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There are very, very few, Right and Wrongs which are "plain wrong" or "plain right". The rest are conditional, and are not so difficult to determine. They are, however, exceedingly difficult to sell to people who are not interested in accepting someone else's version of right and wrong however.

oops, one too many howevers!

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Freethought and karma yoga are the two components of freedom. Chogyam Trungpa in his book The Myth of Freedom talks of meditation in action as being a prerequisite to freedom. Karma yoga is clarity of self as self-action.

Freethought is the honesty to choose the best or most fulfilling choice in the moment, neverminding what was good a minute or seconds ago. This honesty opens the mind to information otherwise unapproachable even by studious minds.

In simple terms: A thing is wrong if, outside of a fantastic theoretical model, there can be no justification for said thing. I used rape as an example because, outside of some bizarre circumstance wherein only one woman is fertile and, for some reason, procreation of the race is required (no, we don't know why) and she refuses to agree to the act...you see the ridiculous level one must go to to potentially justify said action, therefore, it is, at a base level, wrong. Other wrongs can be rationalized and justified under much less ridiculous circumstances, therefore, arguably, not actually wrong, so much as requiring justification for said action, ergo; conditionally right.

Following Kant — tim wood

The inherent flaw in your reasoning.

Simply the heightened risk of being killed or catastrophically injured in an otherwise minor accident of the sort motorcycles are subject to, at a cost the victim cannot himself bear. That is, he, usually a he, hurts everyone, and some greatly. There can be no such freedom to either cause or unreasonably risk such harm. — tim wood

"But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.” - Hunter S. Thompson

Quoth Zizek, whom I sure you can't stand, "freedom hurts". I don't think that you have to give up riding motorcycles because of Kant, if that's what you're asking. For someone, perhaps?

Personal safety is not an issue when you are fully responsible.

With road safety, the difference is, a crew of paramedics and police officers are responsible for removing your corpse. They are also responsible for reporting bad news to your family.

Because others have responsibility for your actions, they should also have an authority on them... Wow that's really hard for me to right, as I'm big on safety awareness.

Personally, I think that as long as I am aware enough in a angerous situation, then I shouldn't have to wear gloves/goggles etc. But usually it's the employer who is responsible if I do hurt myself. So then it nakes sense that they should have authority on my minimum safety requirements.

In saying all that, I'm free to ride a motorbike with no helmet, gloves or glasses, on my own peice of land.

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Upon a second reading, it still seems to be about how the categorical imperative bars you from the freedom to ride motorcycles. I don't know. Whatever.

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Well, now that you said all of that, I'm not sure what this has to do with Kant. To me, the supposed right to put yourself at risk does, to varying degrees, exist, but, from a Kantian perspective, it would seem that you shouldn't, as you shouldn't will that everyone else do the same.

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Kant seemingly makes sense. It all makes sense if you believe in some sort of abstract transcendent ideal and in a quasi-eschatological "kingdom of ends". The categorical imperative, however, deprives Ethics of circumstance. There is a world of difference between stealing an old Gibson that was the parting gift of a musician's late mentor, stealing a pair of expensive headphones produced by multinational business conglomerate, and stealing a loaf of bread because you are hungry and poor. That you shouldn't steal because you shouldn't will that all of society steals, thereby resulting in that it becomes comprised of factional sets of feuding marauding bands, breaks very quickly down when you don't assume that people need to given universal laws so as to ensure that society doesn't disintegrate. People are entirely capable of understanding that an act is made within a given situation, analyzing its circumstances, and determining whether or not the act was ethical.

Kant provides some of the world's best moral framework, without realizing that no such thing can exist. To use the extreme example, in Nazi Germany, it would seem to be easy to say that people shouldn't lie, as, when you have a society that is predicated upon a lie, the effect can be catastrophic. What about under interrogation by the Gestapo, though? To me, to Kant, it makes no difference as to whether I am under interrogation by the Gestapo or have been brought before a human rights tribunal. Perhaps, I do misunderstand him, though.

Emmanuel Levinas has a short parable that I have always liked, called The Name of a Dog, or Natural Rights. The poignant double-entendre at the end has led me to what someone once described as "nihilistic optimism". Ethics is like that, in a sense, without a thought. To create an entire methodology, however, predicated upon some sort of innate good will and deprived of subjectivity almost entirely, to me, just seems to be somewhat absurd, if not somehow both condescending and naive.

To return to your original question, though, you do owe it to those who care about you not to take any suicidal impulse too far. Some people never give up mountaineering, however. Should they fall, and almost all good climbers do fall someday if they don't give it up, is that really the sort of thing that you should hold against them?

Money is an issue. Especially is the safety gear adds upto $300+.

Safety awareness and skill are far superior as a tool for risk reduction. After 8 years in the forestry(New Zealand highest safety risk/mortality industry) its clear that safety gear is limited at protecting someone from harm.

Preferably, you want someone who is always alert, has skill and/or experience. With all these attributes, you don't need any safety gear. When someone dies, it's usually because they were lacking in one of these areas, and the safety gear they were wearing was absolutely useless.

Wearing a seat belt doesn't automatically make you immune to death by motor accident. I imagine the same attributes needed to reduce mortality in the forestry, would also reduce mortality on the roads.

Most safety gear only mitigates damage from an accident. Hi-vi's doesn't work very well, otherwise they'd make you wear it to cross the road. If I get into a motorbike accident that's intense enough to kill me, it would most likely kill me if I was wearing safety gear.

So then the question I ask, is who gets to define the amount of mitigation required for safety gear. Ie when riding a motorcycle, should I wear a helmet, gloves, goggles, fire retardent overalls, bullet proof vest and a titanium exoskeltal protection suit. Just the helmet? Just the helmet and gloves? I think the rider should get to decide.

Who do you think should decide what the rider should wear, on their own land. Once know this question then we can figure out what the level of mitigation should be, or perhaps you could answer both.

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"The people who pay the bills"


I don't ask anyone to pay my bills. Nor do I want them too. This highlights another freedom removed, in an anti-capatilast fashion. I'm lucky to have a Grandfather who fought in WW2 so that I could have my freedom. Ie the freedom to ride with my hair out. (like he used too)

In Thailand, motorcyclist carry 3 or 4 passengers, each without a helmet too. Do you advocate, someone needs to take their freedoms, pay their bills so they have to get a scooter each and wear helmets?

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"Therefore, whoever tells a lie, however well intentioned he might be,
must answer for the consequences, however unforeseeable they were, and pay the penalty
for them even in a civil tribunal. This is because truthfulness is a duty which must be
regarded as the ground of all duties based on contract, and the laws of these duties would
be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted." - Immanuel Kant

By demanding adherence to a universal law in every given situation, Kant deprives Ethics of circumstance. On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives is his anticipation of this objection to his moral philosophy, but, I don't see how it holds up. Under interrogation by the Gestapo, Kant is effectively suggesting that you do not have a right to lie to them as you are bound by duty to uphold a moral law that everyone ought to abide by, namely that people shouldn't lie. In some cases, perhaps, it would be better to uphold whatever lofty ideals that you ascribe to and state them honestly, even when dealing with people who are extraordinarily vile, but I am of the opinion that it is of a veritable ethic for a person to tell the Gestapo anything that will keep them from finding the Jews or whomever else they are hiding. That you should always act as if you would will for such an act to become a universal law extrapolates the situations that give rise to Ethics beyond their circumstances via an appeal to an abstract ideal, which, referring to the non-existence of moral framework, I do not believe exists.

Responding to your question as to whether or not I am squandering your tax money with my federal student loans, the answer is yes, and it is because I don't give a flying fuck about how you feel about your money. I may even attempt to get society of your ilk to finance a postgraduate education if I can figure out how to. With that, I'll bid you adieu.

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I'm only attempting to give you an understanding of my general attitude towards the ostensibly hard-earned wealth of sociopathic academics. As an ethical quandary, I give about as much thought as I do whether or not I should massacre apparently villainous creatures in a dungeon crawler, which isn't to say that there isn't some residual effect. On some level, I am so inclined to wonder as to just what contemporary hero myths suggest about our society, when, at least in most video games, they often rely upon the copious slaughter of mythological creatures that have been otherized. What I mean, though, is that it is something that I think about about as much as I do at the time in which it is happening, which is to say that it doesn't even enter the periphery of my thought. As to whether or not I should fire the thunder arrows at the water demon does not matter because I have already fired them.

"Again I may make a false statement when my purpose is to hide from another what is in my mind and when the latter can assume that such is my purpose, his own purpose being to make a wrong use of the truth. (...) and my untruth is not a lie because the thief knows full well that I will not, if I can help it, tell him the truth and that he has no right to demand it of me. But, [suppose I tell him], that I will tell him the truth, and I do not, am I then a liar?...to him [the thief] as an individual, I have done no injustice and he cannot complain; but I am nonetheless a liar in that my conduct is an infringement of the rights of humanity" (Kant, Lectures on Ethics, (2011) p. 227).. — tim wood

Exactly. Both here and in On the Supposed Right to Lie, Kant is making the claim that the circumstances under which an Ethical act is made do not matter and affirming his more or less sole moral law, being the categorical imperative, which commands that, in every given situation that gives rise to Ethics, you should act as if you would will for your act to be in accordance with a universal law, effectively a refinement of the Golden Rule wherein you should do unto others as you should will for all of society to do unto itself, though highly qualified and delineated by Kant. I am not claiming that Kant claims that you owe it to the thief not to lie. I am claiming that Kant is claiming that you are bound by duty not to lie, regardless as to whether you are speaking with a thief or, let's say, an honest merchant. Kant, whom I admittedly have only read so much of, seems to have spent a great deal of time justifying that claim. What I suspect is that he did not successfully do so. Why I suspect this is that Kant effectively believed in ethical truths, what I have previously described as "abstract ideals", namely the a priori information that is supposed to be somehow deigned via "reason". Not only did he invoke reason as such, but he also exclusively categorized it as pertaining to such information in opposition to empirical information, which he more or less relegated to the domain of folk wisdom and, therefore, of a realm of thought that was beneath the field of Philosophy, which, to him, had culminated in his "transcendental idealism". I am of the opinions that such ethical truths can only exist via the invocation of the divine and that the divine does not exist. Without such commandments, as they effectively are, it is left up to humanity to decide what is right within any given situation by taking into consideration as many of its aspects as are possible, as we are both limited by subjectivity and time, one of which is, namely, its circumstances. As a general rule, I would suggest that an act is ethical if it has been made in good faith, which I don't intend to clarify, as it would take a very long time to properly delineate and I do plan on leaving this forum for a period of time, but, as per the connotations of the qualifier, would suggest that every ethical act requires a leap of faith. Unlike Kant, who posits that you can know what is right in so far that you are compelled to behave as such via the categorical imperative, I posit that Ethics is an experiment in right, effectively cultivating a good way of life, which arises because of situations and is, therefore, to varying degrees, delimited by their circumstances.

As the person to have also thought this was one, Jean-Paul Sartre, I am well aware that people like you have become so unwittingly taken by Ayn Rand's interpretation of Aristotle and critique of the Soviet Union that they entirely incapable of responding to such a practical ethical philosophy with anything but hysterics over the projected reign of quote unquote relativism, but I just can't save you from what the Central Intelligence Agency has done to Analytic Philosophy for you.

So as to eschew reference, as, for whatever reason, citing Continental Philosophers is believed to be akin to being a member of the Church of Scientology on this forum, situational ethics is just applied and expanded upon Empiricist ethical philosophy. It is, perhaps, notable that we do generally assume that people do have free will, but, that's about as concisely as I can clear up this general misunderstanding.

I do have other things to do, and, so, am going to leave this forum now. I hope that all is well and goes well for all of you, at least, in so far that I either can or should, and will talk to you probably in a couple of months from now. Until we meet again!

I wouldn't say its a difficult read. It does explain a lot about police officers thinking. I would have answered, no comment, but it has in brackets (in a situation when you must answer).

The final idea is a pessimistic over assumption, that you are automatically someone who does not have a duty to tell the truth, if you do not answer. If an officer askse questions, I tell him I'm busy... because I'm usually busy, and don't have time to play mind/word games. The article suggests that I'm potentially a liar, because I refuse to directly answer any questions, I show the lack of duty.

All in all, its an interesting stress test of ideas. But the principles are only valid in either an Utopia where every has a perfect moral code application, or it's other use is in law, which pretends to be perfect.

As it pertains to the topic, if you were to say, wearing this safety gear will save your life, then you are lying. Or if you say, it will reduce the risk of accident, or it will reduce injury, then you are also lying. Yet when safety gear is advocated as a necessity, the previous assumption are portrayed as true. The only truth is that, safety gear has a potential to reduce risk/injury as is proven by statistics. Wearing a helmet won't save you in a head to head with a truck.

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My argument, is that I have a duty, to exercise my inherited freedom. The less I exercise my rights and freedoms, the less I have.

Id wear a helmet on the road. I wouldn't wear one on a hilly, grassy farm. I could argue that it restricts the vision that I need for the more hazardous terrain, or livestock. But my argument is simply that, I have the right to do what I want on my own land.

My biggest gripe, is that politics dictate safety requirements. An Australian sued a company for his sun burn. Now its mandatory for most companies in Australia/New Zealand to wear fire retardant full cover overalls... In the blistering hot sun!! Before working in civil works, I'd been sun burnt a total of 3 times in my life. When working I civil works, I was sun burnt every year, because Im not stupid enough to wear fire retardant overalls when playing at the park on the holidays.

There's a whole list of detrimental PPE uses. Glasses when waterblasting in enclosed areas causes them to fog up, but too bad because they a few mandatory. Gloves in the forestry make it difficult to feel what your doing when reaching behind a tree.. Every job I've had, has some rediculous PPE requirement. But it's OK, because I signed up for the job, I will comply. In my own time, it's upto me. Freedom, means making up your own mind.

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