It's not a hard question. Who's morally superior the murderer or the rapist? The liar or the glutton? Are you getting the picture how stupid your "who's the better man?" question is?

Yet you just stated it wasn't. So here's already a circumstance where you think it's not the right thing to do, to support a victim of aggression. — Benkei

Good point. If the nation being attacked is led by a brutal dictatorship, it might not be the right thing to do to help this dictatorship defend itself, but it's still a morally good thing to help the people themselves; in any case it is better to help them than to kill them.

You think I am stupid, Benkei?

I think your "popularity" questions are stupid. You as a person not so much, I've seen you post in other threads.

As for boethius, he wrote clearly about his moral preference for murder over cheerleading. — Olivier5

He wrote exactly what he wrote. The fact that you have to paraphrase rather than directly quote speaks quite clearly to your intellectual dishonesty. If @boethius wrote so 'clearly' of such a preference, you shouldn't have the slightest trouble quoting him saying so.

I don't see how moral questions can be considered trivial or stupid questions on a philosophy forum. They are important, perhaps not politically but humanely. You don't want to ruin your soul for Putin.

He wrote exactly what he wrote. — Isaac

I understood from what he wrote that cheerleading a Ukrainian is morally worse than killing a Ukrainian. If he meant something else, he is welcome to clarify.

I understood from what he wrote that cheerleading a Ukrainian is morally worse than killing a Ukrainian. — Olivier5

Well then there's little we can do to help you.

Ok, but the rules say an armed breach of sovereignty is a crime of aggression. So sometimes not helping the victim is morally right because the victim doesn't deserve our support (because he's a homicidal dictator). But there's still a crime. So what the point is, is that the qualification that something is a crime is not sufficient to decide whether the victim ought to be helped or not.

One measure is the moral quality of the victim for you. Fine. I can go along with that on case-by-case basis as sometimes this might not be all that clear (it was with Saddam).

It's been suggested here that another measure could be: what course of action leads to the least number of death. Now, this requires you to step in my shoes for a moment. I believe Crimea and this Ukraine war are highpoints in a proxy war the US and Russia have been fighting about Ukraine at least since 2004 (ssu put it even earlier). So what the US and Russia have been doing to each other using Ukraine to establish influence in the country in favour of one or the other has culminated in territory loss in 2014 and a war now.

You don't have to agree, just understand that that's my understanding of the context. Given that then the Ukrainians are victims of a larger power struggle and I would like to see the quickest, least deadly resolution to the conflict ensuring both the US and Russia will leave it alone. Does sending armaments make this more likely? Under some assumptions it does but it will drag out the war and will lead to more Ukrainian (and Russian) casualties but maybe those casualties are worth a better negotiation position against Russia. Under other assumptions it's worse, it just leads to more death and no better result in the long run. If the latter is the case then sending armaments is the wrong thing to do. That's not to say it's clear at this point what the right decision is but it's entirely possible sending armaments will result in a lot more death (especially since the Russians have no problems bombing civilians) without any meaningful gain in any area.

It's under such circumstances supporting Ukraine by sending weapons would be morally wrong because it only leads to more innocent people dying (and I would actually argue that even soldiers are innocent in this, because they just get send by the guys making the decisions. Well, it's a bit more nuanced when we're talking about war crimes but soldiers dying is as lamentable as civilians - they're human beings too).

I don't see how moral questions can be considered trivial or stupid questions on a philosophy forum. They are important, perhaps not politically but humanely. You don't want to ruin your soul for Putin. — Olivier5

But there is no moral question. We agree Putin is morally wrong and his war is illegal. We disagree about the role of the US. What is stupid is asking me to qualify Putin or the US as being better than the other. Criciticism of the US and NATO is in no way, shape or form excuse Putin's moral responsibility in this. A murderer can't excuse himself by saying another person is a murderer too.

Well then there's little we can do to help you. — Isaac

You need more help than you can offer.

It's been suggested here that another measure could be: what course of action leads to the least number of death. — Benkei

Bombing cities lead -- I think -- to more deaths than cheerleading, so by your own yardstick it is morally far more disgusting to bomb civilians than to cheerlead anyone. And I agree with you!

But there is no moral question. We agree Putin is morally wrong and his war is illegal. We disagree about the role of the US. What is stupid is asking me to qualify Putin or the US as being better than the other. Criticism of the US and NATO is in no way, shape or form excuse Putin's moral responsibility in this. A murderer can't excuse himself by saying another person is a murderer too. — Benkei

You and I apparently agree that Mr Putin is morally wrong. But that does not apply to some other posters who cultivate far more ambiguity than that. You don't understand @boethius for instance, although you think you do. He is more sinister than you think.

Criticism of NATO was made here a long time ago, and we all or nearly all agreed that many errors were made and the US and EU have had their share of hypocrisy and immorality. But once this is agreed, you would expect the conversation to go back to Ukraine. Yet it does not... Some people want to talk about NATO again and again and again.

Why?

My hypothesis is that the point is to deflect blame from Mr Putin, which is why the guilt of NATO has to be mentioned constantly, and not just occasionally.

My hypothesis is that the point is to deflect blame from Mr Putin, which is why the guilt of NATO has to be mentioned constantly, and not just occasionally. — Olivier5

Going back to my previous argument that because we haven't really had any superpower dictators since the soviet era ended, intellectuals have generally shifted focus to a more globalized critique of how all nations handle economy, ideology, war and geopolitics. The main focus of the last 30 years has been on criticizing the US, and rightfully so, since it's been the biggest player on the world stage during this time. So when Putin almost overnight becomes a despot dictator and the world once again has a "bad man", then all the intellectuals who's been painting the picture of the US as a nation being the "bad man" over the last 30 years can't really compute this change and need to turn everything back against the US. Regardless of how Nato operates, regardless of the US not being in direct control of Nato, any type of action by Putin can, according to them, be led back to Nato, and by association, the US in some form or another. Regardless of how much points to Putin's true motivations for this invasion, it doesn't matter because we can't move away from the narrative that the US has been the "bad man" for the last 30 years. Putin knows this, he knows how to spin the narrative about Nato and he's playing these "intellectuals" like good little puppets. The only rational connection to Nato is the fact that they can block any expansion of Russia as an empire and that's why we see this desperate invasion of Ukraine. Does that mean that if Nato had held off accepting new nations towards the east, Russia would have played things cool and not invaded? No, it might have been even worse. They've might have had almost free reign of military actions without much interference from the west. Or they could have killed anti-russian politicians and installed puppets over many years to reclaim these nations. Regardless, they would have kept pushing to build up the empire again, by any means necessary. And with Putin at the helm, it seems that he doesn't want to go out of this world without getting that "Tsar status" solidified in history. This invasion has clearly been an act of desperation. Do it now or lose Ukraine forever. It's either do it now or fail for Putin, that's why he doesn't back down, why he won't peace talk with Ukraine and why the demands are plain and simple "surrender into part of our empire or die".

Putin is simply a regular 20th-century despot dictator coming back to haunt us for thinking the world got rid of them.

Oh no, it did happen, but highlighting an innocent civilian dying in conflict is something used to portray how terrible the enemy is.

RT is using the same tactics, portraying a city in the Donbass region as being an innocent casualty of war a tragic situation for its people - but this time from the breakaway region.

A significant proportion of the city’s private homes have burned down or been destroyed by explosions. There are traces of shrapnel everywhere. The rare house may still have its fence or window panes intact. Many windows are sealed with plastic or boarded up. The words “people live here” are often found on the gates written in chalk. — RT

"people live here" sounds so tragically ironic.

Criticism of NATO was made here a long time ago, and we all or nearly all agreed that many errors were made and the US and EU have had their share of hypocrisy and immorality. But once this is agreed, you would expect the conversation to go back to Ukraine. Yet it does not... Some people want to talk about NATO again and again and again. — Olivier5

Criticism of Putin was made here a long time ago too, and we all or nearly all agreed. Does that mean no further conversation on the matter should take place?

The vast majority of this thread has been taken up with attempts to paint such criticism as apologetics for Putin.

The US did a bad thing creating the circumstances for, and provoking this war.

Putin did a bad thing responding to that provocation so violently and with such callousness.

We all agree on both.

So why do you want conversation about one to stop, but conversation about the other to continue?

Presenting your opinion about what Putin would and would not do, how the US might or might not have responded, what influence they may or may not now have...is the whole point of a discussion forum.

Being baffled that anyone would disagree with you renders the medium pointless. I suggest you take up blogging instead.

Good point. If the nation being attacked is led by a brutal dictatorship, it might not be the right thing to do to help this dictatorship defend itself, but it's still a morally good thing to help the people themselves; in any case it is better to help them than to kill them. — Olivier5

So you are saying if Ukraine was run by a "brutal dictatorship" something like what is happening now, that is sending arms to 'help the dictatorship defend itself' 'might not be the right thing'.

Even if civilians died in the same number and in the same way.

I don't recall the ICJ outlawing 'brutal dictatorships' just illegal invasions.

Presenting your opinion about what Putin would and would not do, how the US might or might not have responded, what influence they may or may not now have...is the whole point of a discussion forum.

Being baffled that anyone would disagree with you renders the medium pointless. I suggest you take up blogging instead. — Isaac

What are you even talking about now? If you mean that there's no point to analyze interlocutors as part of the analysis of global events you've missed almost the entirety of 20th-century philosophy.

The US did a bad thing creating the circumstances for, and provoking this war.

Putin did a bad thing responding to that provocation so violently and with such callousness.

We all agree on both. — Isaac

There was no provocation that I can see. So no, i don't agree. It's all on Putin.

The vast majority of this thread has been taken up with attempts to paint such criticism as apologetics for Putin. — Isaac

The vast majority of your posts have been devoted to whining about how NATO is bad and to relaying the propaganda of the Kremlin.

So why do you want conversation about one to stop, but conversation about the other to continue? — Isaac

Stop lying, do try it once. I never ever said I wanted any conversation to stop. I said I wanted dishonesty, obscenities, lies and wilful misunderstanding to stop. I am also explaining what purpose is served by blaming NATO again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. The purpose is to try and deflect blame from the actual murderers.

Keep trying, by all means.

What are you even talking about now? — Christoffer

The argument into which you contributed your comment was...

once this [criticism of NATO] is agreed, you would expect the conversation to go back to Ukraine. — Olivier5

It uses this expectation as evidence for the analysis of interlocutors you, quite rightly, allow for.

Yet the utility of this (and your agreement) as evidence for ulterior motives relies entirely on an assumption that you (and the position you espouse) is just categorically right. Obvious and verified. Hence the suspicion levied at those who oppose it.

I'm suggesting the reality is simply that those who oppose it just disagree with you about the facts.

There was no provocation that I can see. So no, i don't agree. It's all on Putin. — Olivier5

So when you said...

we all or nearly all agreed that many errors were made — Olivier5

...what errors were you referring to and what were their consequences?

never ever said I wanted any conversation to stop. I am just explaining what purpose is served by blaming NATO again and again — Olivier5

Your explanation relies on an assumption that the conversation ought to have stopped. Without that assumption, there is no cause to impute ulterior motives on those who continue it. If the conversation about NATO can be continued legitimately, on what grounds do you assume those who do so are doing so illegitimately?

what errors were you referring to and what were their consequences? — Isaac

Start a thread, or even better, read this one. It's all been described. None of it implies a provocation from Washington.

Your explanation relies on an assumption that the conversation ought to have stopped — Isaac

You misunderstood me again: the discussion of NATO's sins must in fact continue forever, as a way to deflect attention from the war crimes on the ground.

Bombing cities lead -- I think -- to more deaths than cheerleading, so by your own yardstick it is morally far more disgusting to bomb civilians than to cheerlead anyone. And I agree with you! — Olivier5

I don't think this was the issue to begin with. But even so when people are manufacturing consent that we should support the Ukrainians no matter what, it makes people unreceptive to a more quantitative analysis in this regard. Just look how many pages it took to find some semblance of agreement when in fact the differences of opinion between posters here are minimal.

I don't think this was the issue to begin with. — Benkei

It was the issue I raised, in response to constant complaints about my so-called disgusting 'war cheerleading'. I wanted to know what was worse: 'cheerleading' people who defend themselves, or murdering people.

For some, this appears to be a difficult question. But it's important to reach moral clarity and I agree we are getting there, at long last.

On the subject of those kind, kind Western countries and their 'support' for Ukraine...

As bombing and shelling ripped through Ukraine’s towns and cities in the first week of the invasion, the Ukrainian government still made a scheduled interest payment to its private lenders on time. The lenders—mostly international finance institutions, banks, and hedge funds—are all queuing up to collect their debts, with no sign of respite.

Since the invasion, Ukrainian dollar-denominated bonds, which were issued as part of its 2015 debt restructuring, have been trading at around 25 cents in the dollar. This reflects the high risk of default, but also means that if Ukraine continues to make its debt payments, Western banks and hedge funds could make profits of 300%.

The response of multilateral institutions has been to give even more loans to Ukraine. Since the war started, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has given a £1.4 billion emergency loan, while the World Bank has provided a $723 million financial package that includes $589 million in loans. These new loans are being piled on top of Ukraine’s already unsustainable debts. — https://jubileedebt.org.uk/news/cancel-ukraines-debt

It uses this expectation as evidence for the analysis of interlocutors you, quite rightly, allow for. — Isaac

I analyzed the possible obsession with Nato in terms of how debates and discussions has been going on for 30 years now. To the extent of leading to bias dismissing the more logical motivations Putin and Russia have.

So far, all who argue for blaming Nato for Putin's invasion are the ones inventing facts or taking one unrelated fact and making false connections to motive. All while people who actually research Russia and Putin's presidency for a living, point towards how Putin's motivations relate to the expansion of Russia, not to the fantasy of a Nato invasion.

It's this Nato bias in the rhetoric so many have that makes them pick facts that do not actually logically glue to an actual conclusion for such external motivations of Putin. The "facts" are either what Putin says directly, which is undoubtedly the most unreliable source for any kind of fact, or a historic fact with the rhetorical suffix that it somehow connects to such motivations without any real connection established.

It's this inability to actually make coherent arguments where premises (facts) actually relate to the conclusion that creates a mess of a discussion where people just cite historical facts as premises for conclusions of their own opinion. Instead of looking at what people who research Putin actually says, use that for interpreting the behavior through this conflict and make logical and rational inductive conclusions based on it.

I analyzed the possible obsession with Nato in terms of how debates and discussions has been going on for 30 years now. To the extent of leading to bias dismissing the more logical motivations Putin and Russia have.

So far, all who argue for blaming Nato for Putin's invasion are the ones inventing facts or taking one unrelated fact and making false connections to motive. All while people who actually research Russia and Putin's presidency for a living, point towards how Putin's motivations relate to the expansion of Russia, not to the fantasy of a Nato invasion.

It's this Nato bias in the rhetoric so many have that makes them pick facts that do not actually logically glue to an actual conclusion for such external motivations of Putin. The "facts" are either what Putin says directly, which is undoubtedly the most unreliable source for any kind of fact, or a historic fact with the rhetorical suffix that it somehow connects to such motivations without any real connection established.

It's this inability to actually make coherent arguments where premises (facts) actually relate to the conclusion that creates a mess of a discussion where people just cite historical facts as premises for conclusions of their own opinion. Instead of looking at what people who research Putin actually says, use that for interpreting the behavior through this conflict and make logical and rational inductive conclusions based on it. — Christoffer

source: trust me bro

Tada, I condensed your four paragraphs.

people who actually research Russia and Putin's presidency for a living, point towards how Putin's motivations relate to the expansion of Russia, not to the fantasy of a Nato invasion. — Christoffer

So George Kenan, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Cohen, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, Vladimir Pozner,Jeffrey Sachs, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General Pino Arlacchi, former CIA director Bill Burns, former US Secretary of Defense Bob Gates...

These are all what now? Non-experts on Russia?

It's amazing how nearly every any American foreign policy strategist who knew anything about anything understood NATOs role in goading Russian aggression yet these couple of internet randoms are like no Putin is just very bad that's all, I did my 'research'. Is this the same kind of research anti-vaxxers do?

Or: This is clearly a geopolitical crisis but let's take the 'geo' and the 'politics' out of it and we're just left with "Putin bad".

Or: "Joining NATO is like having a library card, anyone can do it if they just sign the right documents. It's not like the entire point of NATOs existence, from top to bottom, is to make strategic decisions about how not to engender potentially world ending conflict. No, it's just like singing up to an Uber Eats account".

people who actually research Russia and Putin's presidency for a living, point towards how Putin's motivations relate to the expansion of Russia, not to the fantasy of a Nato invasion. — Christoffer

Oh I almost forgot...

Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-199.
Sir Roderic Lyne, former British ambassador to Russia.
George Beebe who used to be the CIA's top Russia analyst
Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Institute's senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies
Frank Blackaby, former director of SIPRI

...

Every single one on this list and the previous one has implicated NATO expansion as the main provocation for war in Ukraine.

And the experts you've quoted saying its all Putin's empire building so far tally...?

Back on page 38...

Cite one of these experts and we'll see if I'm inclined to 'brush them off'. — Isaac

Nothing since then.

Hey! A post with no misinformation! :up: