it is also ethical — Tobias
Whether Mike accidentally killed Bob, or meant to, the end result of Bob's death is less suffering overall, even for Bob, as he was struck once and died. — Book273
There's a difference there and, for me, it needs to be made explicit by developing a new concept: goodish (2). — Agent Smith
Which would you prefer?
1. To save your friend without violence
or
2. To save your friend with violence
?
There's a difference there and, for me, it needs to be made explicit by developing a new concept: goodish (2). — Agent Smith
By goodish, would you mean that "good" performs on a spectrum? As in, something could be more good or less good. — john27
If violence is to be admitted into the company of the good it can't, I'm afraid, be done so as an equal (as a good, as ethical). Suffice it to say that violence must know its place; it's a necessary evil and those who share my views have been gracious enough to reclassify violence, not as a necessary evil but as goodish. That's a huge concession I'm making here. — Agent Smith
You treat concepts like Platonic forms. The form of violence, the form of the good. Violence is a means to an end. It is a suspect means because it harms people and people tend to dislike being harmed. It is not good or bad 'in itself'. It is good or bad dependent on context. Donating a kidney is a generally good act, committing violence is generally bad. Context may change our judgment though. There simply is no need for categorical judgments. — Tobias
Ethics is absolute and universal in my opinion. Thou shalt not kill means thou shalt not kill, plain and simple — Agent Smith
Ethics is absolute and universal in my opinion. Thou shalt not kill means thou shalt not kill, plain and simple. Ethical injunctions are binding to all, everywhere, every time. — Agent Smith
If violence is to be admitted into the company of the good it can't, I'm afraid, be done so as an equal (as a good, as ethical). — Agent Smith
Well than you are living in a dream world because no one recognizes those injunctions as binding to all everywhere and every time. Not even the most absolutist of ethicists, Kant did. No one also "categorizes things with good". They ask what the right thing to do is, pace Sandel, not what the form of the good is. — Tobias
And of course the controversy is not unnecessary, what kind of silliness is that? Sure, ethicists and lawyers for ages have been debating whether for instance euthanasia is justified, whether self defense is justified, whether killing in war is justified, no on along comes a fella called Agent Smith who tells the greatest minds in history it is all baloney. Wonderful. — Tobias
I concur with your sentiment, but ethical violence is more often than not a "product" or a will to do good. How then can one separate a child from its parent? — john27
If including a certain object (violence) in a class (good) results in controversy and unsolvable conundrums, why not create a new category (goodish) and settle the matter once and for all? That way we can all sleep in peace. — Agent Smith
Violence is a behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. How can it be ethical??? — Alkis Piskas
Violence is a behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. How can it be ethical??? — Alkis Piskas
Violence is a behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. How can it be ethical??? — Alkis Piskas
When it is done to prevent something worse from taking place. Who are you, Gandhi? :wink: — Tom Storm
Because not all violence is goodish, most violence is simply bad. Volence is not a species of an object that can be classified under a certain class. Violence is the description of an act. Now what that act is, is not clear, as pointed out earlier in the thread, there are many kinds of violence and whether that act is a good act or bad depends on the circumstances in which is act is performed. Moreover, I have no idea what to make of the glass 'goodish' it is not defined. We could as well rubricate it under the class 'badish' or 'iffy' — Tobias
And the things we call truth nowadays, are they truth and facts or will time tell? And what should we do with our principles based on these? Were they principles or weren't they? — Tobias
Do you have children? If so they will become the victim of your ignorance whether you want it or not. — Tobias
Yes but reasoning is presented, that is the whole point. When a police agent shoots a man he is asked why. If he then explains that the man was holding a gun and was shooting and that is why the officer took him down he presents — Tobias
I am all for serious cautions. That is why the use of violence is generally prohibited by law. — Tobias
In order to guide fair judgment we have education and law, training people in using fair judgment. — Tobias
The course of action society takes is to have these justification examined by a third person, even more trained and educated in weighing arguments and indeed judging the relative wight of principles. — Tobias
We are not free to rewrite the social contract. whenever we feel like it. — Tobias
Indeed! and you have the idea that you are capable of fair judgment based on principles you seem able to discern, however many would be disagreeing with you. — Tobias
Yes, that is what Kantian reasoning comes down to an where the achilles heel of such reasoning has been pointed out. It cannot make sense of the idea of special obligations. No friend of yours will choose your house. Your wife will not ask whether you like her dress, your children will not expect any kind of special treatment from you... — Tobias
This line of thinking is entirely coherent, I grant you that, and entirely absurd. — Tobias
The problem with this line of anti-social ethics is that you end up with a life that is solitary nasty brutish and short, exactly what we all strive to avoid. — Tobias
Also those terms which may be vague, gain their content from the way they are used in practical discussion and argument. It is not utterly subjective, it is intersubjective. — Tobias
Actually the example shows the problem of your ethical system. Since all judgment is based on this one principle, you cannot make any difference between the police offiicer in my example and the man stoning his wife. — Tobias
Thinking for others is unethical. ... Therefore in your system it is perfectly fine to sign an arms deal with just such a society. — Tobias
What we have to do is argue and try to convince this society that their law is unjust. — Tobias
You hold on to a kind of monological ethics by which you can set our own moral compass. — Tobias
In Japan no one has the right to murder anymore, witches live their lives in peace and their broomsticks are now tax deductible! Progroms have been eradicated in most countries and I can go on. That is not because Kant came along and told them, or because everyone just miraculously came to see the miracle of the categorical imperative. — Tobias
Yes and since there is no foot to stand on, you reach the conclusion that violence should not be stopped by countervailing force when it starts and we should allow ourselves and others to get killed in the name of ethics. — Tobias
Of course not. I know I am not perfect, which is exactly why I am proposing these things. It is interesting that you interpret my attempts to reconcile my conduct with my imperfection as a claim to being perfect. — Tzeentch
That is because the assumption of perfection is needed. You wish to base your ethics on absolute truth and so there must be a kind of truth to which you have privileged access. — Tobias
Perfection is maybe not the words, but you have to presume some sort of moral superiority above others. — Tobias
This is true, e.g. hitting someone who is threatening you, i.e. as self-defence. Well, this may be necessary, as you say, and also justified and not considered illegal in a court, but I don't think that it can be called "ethical". Because then you can kill a violent person and consider that you are doing good to the society, towards which he behaves violently. That is, consider that the society is better without him.violence isn't good, but necessary in some cases — john27
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/640824When it is done to prevent something worse from taking place. — Tom Storm
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