question is misleading. To understand my point one needs to get one step back. Moral rules like legal rules do not grant compliance by themselves. What’s worse is that differently from any legal system moral rules do not offer a procedure to resolve moral disputes , so a community can rely on central governments that are committed to promote a certain moral code within their sovereign territorial domain. How can governments comply to their commitments ? Through power (coercion, wealth, propaganda, etc.). Securing power within a sovereign territorial domain is how governments can both exist/function and accomplish their moral commitments wrt their people. Notice that these are transversal considerations wrt regime/ideology (communist, fascist, capitalist, theocratic, democratic, authoritarian, etc.).
In other words, governments to gain moral legitimacy (whatever the ideology and regime are) are also morally compelled to pursue/secure power.
And that’s also how the notion of “sovereignty” can ground legal/political relations among states also in moral terms.

the goal is “national security” and not “to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can”. — neomac

That's the same thing. 'Security' in this context means nothing more than 'I control it, not someone else'. The fight is over the control of the resource-crucial Donbas region. Russia wants it. The West want it. Ukraine wants it. — Isaac

No it’s not, because there are also non-pragmatic normative constraints (i.e. legal, moral) that one doesn’t need to ignore nor dismiss as Mearsheimer would do, like the ones related to the notion of “sovereignty”. Russia violated Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty. And the West is helping Ukraine to secure its Western countries’ sovereignty (NOT Ukrainians’ sovereignty, that’s the Ukrainian government’s task!) against Russian strategic threats.

if that’s your worry, you must listen to your favourite expert: — neomac

Where in any of that does it even mention morality? — Isaac

Exactly. But that's not a problem for me, I'm not the one championing Mearsheimer's views. You are. You are championing a theory of international relations which is incompatible with the kind of moral imperatives you think States should comply with. That’s why your moral arguments are just wishful thinking by your own standards.

I take national security to be the moral imperative of legitimate governments of sovereign states — neomac

That doesn't seem at all intuitive. Why would you think maintaining control over resources a moral imperative? Is it, for example, a moral imperative for me to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can? — Isaac

Your example is misleading.
First, I’m talking about moral imperatives for governments, not moral imperatives for ordinary citizens. Maintaining control over resources can be a moral imperative as much as a forced collectivisation of means of productions by a communist government to ensure the end of human exploitation on earth (which you likely must sympathise with) can be a moral imperative.
Secondly, the goal is “national security” and not “to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can”. And even if maximising national security would somehow equate “to get hold of and keep as much stuff as I can” under certain circumstances (like the ones prospected by Mearsheimer’s theory of International Relations that you champion [1]) so be it.


[1]
BTW if that’s your worry, you must listen to your favourite expert:

You champion Mearsheimer's theory of International Relations as the best explanation of the events unfolding in Ukraine. You discount previous behavior by Russia as indicative of anything happening in this conflict. — Paine

Yes. What's that got to do with the argument here? — "Isaac

That’s the theory of International Relations you champion:
My own realist theory of international relations says that the structure of the international system forces countries concerned about their security to compete with each other for power. The ultimate goal of every major state is to maximize its share of world power and eventually dominate the system. In practical terms, this means that the most powerful states seek to establish hegemony in their region of the world, while making sure that no rival great power dominates another region.
To be more specific, the international system has three defining characteristics. First, the main actors are states that operate in anarchy, which simply means that there is no higher authority above them. Second, all great powers have some offensive military capability, which means they have the wherewithal to hurt each other. Third, no state can know the intentions of other states with certainty, especially their future intentions. It is simply impossible, for example, to know what Germany’s or Japan’s intentions will be toward their neighbors in 2025.
In a world where other states might have malign intentions as well as significant offensive capabilities, states tend to fear each other. That fear is compounded by the fact that in an anarchic system there is no night watchman for states to call if trouble comes knocking at their door. Therefore, states recognize that the best way to survive in such a system is to be as powerful as possible relative to potential rivals. The mightier a state is, the less likely it is that another state will attack it. No Americans, for example, worry that Canada or Mexico will attack the United States, because neither of those countries is strong enough to contemplate a fight with Uncle Sam.

https://nationalinterest.org/article/say-goodbye-taiwan-9931

I think that Western governments would be morally objectionable for not supporting (or not supporting enough?) the Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression, as long as Ukrainians are willing to fight. — neomac


Why? — Isaac

Briefly, I take national security to be the moral imperative of legitimate governments of sovereign states. If the Ukrainian government is legitimate and pursuing national security by resisting Russian aggression, I take it to be morally unobjectionable.
If a Western government is legitimate and pursuing national security in supporting Ukrainian resistance, I take it to be morally unobjectionable. “National security” is a strategic notion and it’s essential about all available assets a community has to pursue its biological and cultural needs considering time span, uncertainty, and competitors. So there are 2 important reasons why we need to take into account what the Ukrainian government wants for a moral assessment: needs and decision making.

it’s not on me nor on Western governments to decide to what extent Ukrainians are willing to fight with whatever military aid they get from the West. — neomac


Obviously not. I don't see what that's got do with the issue. The question is whether we should be providing military aid in the way we are, and/or should be doing anything else. That fact that Ukrainians will decide what Ukrainians will do is (despite the bizarre frequency with which it's raised as if it were some Solomonesque insight) trivially uninteresting. — Isaac

My clarification is related to the comment of mine you misunderstood and objected to:

but it is either the morally acceptable sacrifice to achieve your goals in your framework and "anything goes" or then there must be a line somewhere between tolerable and intolerable losses for these military objectives. — boethius


There must be, that doesn't mean you can determine it beforehand, or that it's on me to determine it. — neomac

Yeah, you can't wash your hands of it so easily. It's your governments making the decisions, it's your job to hold them to account. It's just morally bankrupt to throw up your hands and say "it's not up to me" that's just basically inviting authoritarian rule. — Isaac

Roughly speaking, you think that Western governments are morally objectionable for their support to the Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression.
I think that Western governments would be morally objectionable for not supporting (or not supporting enough?) the Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression, as long as Ukrainians are willing to fight.
In any case it’s not on me nor on Western governments to decide to what extent Ukrainians are willing to fight with whatever military aid they get from the West.

It should the authors of statements like "Russia must be stopped" in various forms or "a Russian victory in Ukraine must be prevented because it would encourage more 'rule breaking' or nuclear proliferation etc." to very precisely define what they mean "stopped" or "victory", otherwise they are of course setting themselves up to just move the goal posts later. — boethius

My point is that, if we talk strategy, nobody can specify a unique and accurate account of "victory" and "loss" during wartime the way you seem to expect (neither in this war nor in any other war). Possible but uncertain outcomes can be more than anybody can count and accurately account for. So any possible outcome (plausibly resulting from certain political choices) leading to significantly increased power asymmetries for one player wrt his opponents, especially if it engenders a relatively stable and beneficial trend over a long period (decades, generations) can count as a strategic victory.

If you're willing to say "if Ukraine has lost 100 000, then that's worth it for the harm to Russia so far, and another 1, 2, 3, hundred thousand dead would be worth it" then say so, rather than complain it's emotional blackmail. You are only considering the harm to Russia and not the harm to Ukraine, for you position to be coherent you must either state unlimited harm to Ukraine is worthwhile to achieve limited harm to Russia or then there must be somewhere you draw the line: 500 000 KIA, a million? — boethius

To my understanding, the West is interested in having Ukraine and living Ukrainians withing Western sphere of influence. And it's also interested to treat Ukraine as a sovereign state and therefore let Ukrainians decide how much they want to fight for their self-determination against Russia with Western. Besides it's Ukraine that is interested to convince Westerners with their fight and self-sacrifice that they should support Ukraine not for the sake of Ukrainians but for the sake of harming an expansionist Russia.

but it is either the morally acceptable sacrifice to achieve your goals in your framework and "anything goes" or then there must be a line somewhere between tolerable and intolerable losses for these military objectives. — boethius

There must be, that doesn't mean you can determine it beforehand, or that it's on me to determine it. I don't think that Ukrainians are suicidal, just capable of greater sacrifice than certain Westerners or Russians could expect.

If Russia ends up in the long run with more territory but does not actually defeat Ukraine then it's up for debate if the price paid for the land was worth it overall, certainly not an outright victory over Ukraine, but of course Ukraine would have paid orders of magnitude, possibly 2 or 3, higher price and didn't win anything. If the "strategic defeat" concept proves true (which now seems extremely unlikely as Russia seems to have transitioned their economy successfully) then perhaps it's a "win" for NATO, loss of some sort for Russia (not great, not terrible), and a clear immense and unmitigated loss for Ukraine — boethius

The US and Russia are reluctant to offer a clear definition of "victory" and "loss". There are plausible military (e.g. keep Russia military engaged on all fronts) and propaganda reasons for that (i.e. offering plausible deniability in case of military defeat). However, as I said elsewhere, propaganda consumed by the general public is not all that matters, because general public is more focused on the present while strategic goals concern longer terms goals. Besides the leaders’ understanding of the realistic and relevant implications of this war, may differ from official propaganda (for once they are much more nuanced because they reason in terms of relative power), so I wouldn’t focus so hard on military outcomes independently from strategic concerns.
To me, if at the end of this war, Ukraine remains a sovereign non-pro-Russian non-Russified non-demilitarised country (even without Crimea), NATO members will increase in number and military capacity at the expense of Russian security, the overall Russian military projection capacity and reputation will be significantly decreased, the Russian propaganda machine in the West wrecked, and Russian economy impoverished & decoupled from the West long enough (whatever else being equal like the Rest relative neutrality), then Russia has much more likely lost its strategic power competition against the US and the power status it wanted so badly to be acknowledged by the West. So it doesn’t matter if Russia keeps Crimea&Donbas and sells this as a victory against the US/NATO/West to the Russians. Anyways, I’m not sure that the West is ready to leave Crimea to Russia, neither that the Russia nuclear threat is enough deterrent for all annexed regions (including Crimea). Besides this year is going to be decisive also for the future presidential elections, in Russia before the US. So there are domestic politics incentives pressing for a resolution of this war. We will see.

Again, how do you actually prevent a Russian victory? — boethius

Define "Russian victory" and provide evidence from Russian officials in support of it.

The Greatest Nuclear Threat we face is a Russian Victory, The Atlantic. — Wayfarer

:up:

Possibly. But do you think this is what is happening in practice? Do you think people are becoming deeper, more thoughtful and more in touch with themselves? Do you think modern societies are progressing away from frivolousness, stupidity, and superficiality towards character, intelligence and creativity? Do you think there is less and less evidence of mental conflict evidenced through reduced levels of mental illness, unhappiness, anxiety and drug use? Or are you positing this is as a positive potential in current society that has yet to be realised? — Baden

Your questions suggest some shared understanding/assessment about what constitutes "becoming deeper, more thoughtful and more in touch with themselves" or "character, intelligence and creativity" or "unhappiness". As well as a share understanding of the verifiability of trends correlating certain social factors (e.g. "commodification" of identities) with "mental illness, unhappiness, anxiety and drug use". Both suggestions would require further elaboration to become more rationally challenging.

Anyways, there are some other questions your questions suggest in turn: should we let people explore their identities even if this turns out to be bad for them or should we teach people about their identities even this turns out to be bad for them? If letting anybody explore identities implies costs and risks, should we let people explore their identities at their own expense/risk or share the expense/risk collectively as much as possible? I think that what you consider commodification of identities answers both questions in a certain way. And that the notion of "commodification of identities" is also supposed to frame them in a negative light, because it suggests exploitation (some self-interested social agents sell a variety of goods/services designed for identity seekers despite their potential side effects and make money out of it), while the issue that we must deal with prior to discussing exploitation is the desirable balance between freedom and safety in satisfying individual needs within a community. Indeed, even self-interest, money, or power can themselves constitute identities to be consumed by those who possess them.

The aggregated views of {all the people who live within that border} has no meaning. It's just a random means of stratification unrelated to the opinion being aggregated. As such, all this talk of Ukrainian agency and Ukrainian objectives is nothing but propaganda. There's no moral weight at all to the happenstance aggregate opinion of all the people who happen to be encompassed by an arbitrary spatial line. — Isaac

A series of non sequiturs. What one earth does “The aggregated views of {all the people who live within that border} has no meaning” even mean? The aggregated views of “all human beings” has meaning? The aggregated views of “all religious people”? The aggregated views of all supporters of Barcelona football club? The aggregated views of any random family on earth? The aggregated views of the working class? When does an aggregation of views according to whatever grouping function, has meaning at all? What does determine the moral weight of the aggregate opinion of all people grouped in a certain way?
Each period is allusive in its meaning, its logic link to what precedes or follows, and its polemic target. Pure mystification.

To illustrate. If we did want to use the opinion of the people affected to influence our decision... Why aren't we asking those on the Russian side of the border? They'll definitely be affected.... Why are we asking people on the Western border of Ukraine (hundreds of miles away) but not just over that border... Why are we asking the rich Ukrainian businessmann (who arguably has the resources to weather most storms), but not the Yemeni child who might not live in Ukraine but will undoubtedly be more affected? — Isaac

More than illustrating, its muddling even further. Who is “we”? The Western citizens? The Western governments? The participants to this thread? You mean Biden, any ordinary dude in the West, or me should go ask a Yemeni child (what age? 5 years old is fine?) what he thinks of the “special military operation” of Putin in Ukraine and if he agrees on the West to military aid Ukraine and sanction Russia? You mean that if he says yes, then Biden should support Ukraine and solicit the Western leaders to do the same, and if he says no, then Biden shouldn’t? You mean a 5 year old Yemeni kid can decide for the president of the United States what the United States should do? Or you simply mean that state presidents should go around ask random people of other countries what they think about the war to let them influence his decision about what he should do as a president of the USA wrt the war in Ukraine? Are you crazy?! Did you do that yourself?! Did Putin ask a 5 year old Yemeni kid if he agrees on continuing to bomb and kill Ukrainians whatever it takes?!
Why the hypothetical form “If we did want to…”? What happens if we didn't want? Are you giving us other options? Do we have to choose randomly among them? Can we use dices?

I know that this discussion was prompted by the recent banning of Olivier5. In that case I didn't take it to the rest of the staff for discussion. The refusal of moderation, the attitude it was received with, and his suggestion that he be banned for all he cared, are what led directly to the ban. Refusal of moderation has been a reason for such bannings before, e.g., The Great Whatever, who was a high-quality poster who refused to make a small change to his spelling habits. — Jamal

Are you admins considering the possibility of revising the banning policy by any chance?

It's a choice. Precisely because admins care to preserve or boost forum quality they do not need to sacrifice good contributors for failing to abide by the rules occasionally which doesn't mean to get rid of bans, just to make the ban policy a little bit more flexible (at least for dubious cases). I'm not questioning the admins, but I would welcome a revision of the banning policy. That's all.

Here's what is written in TPF Guidelines:

Bans:

Admins have the right to ban members. We don't do that lightly, and you will probably be warned about your behaviour if you are under consideration for a ban. However, if you are a spammer, troll, racist or in some other way obviously unsuited to the forum, a summary ban will be applied. Bans are permanent and non-negotiable. Returning banned members will be rebanned. — Amity

OK I missed that. Yet a more flexible approach concerning the banning policy might still be more beneficial than a rigid one to this forum.

Agreed. But that doesn't seem to matter. Rules is rules.

As you might imagine, defiance is the worst response, not because it might be insulting, but because it's a refusal to play by the rules. — Hanover — Amity

I don't know what happened. In any case, even if rules is rules, sanctions for transgression are discretionary. So admins can still reason on case by case basis, and proportion sanctions to the severity of the transgression, without denying a second chance for positive long-term contributors.

But why a definitive banning instead of a temporary or a progressive banning (e.g. do it once and I'll ban you for one week, do it twice and I'll ban you for 3 weeks, do it thrice and I'll ban you forever)? Olivier5 wasn't like Bartricks at all.

I don't see the reason for a permanent banning for long-term positive contributors that violated the netiquette on occasions (compare Bartricks vs Olivier5). One could introduce a temporary banning or a progressive banning.

In TPF, is banning always permanent?!

he focused upon how the conflict of methods developed to establish facts beyond personal experience came to be used to explain that phenomena itself — Paine

The scientific method of natural sciences may be said to go "beyond personal experience" but not "beyond experience". Indeed, "experience" is key in empirical research (including any empirical research about "experience"!) as much as the notions of "spacetime", "mass", "charge" are key in physics.

The topic was the motives and objectives of 'Ukraine'. Since 'Ukraine' is an arbitrary line drawn on a map, it doesn't have any unified motive, nor objective and if one were to take an aggregate (vote, poll, whatever) the outcome would be different depending on where you put the line without any hint of a natural break.

As such appeal to such a notion morally is absurd. — Isaac

The comments you cite say that there is no such thing as a Ukrainian identity, history, language and culture. I've also argued that there's no such thing as the will of the Ukrainians, or the motive of the Ukrainians. I've argued that no such thing exists because Ukraine (like all other countries) is an arbitrary line drawn by powerful people based on the amount of resources they had the power to control at the time. It does not in any way 'capture' some natural grouping of people all of whom think alike. It would be no more real then me taking a quick glance at the posts on religion here and announcing that "the belief of TPF is that there is a God".

None of this prevents groups of people from ephemerally having common goals. what it does is remove any moral weight behind that commonality. — Isaac

Not only the idea that “national identities” are not natural groupings is pointless because nobody is arguing otherwise, but it is also fallacious to suggest, as your argument does, that natural groupings would justify moral claims because they are not arbitrary. Indeed, it’s a naturalistic fallacy to argue that from natural groupings (like “we are all human beings”) we can imply moral claims (therefore “it’s immoral committing to arbitrary groupings like national identities”). On the other side, non-natural groupings can justify moral claims to the extent that moral commitments (along with feelings and pragmatic reasoning) constitute non-natural groupings, like national identities, religious identities, political identities, etc.
And even if you still consider such “national identity” or patriotic commitments arbitrary because allegedly based on arbitrary lines drawn on a map, that wouldn’t be enough for you to consider them wrong, indeed you also believe that moral claims are ultimately arbitrary as arbitrary preferences [1]

Of course, appeal to such a notion pragmatically is very useful (democracy is a pragmatic appeal to the aggregated will of an arbitrary group of people), but that's not what's going on here. Not only does Ukraine not currently have a functioning democracy (a pragmatic problem), but the results of any such democratic process don't carry great moral weight. My country democratically voted for Brexit. They were wrong to. It's wrongness is not somehow superseded by its being the 'will of the people'.

It is wrong to risk the lives of innocents over a border dispute. It being 'the will of the Ukrainians' doesn't make it less wrong. — Isaac

Large groups of people can agree on a course of action and still be morally wrong about it. — Isaac

A part from the Brexit example (where is the argument supporting the claim that the democratically chosen Brexit was morally wrong?), who on earth is denying the possibility that “the will of people” can be morally wrong? Nobody, right? From that possibility doesn’t follow at all that Ukraine doesn’t actually have a moral right to self-defence against Russian aggression. So either you provide compelling arguments supporting the claim that Ukraine does not have a moral right to self-defence against Russian aggression. Or you provide compelling arguments supporting the claim that the Ukrainian government doesn’t have legitimacy to exercise such right.
The moral claim that “It is wrong to risk the lives of innocents over a border dispute” is not enough compelling because it could be also wrong to risk lives and freedoms of innocents by surrendering to the demands of a genocidal regime.

[1]

My moral claims are arbitrary. My preferences arbitrary. — “Isaac

The rewriting of history has begun. Now, apparently the country we all happily relied on for energy, and foreign investment. The one whose allies we happily rattled. That country we apparently always knew was a serious military threat because of it's obvious imperialist intent. It's not at all a hastily constructed narrative to promote war profiteering. — Isaac

Who is "we"? We are not a natural group you know. The idea that an arbitrary string of characters like "we" on a forum post encompasses a unique identity is patent nonsense. The idea that "we all" happily relied on Russia for energy and business for the same reason is, again, patent nonsense: people's reasons might have ranged all the way from pro-Russian business profiteering (true for the major leading economies in Western Europe especially Germany) to borderline pro-Putin political profiteering (e.g. Trump, LePen, Salvini, Farrage) to all-sorts of anxiogenic media coverage profiteering (great recession, Islamic terrorism, immigration, pandemic) exploited by pro-Russian info-war and troll armies. Not to mention that "we all" gave for granted that NATO was enough deterrent to discourage aggression of such magnitude and proximity by a greedy authoritarian and nuclear-weapon power. And that's why "we" apparently didn't know Russia was a serious military threat until Russia invaded Ukraine and to some extent "we" still don't know apparently.

The reason why so many in this discussion cannot seem to get their heads around viewing this in any other grouping than by nationality. As if Zelensky (net worth $20 million), Putin (net worth $70 Billion), and Biden (net worth $9 Million) were not all in the same group, and far more separate from the working classes of Russia, Ukraine and America who each have far more in common with each other than with any of their ruling classes.

As if a flag carried more significance than being able to afford a roof, food, or medical care. — Isaac

Do you mean that once they get their heads around viewing Zelensky (net worth $20 million), Putin (net worth $70 Billion), and Biden (net worth $9 Million) in the same group (because of course so many here don’t see that, and desperately need guru Isaac tell them, indeed guru Isaac has a zealously edited record of all millions, billions, trillions and zillions of dollars that each and single Master of the Universe directly sucked out of millions, billions, trillions and zillions of working class children’s blood, right?), obviously it’s going to be evident that Ukraine must surrender to Russian deal-breaker demands and acknowledge its legitimate grievances in a peace deal, and affording a roof, food, or medical care carries more significance than a flag?
Or you mean that if Ukraine actually surrenders to Russian deal-breaker demands and acknowledges its legitimate grievances in a peace deal, there is a greater chance that so many in this discussion will finally get their heads around the fact that Ukrainian, Russian and American working classes have far more in common with each other than with any of their ruling classes? And that being able to afford a roof, food, or medical care carries more significance than a flag?
Oh no… you must certainly mean that if Ukraine surrenders to all Russian deal-breaker demands and acknowledges its legitimate grievances in a peace deal, we all are so much closer to have the working classes of the world united in rebellion against their ruling classes, and finally able to afford roof, food, or medical care for all humanity ever after, right? "Power to the Imagination!", right?

And caricaturing people’s views is so abso-fucking-lutely fun, right?

I'm simply saying that, in a conscripted army, motivations to fight are even more diverse than in a free one. Even in a regular army people's reasons might range all the way from borderline psychopathy to heroic selflessness. Most common seems to be nationalism. In a conscripted army, you can add to that range the fear of reprisals for refusal. — Isaac

Sure, I guess it’s the same for people who have to pay taxes: some agree with the taxes and are fine with that, some would have preferred softer taxes, some really hate paying taxes. So what?

As such, we cannot possibly 'take into account' their agency. They are not an agent, they are hundreds of thousands of separate agents with separate goals, taking them into account is nigh on impossible. It's certainly not something to be done by clinging slavishly to the account of their agency given by parties with a strong vested interest in presenting it a certain way. — Isaac

One thing is the agency of individual citizens, another the agency of government. The choice of Ukraine to fight with armed forces of conscripted individual citizens is taken by the Ukrainian government. So, first of all, do you have any compelling arguments showing that the Ukrainian government is illegitimate or is taking decisions violating national/international laws? Do you have compelling evidences showing how wide is the lack of support of the Ukrainian government?
Coz, you know, literally anybody can have strong vested interest in presenting Ukrainian agency in a certain way. Even anonymous members of this forum like you: e.g. if you are paid to spread pro-Russian propaganda, or if you are personally so frustrated by your material and social life that you can’t help but enjoy sharing your populist fantasies and memes with likeminded people, or if you are abso-fucking-lutely determined to sparkle a new glorious revolution with your old friend Engels in order to at last end capitalist exploitation on earth or at least break free from your asylum.

Of course Ukraine does not have its own history, language and culture. It's an arbitrary line on a map, it's absurd to think it somehow contains a natural grouping of language, history and culture. — Isaac

Of course?! It’s really baffling how many intellectual failures you can so skilfully concentrate in just a few lines.
First of all, of course, Ukraine has its own history, so much so that there are historians expert at it and giving lectures about it like “Timothy Snyder: The Making of Modern Ukraine” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8)
Second, who on earth is arguing that arbitrary lines on a map contain natural grouping of language, history and culture?! Nobody. So what else may be the purpose of objecting to imaginary claims as if they were actually made by your targeted interlocutors other than scoring imaginary points?!
Third, it’s precisely the fact that grouping of language, history and culture are not natural but cultural that they may very much need inheritable historical record in order to preserve or extend such non-natural groupings over time.
Four, even our notions of natural groupings (e.g. racial division of human beings) have their history which in turn may very well depend on non-natural groupings’ history (like the emergence of states supporting universal human rights against racial discriminations and a public education denouncing pseudoscientific racial beliefs).

Criticism of US foreign policy isn't "pro-Putin". — boethius


Sure. Yet, so far, you just happened to offer recommendations in support of all Russian "legitimate grievances" and deal-breaker demands perfectly in line with Russian propaganda's recommendations (practically, copy and paste). Now you wanna teach me that Russian propaganda is not pro-Putin, yes? — neomac

You can not serve 2 masters: you will love the one and hate the other. Clearly, you serve US interests in this conversation. — boethius

Your recommendations clearly serve Putin (=pro-Putin) so you love Putin and hate the US (=Americanophobe), yes?

Criticism of US foreign policy isn't "pro-Putin". — boethius

Sure. Yet, so far, you just happened to offer recommendations in support of all Russian "legitimate grievances" and deal-breaker demands perfectly in line with Russian propaganda's recommendations (practically, copy and paste). Now you wanna teach me that Russian propaganda is not pro-Putin, yes?

Listing random examples from a dictionary is pointless if they do not clarify what "legitimate" in "legitimate grievance" is supposed to mean. Here some reading for you: https://uswlocals.org/system/files/whatisagrievance.pdf

Negotiation is about arriving at agreements, which requires considering the perspective of the counter-party and how they see the world and what they would see as potentially resolving the situation and preferable to further conflict. — boethius

Fine with me, but you are no longer talking about legitimate grievance here.

we agree this client has legitimate grievances, it means we believe the client would have a strong case to sue us, so we should be nice and try to solve the problem. — boethius

The case can be considered strong precisely because pre-established laws and contracts can grant legitimacy to the grievance to the client.

the concept of legitimate grievance simply expresses what you think does actually need to be resolved in some way for the other side to do what you want. — boethius

You are evidently confused. One can think that something needs to be resolved independently of the legitimacy of the grievance. If somebody is negotiating a ransom with a kidnapper that doesn't imply in anyway that laws, moral or contracts give legitimacy to the kidnapper' demand. An agreement is found for pragmatic reasons not because a right has been acknowledged. Indeed, even after agreement and the transaction take place, the police can still be after and find the kidnapper, and return the ransom to the victims without the kidnapper having a say about the legitimacy of keeping the ransom just because he and the victim found a pragmatic agreement.

So, when I say, for example, Nazi's in Ukraine is a legitimate grievance, it's expressing my opinion that we in the West should also not want Nazi's in Ukraine. — boethius

Oh it's your opinion about what Westerners should do and not a fact about Russian legitimate grievances. I thought so.

However, it's when you want to negotiate a settlement that the other side may accept, then it is necessary to consider things from their point of view and what grievances they have and which are legitimate. — boethius

Sure there might be demands that are legitimate. But you made a list of what you take to be legitimate grievances from Russia, without offering any plausible argument in support of their legitimacy wrt pre-established set of moral/legal rules that the West and Russia share. In any case the point is that for Russians the acknowledgment of "legitimate grievances" (like "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault") has less to do with negotiating some material compensation like miserable kidnappers and more to do with things like violation of promises by the Westerners, lack of due respect of Russian sphere of influence, right to defend Russian minorities the way they see fit, right to oppress any independent national movement within their sphere of influence through Russification, right to be treated on the international stage as a superpower very much like the US and China, the extraordinary privilege for states like Ukraine to be dominated by Russia, and the like.

Here you are no longer delving into hypothetical thoughts, you clearly state as a matter of fact “war is totally provoked”, “these are definitely Nazi institutions with enormous power and influence in Ukraine”, “The rights of Russian speaking minorities that, fact of the matter is, Ukraine started oppressing”, “There have been war crimes also by the Ukrainians”. — neomac

These are just facts. I don't claim these are hypotheticals.

And you count them as “legitimate grievance”. Besides since you talk about “entirely justified grievance” and “in total contradiction to the West's ‘values and policies’” (unquestionable proof of Western hypocrisy right?), the gap between “legitimate grievance” and “justified grievance” seems now bridged by the reference to Western shared rules. You look pretty convinced about all this. — neomac


Yes, these totally factual things, documented by our own the Western media (before they got the memo that these subjects were off limits), and are legitimate grievances.

Legitimate grievance does not mean "justified". It's a concept you need to negotiate with people. — boethius

What did you just write?! If the “concept” (intention or extension) of “legitimate grievance” needs to be negotiated then you yourself can not claim as a fact that those I listed are “legitimate grievances”: main parties didn’t negotiate anywhere what “legitimate grievances” Russia may be acknowledged to have.

For example, a murderer, who's just confessed to a murder, could have a legitimate grievance that the police didn't bring him his coffee as they said they would.

Now, if the police don't want anything more from the murderer and seeing as coffee isn't a right, no one recorded the promise of coffee anyways and even if they did there's no damages or relevance to the confession and legal process etc., they could just walk away and say fuck the murderer and his coffee, I ain't doing shit for this sack of crap. So, the coffee remains a legitimate grievance of the murderer but in the grand scheme of moral things a broken promise of coffee is in no way comparable to murder and there's no legal consequence to breaching this contract.

However, let’s say the police want the murderer to keep talking: where's the body? Who else was involved? What was the motivation? etc.

Now, the murderer says "I won't talk more until I get my coffee". I'm pretty sure any detective on the planet would get this murderer a coffee, even if they don't really want to be nice to the murderer. Why? It's a legitimate grievance that needs to be resolved in order to agree on a cooperative action to keep conversing about the murder.

Had the murderer said "I'll talk more, but police are wearing the colour blue, and I hate blue, and to compensate that I want to be let go, all charges dropped etc." doubtful any detective would view this a legitimate grievance reasonable and reasonable demand to resolve this grievance, to continue the conversation. — “boethius

The example starts with an actual (not merely alleged) promise by the police to the murderer to satisfy a petty demand (a coffee) that grants plausibility to the “reasonable” “legitimate grievance” by the murderer (can there be unreasonable “legitimate grievance” then? Or “legitimate grievance” means “reasonable grievance”?) whose relevance ultimately depends on its instrumental value in furthering police goals.
I guess you have in mind the “not one inch eastward” promise which NATO enlargement has putatively violated. But it should be clear why that example is no good analogy: as far as I know, there are no records of such promise (so its actual content and its implications remain unknown, even if it actually happened). In other words, we are talking about an "alleged" promise. One could still concede that there were at least informal assurances, however they didn’t involve the US and Russia, but representatives of the American administration and representatives of the Soviet Union administration, so those assurances were realistically bond to political fate of those administrations (like the JCPOA which, differently from this alleged promise, was a very much recorded agreement and Putin’s “outstanding” and “talented” orange-faced girlfriend withdraw from). The alleged promise or informal assurance wasn’t a petty demand at all since its about critical security concerns of two major nuclear-weapon states, so top priority (and for top priority things informal assurance isn't ideal unless there is no material time to formalise the assurance, of course). Besides Russia is far from being as impotent and self-discrediting as a confessed murderer in a police station: indeed, it's a sovereign state with self-entitled expansionist ambitions and means to make lots of human, material and economic damage to other countries. So question of “legitimacy” can make a difference in terms of propaganda and international recognition wrt peer competitors. Russians could have averted the perceived threat from NATO enlargement by becoming more democratic and less corrupt to the benefit of Russian economy and welfare after the end of the Cold War, yet Putin preferred to invest Russian economic resources and Western trust to nurture Russian oligarchs&siloviki, military buildup and play a power game on the world stage at the expense of the West, most certainly of the US. Unfortunately “if you take a stick and you poke a bear in the eye, that bear is probably going to fight back” right?
Finally, if “promise” is your paradigm case to clarify the notion of “legitimate grievance”, I don’t see how this could clarify other Russian “legitimate grievances” you were talking about.

So, back the Russian and Ukrainian war. If you don't want to negotiate with Russia then there is no need to reflect on their legitimate grievances. However, if you do want to negotiate (want to convince the other party you're dealing with to do something using mere words) then resolving legitimate grievances (in one way or the other) is an essential part of the negotiation process.

The reason the word "legitimate" appears instead of just saying "grievance" is because in a negotiation people start high and settle lower; so, first off, there maybe a whole list of grievances and perhaps many are just padding the negotiation position and aren't really thought of as legitimate by the party presenting them (things they plan to let go of in basically horse trading). Likewise, some grievances maybe authentically felt by the counter-party, but our own side views them as illegitimate and will never satisfy them; but maybe it's possible to come to an agreement anyways if there remains overall enough "compensation" for letting go of the grievances. — “boethius

My point still is that if one side will see the “authentically felt” request (which is different from “legitimate”, “justified” or “reasonable” request, right?) as “illegitimate” but there is a possibility to find an agreement anyways then there is no need to acknowledge the grievance as legitimate AT ALL. Agreeing on a compensation doesn’t equate to acknowledging the legitimacy of the grievance (so no pre-established moral, legal, contractual right/rule that has been violated) but to offering a cost-effective and non-coercive way to let the grievance go away. The semantic link you suggest (“The reason the word ‘legitimate' appears instead of just saying "grievance" is because in a negotiation people start high and settle lower”) is confused and misleading because “legitimacy” is normally understood wrt a pre-established moral, legal, contractual set of rights/rules, and not wrt the acceptability of a negotiated outcome as negotiated prices are on a horse trading. It’s precisely because these are 2 different things that “maybe it's possible to come to an agreement” (negotiated outcome acceptable to both parties) even if “our own side views them as illegitimate” (wrt a pre-established moral, legal, contractual set of rights/rules).

Of course, you can argue that Russia's grievances don't matter, even if some are true, as there is no reason to negotiate. — “boethius

I’m arguing against your notion of Russian “legitimate grievance” even if Russian grievances may be grounded on partial truths. And even if there are no Russian legitimate grievances as far as I understand them, there might still be a good reason to negotiate at some point if the negotiation has a cost-effective way, acceptable to all involved parties, to let the grievance go away.

Of course, if your goal is:

Sure, here I restate it again and bolden it: The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. Outrageous right?! Yet if the endgame was stopping Russia, the quickest effective way would be for the West to force Ukraine to surrender to all Russian demands, or not even start a “proxy war” against Russia in the first place, right?! But that’s neither the Western endgame nor the Ukrainians’. So YES concern for the Ukrainian welfare is LITERALLY and REASONABLY compatible with not stopping Russia if that means Ukrainian surrender.
As always, I’m responsible for what I write, not for what you understand. — neomac


Then there is no reason to want Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, but rather it's better to just spread propaganda to increase the will for Ukrainians to fight even if they don't "stop" Russia and their country is completely wrecked as well as increase motivation of the West to supply arms and so on. — “boethius

I don’t see any evidence in support of the idea that Ukrainians will be significantly encouraged to fight by foreign propaganda. The evidences available to me support the idea that all the Russian atrocities Ukrainians are suffering from (that strikingly echoes Russian historical oppression) constitute well enough motivation for Ukrainians to keep fighting. Western propaganda is mainly for domestic consumption to boost cohesion and support for Ukraine, precisely because the West is not experiencing what Ukrainians are experiencing, do not understand all the relevant stakes as strategic decision makers do, and the West is still plagued by info-war and pro-Russian propaganda like yours. Indeed, the very reciprocal claim of yours is true: it's Ukrainian propaganda which is very much active to encourage Western administrations and general public to support Ukrainian even more. Not surprisingly, there are people here who even complain about such "selfish" and "childish" attitude on the Ukrainian part at the expense of the West (so the Ukrainians are the ones to exploit the Westerners, go figure!) .

"not stopping the Russians" includes an immensely costly the war for the Ukrainians and then simply losing the war — “boethius

That’s your speculation whose plausibility is questionable for the many reasons I pointed out. And this won’t change no matter how many times you repeat it.

To me other notions to clarify are those of “victory” and “loss”. They may have a meaning on the battlefield — neomac

They definitely do have meaning on the battlefield, but I understand since Ukraine isn't achieving these "victories" as of late you've made up some different meanings for victory to cope with that. — boethius

If you have this wrong impression, it's because you do not understand my reasoning. Or more likely you are playing dumb. Since your analysis is poor on facts, logic and depth, the best you can do is to rely on arbitrary speculations, sophisms and accusations, like the attack ad hominem you just offered.
Indeed, questioning the notion of “victory” and “defeat” is not only very much legitimate wrt all analysable dimensions of this war (military, political, economic, moral, strategic, etc.) as I’ve been discussing for a while now, but absolutely nothing unheard of (https://www.npr.org/2018/01/29/580811124/military-victory-but-political-defeat-the-tet-offensive-50-years-later). There is even a very well known expression that relativizes the notion of “military victory” to other relevant contextual considerations: “a Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory).
So e.g. “Putin should heed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent advice to him – that this is not an era of war – and desist before Russia sinks while trying to achieve a Pyrrhic victory.”
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-editorials/ukraine-escalation-russia-is-only-looking-at-a-pyrrhic-victory-putin-must-heed-modis-advice/

Anyhow such geopolitical victory doesn’t depend just on Russian means, resolution, or escalation threats, but also on Western cohesion, resolution and vision in addressing the Russian security and economic challenge. This will also be an example also for other authoritarian regimes, like China. And an important premise to repair or rebuild more convenient relationships between the West and the Rest in the interest of everybody. — neomac

You are just completely delusional. The West does not represent the "interest of everybody" and is not seeking, in this war or any other policy dimension, solutions that are in the "interest of everybody”. — boethius

Why delusional?
I did not claim anywhere that “the West does represent the ‘interest of everybody’”, yes?
It’s reasonable to expect that sovereign states have their national interest as top priority, yes?
And that doesn’t exclude the possibility of cooperation among sovereign states pursuing each their own national interest, yes?

Even more bizarre, you don't hesitate to just flat out say US's actions are justified due to their hegemonic position (and just ignore the fact that if Russia wins, then they are the hegemon, and therefore justified in your framework, in the region). — boethius

You are messing up with my claims again. As I said many times, justification depends on shared assumptions. Justification in strategic terms is not the same as justification in moral or legal terms, although they may converge. Russia and the US are competing for hegemony, i.e. extending their sphere of influence beyond their borders at the expense of the competitors to the point of becoming dominant. This is somehow “physiological” to geopolitical entities and geopolitical theories may explain why is that. One can still question the rationality of geopolitical agents’ strategic choices based on pertinent and reasonable strategic assumptions. I discussed Russian vs American strategic reasoning wrt both threat perception and response. And my conclusion is that overall the US is following a more reasonable and effective strategy than Russia (compare just the military, economic, reputational damage is Russia suffering wrt the US so far). On the other side, the aftermath of this war will more clearly determine whose strategy was more effective and likely update the hegemonic status of the competitors. But also notice that doesn’t exclude the possibility that aleatory or now hidden factors may favour the US or Russia’s hegemonic struggle at some point independently from the relative rationality of their respective strategy. Anyways, I’m interested to discuss about rational strategies (that’s what I mean by “strategically justified”) and outcomes that depend on them. That’s all.

Here the problems I see:
First, you seem asking me to solve an equation whose form and variables are unknown. What does “lose” for Ukraine mean in quantifiable terms? What’s the likelihood of loss and win and how did you calculate it? What’s the time range you are considering? What’s the cost threshold that if exceeded will make the cost unreasonably high? What quantifiable parameters would make you consider a Western plan a “‘coherent workable’ plan to actually ‘beat’ Russia”? — neomac

These are your problems, not mine. I don't care about beating Russia. — boethius

What?! You are expecting from me to provide such an “account” but I find your request unreasonable, especially because it’s not me playing the geopolitical game. All I can discuss is how I understand the game being played and my reasons to support one side or the other, but as I argued neither require such unreasonable accounting. So no, it’s not “my problem”.

I'm not a Russophobe. I didn't live in fear of Russia before this war, I don't live in fear of Russia now. I do fear US escalating the conflict to essentially accidental nuclear war, but this is a fear of the international dynamic that's been put in place, mostly by the US "meddling" in Ukrainian elections and internal affairs. — “boethius

So you are not Russophobe but Americanphobe?

My position in this debate is that a negotiated peace is preferable to more war, Zelensky is an idiot, but the West (US / EU) easily has the leverage to negotiate a resolution to the conflict and just ignore the fact Zelensky is an idiot.

And, "loss for Ukraine in quantifiable terms" is easy to define: tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead, economy wrecked, massive emigration, and not even achieving anything further on the battle field since last spring but forced to accept Russia control over it's current occupied territory, maybe more. This would definitely be a loss for Ukraine.

Now, if you want to wax whimsically that even if Ukraine loses the war Russia is harmed "enough" geopolitically and there's some Western geopolitical victory of some sort, then even if that were true, Ukraine gets no benefit, so the end result is using the Ukrainians for our own geopolitical ambitions: aka. sacrificing Ukraine to harm Russia. — boethius

Ukrainians may still disagree with you because they managed to preserve their sovereignty, made a future aggression against them (or any other country at risk) by Russia more unlikely, and may rely on Western partnership for rebuilding their countries. Besides, depending on what “some Western geopolitical victory of some sort” for “our own geopolitical ambitions” actually implies for the Ukrainians, the fallout could be the collapse of Putin’s regime and then this in turn may benefit Ukrainian claims over annexed territories, or if Ukraine is stable enough (with or without annexed territories) the West can integrate it more deeply to its economy, political and security system as it happened to other Eastern European countries previously under Soviet Union influence.

I am entirely willing to sacrifice an entire country in war campaign, wars take sacrifice, I am the kind of person who would not hesitate to sit down and write an "equation" concluding millions, or hundreds of millions of people must be sacrificed for what I believe to be right (if it makes sense of course), but I am only willing in a war in which I am actually fighting in and my own country takes losses in the country being sacrificed. This was the old way: "you want us to make a fanatical stand to slow down and attrit the enemy, you get your fucking asses fucking here and do some dying too, otherwise we're suing for peace or straight up surrendering and not damaging our country for nothing".
For example, the UK wanted France to resist Nazi invasion, and so sent an expeditionary force to help with that. It's common sense.

Without that, we are not "allied" with Ukraine, we are cynically manipulating and exploiting them for entirely different geopolitical reasons (in the case of Europe, self-defeating geo-political reasons) with minimum risk to our own soldiers lives and so minimum cause to sit down and really reflect on what are doing and the consequences of our leaders decisions. — boethius

Dude, I don’t really see the point of making it personal. I don’t know you and even if what you claim about yourself was true (and not just virtue signalling), it would be irrelevant to me. BTW you can always enlist in the international legion for Ukraine (https://fightforua.org/ ) where you will certainly find American and British people volunteering to fight for Ukrainians as courageously as you claim to be (and you don’t like virtue signalling, right?), or else you can recommend greater engagement from the West in support of Ukraine instead of recommending against it.
Anyways, the kind of beliefs you suggest such as “Westerners are coward because they are not sending their troops” or “Westerners can’t truly call themselves Ukrainian allies until they send their troops” or “Westerners are exploiting the Ukrainians because they are not sending their troops” are really beside the point. By far. States are expected to prioritise their national security depending on threat perception, and if they do it rationally, they do not engage in random tests of courage just to make you happy. Western military interventions don’t need to be with boots on the ground if available air forces and long range missiles can do the job more effectively. The problem is that American decision makers have to be careful about (domestic and international) consensus much more than authoritarian regimes (e.g. the nuclear blackmail wasn’t available to Nazis as it is to Russians), and Western coordination is harder to achieve since the complexity and uncertainties of the game leads to non-negligeable unresolved conflicting interests/views within the West: e.g. French understanding of European security is very much different than the American one, Germany has currently limited military capacity/culture and is still struggling with the economic downsides of this war and its global implications, the US is struggling for domestic stability and concerned by the incumbent security threat represented by China. So the problem is more cohesion and vision, then cowardice.
Moreover Ukrainians are asking for Western support and Westerners are providing it, if that’s fine with them and for that reason they call Westerners their allies, I don’t see any terminological issue here. The idea that Westerners are exploiting the Ukrainians because so far they didn’t directly and officially engage in Russia with their military forces, is very much dependent on the moral compass one takes into account or committed to. As far as I’m concerned, the moral imperative for Western governments is still Western national security (NOT Ukrainian security, welfare, lives! Ukrainian security, welfare, lives is the moral imperative of Ukrainian government! So if they feel exploited it's on them to denounce and argue for it in the first place), and I believe Westerners would likely intervene more directly in Ukraine against the Russians, as the British intervened in support of the French against the Nazis, if the perceived threat from Russia was as intolerable as the Nazis threat was to the British. That’s why Ukrainian propaganda tries its best to show how serious the Russian threat to the West is and encourage the West to provide greater military support or even to substantially change the nature of the military engagement in favor of a more direct participation (e.g. by declaring no-fly zone). So while you claim that Westerners are Russophobe and cowards, I claim that Westerners do not seem, as you would say, enough “Russophobe” (by coincidence, you aren’t Russophobe either yes?) and that’s why they are more reluctant to engage (by coincidence, you are more for peace negotiation than greater Western engagement, yes?), but not necessarily cowards (by coincidence, you are not coward, yes?) unless one takes the Western fear of escalating the conflict to essentially accidental nuclear war as a form of cowardice (by coincidence, you fear the US escalating the conflict to essentially accidental nuclear war, yes?).
And even if these circumstances would still count as a case of “exploitation” (mainly thanks to those Westerners that, like you but only by coincidence, are not “Russophobe” and fear escalating the conflict to essentially accidental nuclear war, and therefore they do not want direct engagement, just peace negotiation and consensual surrender by the Ukrainians), for the Ukrainians the lesser evil is still to be “exploited” by the West, instead of cave in to Russian demands and “legitimate grievances”.
Finally, if we are talking about a strategic plan where consequences are taken in due account, suggesting that you are “entirely willing to sacrifice an entire country in war campaign” clashes with your “exploitation” objection against my views, since even in your case the sacrificed country would obtain no benefits anyways (no matter if your own country takes losses in the country being sacrificed, still your country will survive while the other is entirely sacrificed). And suggesting that you “would not hesitate to sit down and write an ‘equation’ concluding millions, or hundreds of millions of people must be sacrificed for what I believe to be right (if it makes sense of course)” overlooks the fact you can not even offer intelligible examples of such ‘equation’ in the Ukrainian case (BTW what was the British ‘equation’ for deciding to support the French with their troops against the Nazis back then?). If we are talking about principles independently from the consequences, then the ‘equation’ would be trivial since we are allowed to ignore the consequences by default, and there would be no costs to calculate. So for example if Ukrainians are fighting for recognition of their self-determination no matter what, they may fight until their country and people are entirely sacrificed to that cause. And the Westerners would not be exploitative if they were committed to the Ukrainian cause no matter what, so e.g. by sending as many troops as necessary to prove they really care about the Ukrainian cause beyond any doubt (to you of course). The problem is that you also dismissed the Ukrainian fight for principle (just “territory and national pride”) given the number of casualties (“the cost to Ukraine is immense”, and notice that the root meaning of “immense” is “immeasurable” so no soluble “equation” whatsoever) as if no “fighting for principle no matter what” justifies any number of casualties (unless it’s for denazifying for good and exclusively Ukraine, maybe?). And since one can’t realistically expect that Western states fight for the sake of Ukrainian national interest (BTW did the British send troops in support to France against the Nazis just for the sake of it no matte what, or for their national interest?), any support of the Ukrainian fight by the West would be exploitative by default, with or without sending its own troops. In other words, your conjecture is just wishful thinking even within your frame of thoughts.