Seems like a bunch of different topics, really.

Anyway, re the quote, I think that's easily possible. It's basically the idea of all of those "rock and a hard place" dilemmas a la "You can save a train load of people from certain doom of you murder one 'innocent' child."

You know what I did? I just forgot it all. I worked, I sang, I lived, and I forgot about all of those things I used to worry about, and read, and then one day, something happened -- and Kant came back hard to me, even though I had read his critiques twice years ago, and they hadn't made much of an impact, I didn't think. I read them around the same time I was studying Buddhism and Hegel and going to meditation, and it was them I was talking about.

I stopped the battling though, the trying to be right and smart, and good, and I just forgot about all of that stuff, because I had more important things to do.

Remembering stuff is bad for you.

Adnan Khashoggi, pimp, thief, fraudster, international arms salesman, has just died. He said:

What did I do wrong? Nothing. I behaved unethically, for ethical reasons.
— Khassoggi

Is that even possible? — mcdoodle

It seems like a straightforward contradiction to me. Individuals like this never want to admit unethical behaviour. Think Donald Trump. I think the statement you quoted arises for the speaker more from a political imperative than a philosophical one.

I covered why pyschos don't feel fear, but know why they don't feel guilt? Because they're so intensely, ridiculously full of shit. They simply never admit fault, or responsibility for fucking anything. They will be all like "I've never murdered... but yeah I've killed", "I've never lied, but I've used tactics", and shit like that.

Do I know I know, or do I just know, or do I have justified true belief and so I know? — mcdoodle

Doubt and certainty are compatible.
I'm uncertain of my knowledge, yet I rely on it to come to a conclusion regarding it.
To know something, you need to doubt your own certainty.

Do I do good to do good? Or do I do good to look good? — mcdoodle

Good from whose perspective?

What did I do wrong? Nothing. I behaved unethically, for ethical reasons. — Khassoggi

Nonconformist.

Moral dilemmas? Those trick us into assessing the morality of the options they give, instead of helping us distinguish the moral from the immoral. Similary, I don't think we can morally judge Khassoggi on the basis of legality or any other kind of agreed conformity.

Individuals like this never want to admit unethical behaviour.. — geospiza

I think that's reasonable, they would have nothing to gain from it.

At least they're sincere.

I just explained how full of shit they are. Not just to you, but to themselves as well. They're fucking gods that can do no wrong, on the biggest of power trips. The height of megalomania.

Those trick us into assessing the morality of the options they give, instead of helping us distinguish the moral from the immoral. — Noblosh

I have no idea what this is saying, really.

Trick us into assessing the morality of the options rather than distinguishing moral from immoral? No idea what that means.

Individuals like this never want to admit unethical behaviour..
— geospiza
I think that's reasonable, they would have nothing to gain from it. — Noblosh

Right, nothing. Except for maybe redemption and self-respect. But those things aren't important :-}

Do you talk to yourself? If yes then you are reflexive, if not then how do you do that?

For me there is no first vs second order distinction. An ethical decision is one that (1) affects other people's feelings in some way and (2) I have considered carefully and (3) the course of action chosen is one that I would not expect, before the event, to regret later on [the word 'expect' is critical there]

When I take an ethical decision, it is because I want to be the sort of person that takes that decision (a Virtue Ethics perspective), or slightly differently, because I want to live in a world where that decision was taken the way I decided it (a Consequentialist perspective).

Khashoggi's statement makes no sense to me. It is the decision, not the reasons or the action, that is ethical, unethical or neither. Perhaps what he means is that he performed actions that other people would be likely to think stemmed from unethical decisions, but that were not unethical for him because of some other considerations he took into account.

A mafioso that kills an innocent person out of loyalty to their family is acting ethically according to their ethics, but not according to mine, which is why I want him incarcerated.

For me there is no first vs second order distinction. An ethical decision is one that (1) affects other people's feelings in some way and (2) I have considered carefully and (3) the course of action chosen is one that I would not expect, before the event, to regret later on [the word 'expect' is critical there] — andrewk

There certainly is, the first order view will enable us to discuss Khashoggi and global arms industry, warfare, defence vs aggression, et &c., and what we ought to do in general. Second order distinction would be to discuss whether there is any truth in Khashoggi' statement that his actions stemmed from an ethical reason. Is it an actual moral claim?

His justification is likely the suggestion that while armament kills and is thus unethical, he is providing armament that would enable political or religious groups with the adequate ability to defend themselves from an aggressor that would have otherwise (without such armament) resulted in something equally unethical, such as death or violence by this aggressor. Indeed, when one thinks of Bill Clinton and his administration' arms embargo in the balkans that tipped the scale to the detriment of the Bosnians, Khashoggi's statement may actually make sense.

But, is it ethical to provide armament to an aggressor, even though aggressors themselves - such as ISIS - assume themselves to be defending what they believe?

a Virtue Ethics perspective — andrewk

Thanks, that's the perspective I seem to have found myself looking from. The Aristotelian formulation would be that you train yourself, or are trained, to do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons, on order to make the good happen. In this sense one condones murky acts done for a greater good. I think for instance of LBJ making dirty deals behind the scenes with racist politicians in order to get civil rights legislation passed. Those are the sorts of deals I used to disapprove of strongly, but nowadays I think - LBJ did indeed, on this particular issue, have the greater good in mind, and in his dirty deals he did a marvellous thing.

the course of action chosen is one that I would not expect, before the event, to regret later on [the word 'expect' is critical there] — andrewk

I'm not so sure of this, especially in tragic areas that a benign thinker like Aristotle doesn't touch upon, and for which I feel I learn from Sophocles or Euripides rather than Ari. Take Agamemnon at Ephesus. Either he does as the gods wish and sacrifices his own daughter, or the fleet remains becalmed and the war is lost. He faces future regret whatever he does.

Do you talk to yourself? If yes then you are reflexive, if not then how do you do that? — Cavacava

I do of course talk to myself in deliberation. At the moment of decision-making, I'm not so sure. For some reason I imagine people who are still thinking that way at the point of action as duplicitous swine - like Cassius about to assassinate or Iago plotting behind an arras.

Remembering stuff is bad for you. — Wosret

Your body and your habits implicitly remember, they embody memories, or you wouldn't have learnt to do stuff, surely? Then the question is, should I just place some checks on what I do out of habit or bodily urge and if so why?

But, is it ethical to provide armament to an aggressor, even though aggressors themselves - such as ISIS - assume themselves to be defending what they believe? — TimeLine

It is not ethical for me to do so, if I believe the aggressor's actions are harmful. What the aggressor thinks about it has no significance in my moral deliberation.

You should definitely place some checks on some habits, and what you may do of bodily urges. You may have the urge to do something, simply because the person standing next to you has that urge. Be ruled by reason, not whim and habit. That's my view at least.

It is not ethical for me to do so, if I believe the aggressor's actions are harmful. What the aggressor thinks about it has no significance in my moral deliberation. — andrewk

How you define 'harmful' largely differs according to custom or tradition or culture; a terrorist could be a 'freedom fighter' and thus an aggressor' reasoning should add to your moral deliberation particularly in light of the sale of arms.

Maybe, but I like Hamlet and his father, the Ghost who I think represents Hamlet's intentionality, as an external need (as if an ideology) to compel him to perform acts in a certain manner, in this case revenge. Hamlet spends a lot of time reflecting before he acts. The Ghost tells Hamlet in the first act:

But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind,

Of course, how to revenge the act of murder without "Taint" or guilt/sin became his problem. I think he became able to act because he was able sway his mother to be complicit in his enterprise, she agrees to Hamlet's demands becoming complicit with him, thereby freeing him to act without Taint, she becomes separate from his revenge and complicit in his intent (the Ghost's intent) which frees him to act out his revenge.

Yes. The assessment of whether it is harmful is made by me, according to my values, and then subjected to my ethical deliberation process to determine what action my ethical framework recommends. Whether somebody else's assessment of what is harmful matches mine has no significant influence on the decision, as it is I who is making the ethical determination, and I will do so according to my definitions and frameworks.

Hence, if I were an arms dealer (hard to imagine) I would use my determination of what is harmful to decide to whom I would supply arms. I would supply them to the French Resistance but not to Daesh. The fact that Daesh consider themselves to be highly ethical is not significant to me in making that decision.

It seems to me that moral dilemmas direct us to what's convenient and what's favorable for us, not to what's moral. Your example raises the questions: WIll I get away with sacrificing the child? and What's better, a dead child or a doomed train "load of people"?. I used the expression assessing the morality of in a sarcastic way, I don't see morality as quantifiable or as inherent to any course of action.

Better public relations, you mean. Yes, you're right, reputation can be gained or can be lost through admission of wrongdoing, but in the case of those individuals, I really think they're better off denying any unethical behaviour.

is acting ethically according to their ethics, but not according to mine, which is why I want him incarcerated — andrewk

You make incarceration sound arbitrary.

I really think we can identify a common moral framework. For example, what's costly and unproductive is definitely immoral, I don't see how that can be argued against.

You make incarceration sound arbitrary. — Noblosh

As indeed it is, if it depends just on the will of only one person. The history of any dictatorship is testament to that.

Those of us that have the privilege of living in Western democracies have protection from that, in that incarceration is governed by laws which are, ultimately, required to be reflective of the will of the many, rather than just the few.

This reduces the arbitrariness, just as the variance of the sample mean from a large sample is much smaller than the variance of individual data.

Better public relations, you mean. Yes, you're right, reputation can be gained or can be lost through admission of wrongdoing, but in the case of those individuals, I really think they're better off denying any unethical behaviour. — Noblosh

In my submission, it would be vastly better if all arms traffickers could admit that there is something wrong with what they are doing.

It seems to me that moral dilemmas direct us to what's convenient and what's favorable for us, not to what's moral. Your example raises the questions: WIll I get away with sacrificing the child? and What's better, a dead child or a doomed train "load of people"?. — Noblosh

Whether one action or another is moral is a matter of preferences that individuals have. Moral dilemmas prod you into thinking about your preferences in difficult situations, where the choices are between a rock and a hard place. That can help you clarify just what your preferences are and why.

I'd have prefered for laws not to be made and implemented by the many (or by the many of the many's representatives) but by those responsible and up to the task, not influenced by any whim. Maybe the future of politics will be based on a political model dynamic enough to allow that or something similar.

As in the end does never justify the means? Or is this specific to arms trafficking?

Whether one action or another is moral is a matter of preferences that individuals have. Moral dilemmas prod you into thinking about your preferences in difficult situations, where the choices are between a rock and a hard place. That can help you clarify just what your preferences are and why. — Terrapin Station

But wouldn't that reduce morality to subjectivity? Wouldn't there be just personal ways, no moral ways, then?

I like Hamlet and his father, the Ghost who I think represents Hamlet's intentionality — Cavacava

I think I have to grant you that. There would be a question to me about whether Hamlet deliberates or prevaricates. He comes to know what act he would at least half-like to perform: its justification holds him back. But he is all the same a counter-example to my prejudice, I concede.

I really think we can identify a common moral framework. For example, what's costly and unproductive is definitely immoral, I don't see how that can be argued against. — Noblosh

Being costly and unproductive is definitely a utilitarian perspective, so I don't see how you claim it's a meta-ethical one.

So, if there is no first/second order distinction, would you say that under consequentialism, killing an innocent person just becomes ethical if it is done for a good ethical reason, i.e., because it will somehow (we can imagine scenarios) bring about more happiness or less suffering in general? To me, a first and second order scheme describes the situation better, because it acknowledges the immorality of killing an innocent person, rather than just cancelling it out with a consequentialist calculus.

I'd need to understand the scenario better before commenting. Do you have in mind something like a war situation, where one has to kill enemy soldiers that have done one no harm, in order to pre-empt them killing oneself?

I was watching a movie the other day about the British raid on the occupied French port of St Nazaire in WW2, and was troubled by the commandos sneaking up on German sentries and killing them in cold blood. Given that the raid, if successful (and it was) would save thousands of lives by hampering German U-boat operations in the Atlantic, I think most consequentialists would conclude that the actions were ethical. But it still troubled me to see the sentries killed. As far as we know they were innocent, being just non-Nazi conscripts that would much rather have been hanging around in Berlin studying architecture and trying to chat up girls.

In doing so, you would undoubtedly make Khassoggi morally worthy, but therein lies the problem and precisely why the distinction becomes necessary. Unlike the French Revolution, if you were unaware of the circumstances would not your consideration of the consequences of your actions be required? Again, returning back to Bill Clinton and the arms embargo that was detrimental to the lives of many Bosnians.

Consider: would it be unethical if, say, you suppled non-lethal support such as clothing and food to ISIS? The distinction is dubious to say the least, just as much as it is attempting to ascertain the meaning behind 'defence' and whether your ethical position is really an ideological one. You may consider the French Revolution as 'freedom fighters' just as Khassoggi would consider the Daesh. Not good enough. There is no ontology, no way of ascertaining the validity of the nature of your judgement, which renders first/second distinctions necessary. It is just too subjective.

I think moral rationalism can reach a more prominent answer to the Khassoggi problem then virtue ethics, despite the former being so sterile.

Being costly and unproductive is definitely a utilitarian perspective, so I don't see how you claim it's a meta-ethical one. — mcdoodle

Then take: wishing for criminals to suffer. Can that be considered immoral on its own? Maybe yes, because it lacks a good motivation. And what would that be? Maybe to add something of value to the world or to preserve what's of value. But I think the effects should act as a necessary reinforcement when judging the morality of something. Still, can anything that is predicted to be costly and unproductive ever be considered moral? That was what I meant.

because it acknowledges the immorality of killing an innocent person — jamalrob

But I don't get why killing an innocent would be an inherently immoral act. I get the feeling but even an innocent person can be in the way. Maybe there are higher priorities than preserving innocent lives, would any such priority also be inherently immoral? Would you kill someone innocent but condemned to death, to save other innocent lives? What about choosing who to live from 2 innocent but condemned to death persons, wouldn't that be indirect murder of the one you didn't choose?
Moral dilemmas can be unreliable, I know, but I think they can reveal our faulty moral assumptions.