Sound vaguely Nietzschean?

The provocative title of Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness matches an equally provocative thesis about ethics. Traditional ethics has always been suspicious of self-interest, praising acts that are selfless in intent and calling amoral or immoral acts that are motivated by self-interest. A self-interested person, on the traditional view, will not consider the interests of others and so will slight or harm those interests in the pursuit of his own.

Rand’s view is that the exact opposite is true: Self-interest, properly understood, is the standard of morality and selflessness is the deepest immorality.

Self-interest rightly understood, according to Rand, is to see oneself as an end in oneself. That is to say that one’s own life and happiness are one’s highest values, and that one does not exist as a servant or slave to the interests of others. Nor do others exist as servants or slaves to one’s own interests. Each person’s own life and happiness are their ultimate ends. Self-interest rightly understood also entails self-responsibility: One’s life is one’s own, and so is the responsibility for sustaining and enhancing it. It is up to each of us to determine what values our lives require, how best to achieve those values, and to act to achieve those values. — Rand - IEP

The book depicts a future United States on the verge of economic collapse after years of collectivist misrule, under which productive and creative citizens (primarily industrialists, scientists, and artists) have been exploited to benefit an undeserving population of moochers and incompetents. The hero, John Galt, a handsome and supremely self-interested physicist and inventor, leads a band of elite producers and creators in a “strike” designed to deprive the economy of their leadership and thereby force the government to respect their economic freedom. From their redoubt in Colorado, “Galt’s Gulch,” they watch as the national economy and the collectivist social system are destroyed. As the elite emerge from the Gulch in the novel’s final scene, Galt raises his hand “over the desolate earth and…trace in space the sign of the dollar.” — Ayn Rand Britannica

Never read Ayn Rand. Is she preachy? — Vaskane

Oh god yes.

Adopting that view, antinatalism has to be false, at least after a few generations.

I am not here to argue that view of truth by the way :100: — Lionino

Ok got it, you meant the latter definition I asked about- evolution, the biological mechanism. Well, this to me just stinks of the naturalistic fallacy. We evolved a lot of things, and culture has shaped our beliefs in ways that perhaps, originally, it was not physically intended for. I type here on this keyboard, not because my ancestors 100,000 years ago needed it, but because human biological makeup allows for tremendous general learning capacities (as compared with other animals), we can often reason out logical, moral/psychological, and empirical conclusions that are wildly varying "contradictory" to the if/then programming of other animals where things like, "Is it okay to kill?" or "Is it okay to impose suffering by procreation" is not even amenable to their psychological programming.

That is to say, just because "it's in nature", doesn't mean it is morally right, simply. And there are thousands of examples to speak against this naturalistic fallacy thinking. And also, contrary to this view, humans being so culturally "plastic", are naturally able to pose and try to answer various moral questions, so what of that fact?

A favorite of today's Republicans. — Fooloso4

And yesterday's. It's been their true north for a while.. Although, with the populism that laid out, it's taken on different seasonings. More culture war now than individual.

I see this bipolar attitude vis-á-vis wanting to be the "moral majority" versus a "small, beset elite," as being a manifestation of the nu-right's increasing ambivalence towards democracy of any form. On the one hand, they increasingly want to dispense with democracy—"Red Ceasarism," and all. On the other, democracy has been "the principle," for so long that they can't help but make appeals to popular opinion and their place in a "true majority."

The second, more popular explanation is that "strong" have allowed their hands to be tied by a "false morality." It's here that a relation to Nietzsche's ideas is more obvious. Generally, the claim is that economic elites, the "neoliberals," or simply "the Jews," have tricked the strong into a false morality. Once the strong "wake up," and form their own morality, this age of evil will be resolved.

Generally, it is said that this will not occur until some sort of cataclysmic war, which will have the side effect of turning the currently low status practitioners of the ideology into hardened, grizzled war heros. You can't really underplay the extent to which "war will act as a force of self-transformation and self-actualization," plays into these narratives. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think what you describe here, sir, is a doctrine of the "alt-right" that's been swimming around since about 2015 or so.

Ressentiment is the enduring psychological state of resentment in which resentment is behind one's creative force for valuation. A strong resentful person may only ever raise to the level of say priest/politician (ie someone who directs the resentment of the masses). Getting strong people behind herd mentality (objective resentful beliefs that deny life) kneecaps them from becoming what Nietzsche calls a Higher Human. — Vaskane

God, this reminds me so much why I despise Ayn Randian philosophy :lol:

If we hold an evolutionary view of truth, antinatalism is false — Lionino

Moar argument please. Justify your "if, then". — fdrake

Yes what fdrake said, please. Evolutionary as in truth is evolutionary? In what way? how does it fit in that schema of truth? Evolutionary as in the biological mechanism of change via natural selection and adaptation over time for an ecological niche?

We have this vague feeling of meaning when with others. — Christoffer

Sure, and others can cause suffering.

So we can't be free from imposing these things on others because we need to interact with the ideas about our suffering to process it through our social bonds. — Christoffer

Not sure what this means.

I just happen to see that as a bit of a reductionist way of viewing suicide. — Vaskane

Suicide is multifaceted. My point was how it’s not entailed with antinatslism. We can discuss peoples reasons for suicide but the quote was to point the paradoxes associated with it. It ends suffering, but for whom? The suffering has already occurred by the time it is committed. I believe life to entail suffering, both necessary and contingent. Suicide in some way is a response to this in some way, whether philosophically driven regarding meaning or acute reasons like specific circumstances.

Suicide is much more than just/if even at all "an impossible wish of undoing suffering." IMO. Carry on with your views though. — Vaskane

You simply didn’t answer me so I guess I will carry on since you have no response..shrug.

We have to exist with suffering in order to want to be free from suffering. This paradox makes the will to never have existed an essentially meaningless yearning. Since it is with even less meaning in its fundamental emptiness than a meaningless existence that actually exist. — Christoffer

That strengthens Ciorans point in suicide. We are put in an impossible situation. The nostalgia for “unbirth” can never be attained. It doesn’t negate choosing not to impose the very dilemma on another.

Not quite. Too clean cut and dry, people commit suicide for all sorts of reasons not because they "never really wanted to have suffered." The one subject Camus is actually worth reading for. — Vaskane

Can you explain your objection? At the end of the day my point is antinatalism doesn’t entail promortalism, whatever the reasons great or small for suicide. Camus asked if we should kill ourselves if life has no meaning and of course his answer was live rebelliously with the absurdity. Not causing suffering for others, by imposing life doesn’t mean one ought to not choose to continue with the burdens foisted upon them by continuing to live.

So, is there really no reason for an antinatalist to live — rossii

That is answered from where the premises are being framed. Most AN arguments are about notions of starting or imposing suffering onto others. Not starting does not necessarily entail thus ending one’s life once born. Indeed part of the suffering and imposition to begin with is even being put in a position where once must decide if life is worth living, and thus where Cioran’s quote encapsulates a sort of resigned mindset of the living pessimist:

It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late. — Cioran

Meaning, suicide is an impossible wish of undoing the suffering that has already occurred. What we really want is to never have suffered in the first place. Annihilation after the fact doesn’t negate this.

Did Israel not occupy Gaza and treat the Palestinians like shit for decades? — ToothyMaw

So I’ll repeat for the apparently less informed how it got this way once again:

If people are more informed on the history, they couldn't just use the latest headline as their newest political cudgel. That would mean a nuanced understanding on the fact that it was a series of wars started by neighboring Arab states (Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc. etc.), who annexed the West Bank and Gaza and never did anything themselves to make these territories into their own self-determining state,.

Then when the Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt and the rest stopped attacking, and it became only Palestinians left with Israelis to make a deal, the Palestinian side, when given a chance to make a state, never took any deals. But yes, for those who do understand some of the history, the terms of these deals will be said by them, as "unreasonable" for Palestinians and thus implies it seems "reasonable" for the asymmetrical warfare "intafadas" that ensued of of suicide bombings, and terrorist rampages and kidnappings into Israel by Palestinians jihadists and terrorists. — schopenhauer1

If you are saying that the Palestinians wanted a seemingly endless conflict that would eventually conclude with their near destruction, you are patently wrong. — ToothyMaw

No they want Israel’s destruction and to kill as many Israelis as they can get away with, as well as project their “power” by holding hostages as Israel has in the past given up immense numbers of prisoners for only one person as they tend to value their citizens. Hamas uses useful idiots and the media cycle to stoke outage. It’s all asymmetrical tactics. It’s the long game. They bit off more than they were predicting this time. Most likely their neighbors were step in and make it a regional war but that didn’t happen either. Their only recourse is the civilian deaths lead to moral outrage.

Furthermore, Netanyahu actually supported Hamas, so there's that. — ToothyMaw

I’m no supporter of Netanyahu but, Israel at first might have thought that Hamas could be worked with once they got power. That lasted a second though. Netanyahu did benefit from thinking he could ignore the existential issue and Hamas was convenient for that no doubt.

But clearly the Palestinians have some sort of relationship with Hamas that is somewhat neutral, and I can only explain that as a function of the Palestinians wanting men to fight on their behalf. — ToothyMaw

Palestinians are both supporters and captive of Hamas depending. If there were elections in the West Bank, 75% would vote them on.

One group was initially wronged and wronged more severely over a period of time by another group. If the first group starts attacking the second, maybe the initial wrong-doers should try to stop it instead of escalating? — ToothyMaw

Now this is just historically false. Look back at the history I reiterated for a second time.

But moreover, occupation and oppression breed extremism, and certainly in the case of Hamas it is a direct result of how the Palestinians were treated by Israel over the course of decades. — Tzeentch

So then I can use that argument for why Israel kept voting in right wing parties.

If Israel wants to get rid of Hamas, it should end the occupation. Hamas' reason for existence disappears, and moderates will take their place. — Tzeentch

That seems naive. Gaza was given to them and the gesture was “fuck you not good enough” and “fuck your economic gift, we don’t want anything from a Jewish state”. Not engendering good will there when Israel acts in a way that loosens it’s direct control. Also Israel did try to negotiate and got bombed repeatedly and then rejected by the moderates who still pay their radical suicide bomber families pensions. Real moderate!

Of course, this is fundamentally incompatible with the goals of the Israeli right-wing political establishment, and that is the problem. — Tzeentch

Because I think that moderates should prevail, I’ll agree that there should always be a good faith effort.

Hamas is going to do whatever it takes to win, but we have zero capability to change them — ToothyMaw

Well shit, isn’t that part of their strategy? If you are run by a leadership with a death cult mentality that provokes a more powerful neighbor, better appeal to the neighbor to not do anything about it. Well, if Hamas leadership was left to their devices they would want to repeat the carnage and if given the chance, would get bolder. Their neighbors would also perceive this as weakness and attack as well seeing as there was little resistance. Rather, Israel decided their goal was destroying all the infrastructure and fighters. The other allies like Hezbollah balked.

That would definitely be antisemitic. — ToothyMaw

Haha, I don’t know why but this right there is so oddly obvious, in its characterization of Hamas and its rhetoric, it is oddly out of place. Like calling Osama bin Laden only slightly anti-America. What was it that tipped you off? Was it the actions or the rhetoric?

That something as repugnant as Hamas would be voted in was a likely consequence of the way Israel treated the Palestinians. They might not have scruples, but they will take up arms against the oppressor fearlessly, and that could be appealing to an oppressed people. — ToothyMaw

That’s a farce. Hamas was the organizations that killed thousands of Israelis in the 90s and 2000s amidst Oslo peace process not even wanting to give it a chance. They want all of Israel. Then when Sharon pulled Israeli settlements out of Gaza and they held elections, instead of voting in a moderate government, they voted in Hamas and sent rockets to Israel. They also burned down the greenhouses that Israel were left for them to use for their economic benefit. They don’t care about development or a thriving culture for their people. Purely about war. They ran that economy into the ground with all the aid they got.

They might not have scruples, but they will take up arms against the oppressor fearlessly, and that could be appealing to an oppressed people. — ToothyMaw

The first part of your sentence negates the second part. Isis or Boko Harem aren’t righteous SIMPLY because they are fighting a perceived oppressor. That’s an oddly amoral argument for a relation dynamic that doesn’t consider the means and ends of the people involved.

Hamas actually has a better civilian to combatants killed ratio and they are explicitly terrorist. That says a lot. And just because they antagonized Israel, use human shields, deprive their people of aid, etc., doesn't justify terror or wanton killing on the part of Israel. Clearly. Tit for tat stops at war crimes. — ToothyMaw

If you looked on the thread I’m not endorsing this heavy handed approach either, I’m just not calling it a genocide. It’s a debate about how hard to hit on war. Most generals want a maximal approach.

I already stated I would rather see Thomas Friedman’s solution enacted ASAP as described in that article. Its goals to degrade Hamas would take too long and is too costly at this point, but they’re probably set in for this to go on for months or more. I’ve stated that the Israeli leadership needs to change and they need an end goal in mind politically that involves international and Arab neighbors.

However, yeah look at my previous post before this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/866806

If people are more informed on the history, they couldn't just use the latest headline as their newest political cudgel. That would mean a nuanced understanding on the fact that it was a series of wars started by neighboring Arab states (Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc. etc.), who annexed the West Bank and Gaza and never did anything themselves to make these territories into their own self-determining state,.

Then when the Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt and the rest stopped attacking, and it became only Palestinians left with Israelis to make a deal, the Palestinian side, when given a chance to make a state, never took any deals. But yes, for those who do understand some of the history, the terms of these deals will be said by them, as "unreasonable" for Palestinians and thus implies it seems "reasonable" for the asymmetrical warfare "intafadas" that ensued of of suicide bombings, and terrorist rampages and kidnappings into Israel by Palestinians jihadists and terrorists. Meanwhile of course, any Israeli responses to being attacked, like striking the network of dug-in underground tunnels filled with ammunitions, Hamas fighters, and hostages (purposefully built under densely populated areas) will be decried as wrong for exactly the reasons Hamas built the tunnels under these infrastructures in the first place.. to make it near impossible to get to without killing civilians, enacting world outrage, and purposefully entangling their own civilian's lives into the conflict itself, all the while using children and women as soldiers and shields. And they did this with the aid of Iran and their para-military proxies- not to mention the funneling of funds from US, Europe, and Arab states into their rat's nest apparatus, designed perfectly to wrap Gaza's own population into a no-win, deadly situation.

Israel thus now has to balance Gazan's civilians with its military goals, but this is the situation that the Hamas-run Gaza has set up. Being that they have no scruples or moral compass other than "jihad" and "fuck the Jews and the Jewish state", it is all on Israel to make sure they can achieve their objectives while also worrying about the civilians, being Hamas and their undetermined but large number of sympathizers, don't care about their own population, other than how they can be used to stoke world outrage by making sure they are entangled in their war apparatus.

I think every insurgency fought against a foreign occupation can be justified. That doesn't mean the insurgents are the 'good guys', but a foreign occupier has no right to be there in the first place and are by definition in the wrong. — Tzeentch

This makes absolutely no sense to me. If your insurgency is about setting up something like an Isis or death squads or any pretty much dysfunctional or evil or totalitarian or fundamentalist society, the moral justification for that insurgency becomes suspect or negated. Combine that with consistently evil means, then the entire argument looks tendentious and arbitrary. And again, goes back to my point of why underdog is justified JUST because they’re an underdog. I can form a posse of evil insurgents and that commit acts of terrorism for my cause and I wouldn’t be right because I’m the “little guy” in the situation throwing bombs and putting a mask on and shooting ak47s in the air and I’m pissed and I have people from other governments prop me up.

Its not trivial how to objectively construe those consequences as a self-contained identities with continuity over time amidst changes. — Apustimelogist

Ok well, Im saying what is relevant is the causal-historical event whereby if there was any slight change to that event, there could not in any possibility be you. It would be another person, if another person at all was born from the same parents. This is not transposable. Certain things are conceivable but not possible.

Part of the point of this is that as things grow new possibilities arise. Neither egg, nor caterpillar, nor chrysalis can possibly fly. The possibility only arises at the last stage. Young children cannot reach the top shelf. It is not possible. Ten years later, they can – it has become possible. When people go to school, some of them can read and some of them can’t. After some time, most people will have learnt and it has become possible for them to read. Why on earth do you think that all the possibilities of my life only arise at the moment of conception? — Ludwig V

Ok good question.

Let me ask another question, if anything changed even a tiny bit prior to conception, would even the possibility of you actually have existed? No, because whatever else you are (personal identity-wise), it is also fused to some extent with a genetic code which is this set of gametes at this causal-historical event. That is all I am saying. After the conception, if everything followed the way it did, you would be the present you right now. Perhaps we can say, in some way, if events in your life went differently, that you would be "another person", but we can only say that after conception. Before conception, there wouldn't even have been this possibility of the "you" looking back now to begin with.

I observed that there is a futile argument over the mere words, and sought to resolve it. I wasn't even addressing you particularly. — unenlightened

Ok, well, we can just drop this line of argument I think. I was trying to make a point about using semantics to then fit the case into the semantics, but now this is solely eating up our energy discussing semantics, the thing I was against doing anyways. Rather, look at the substance. What should be done. How should Israel proceed? How should Hamas proceed? etc.

Israel's goal: End Hamas.
Hamas' goal: (Besides end Israel which is NOT in their capacity but is in their intent), to stay alive and not let Israel destroy them.

I already gave my substantive proposal.. To follow more-or-less Thomas Friedman's proposal as I quoted earlier.

trivial because there is no objective fact of the matter that the possibilities belong to a single individual. At the same time there is the strange counterexample of two possible world where everything in someone's life was the same except for the fact that in one world that individual had been conceived with different gamete that had identical genetic information. The difference the gamete brings here then seems about as significant as if one day that person had decided to put on a different pair of socks. You could say that the person is not the same but given that everything else in the world is identical, surely there is claim to say that this is a version of that person in another world. Looking at your Ryle considerations, in general I think often there is no fact of the matter about what makes these counterfactuals the case. We infer that things could have been otherwise purely through our ability to imagine things and there seems no bounds on what could have been the case without having to place an artificial restriction on what seems plausible or not. There's nothing to substantiate these. — Apustimelogist

So this focuses solely on the gametes, and not the causal-historical aspect. That event (not another one, even in another possible world), necessitates that this actual person would at least be actualized. Without that causal-historical event occurring, THIS person would not be THIS person, they would be another person THIS person wouldn't exist PERHAPS another person would.

Counterfactuals are recondite. You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened.

Pratchett, Terry. Lords And Ladies: (Discworld Novel 14) (Discworld series) (pp. 162-163). Transworld. Kindle Edition. — Banno

Nice quote. I'm a big Pratchett / Discworld fan myself.

Too wide for your narrow mind? It seems to function s a legal definition. I am objecting to the ruling out of language in common use — can you explain your objection to my objection? — unenlightened

Define something however you want to fit your case, man. I'm just giving you the other side regarding that usage in this case.

Gaza is an "open air prison" because of various moves that are not fully (nor even mostly) Israel's fault or intention. Rather, Hamas was voted in. It used money to build bombs and not economic development, and then proceeded to harass a much more powerful neighbor in the process. That more powerful neighbor, then responds when they are attacked by the government that heads that area. Thus comes the blaming of Israel for this or that for their own undoing because (insert generic anti-Zionism thing in here). Okie dokie.

I see you skipped this post, which I believe the strongest against your case:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/866645

Would it be "off topic" if by comparing them it might reveal that the definition becomes too wide? But anyways, indeed, in this case, it is about the methods for which are employed to "defeat Hamas". What does that take, what are the alternatives, what might work better, etc.

If you are just going to say, "War itself is genocide" I just won't take it seriously as an argument. Often war ends up being two ethnically different group, but when one ethnic group's polity goes to war against another, and even if they use maximum force, that doesn't mean "genocide".

Ok so under this definition:

with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. — BC

Almost every war in the 20th and 21st century constitutes a genocide.

\
Also, I brought up to another poster that in WW2, 2000+ (mostly military) personnel were killed in Pearl Harbor. At the end of the conflict, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.

Now possibly, this can be considered a "genocide". What I'm saying is, if it's used in such a wide scope, then genocide loses meaning or just becomes another term that is bandied about like "war crime". So yeah, pile it on if you must, but that isn't the substantive issue of the case. For example, all those terms and pointing to this or that definition is hiding the actual philosophical/moral dilemma which is how you conduct a conflict against an enemy polity.

In the moral case of Japan, the issue was often put in terms of how many people would die in a ground invasion versus two large bombs that were relatively unknown. Now, perhaps that was not the right decision. I certainly wouldn't want to make it. Possibly the biggest moral dilemma any political person ever faced in modern times. But it's about war and how much force to use and when, etc. That is the debate.

I didn't say it doesn't matter, I said one cannot rule it out on principle, but one has to look at what is happening and what is being justified by what rhetoric. If a genocide is happening, then either one tries to defend it or one condemns it. One cannot look at some other event and claim that because the death toll was higher there, this event cannot be counted. — unenlightened

When I looked back, my basic argument was already made here, and in more detail, so I just defer to this, as to what I am trying to convey here:

My apologies to you for not recognizing that your use of the term "genocide" is the bureaucratic definition used by the UN. I consider their definition far too broad and sweeping because it results in 'genocide' becoming an ambiguous 'basket term' covering too many hateful and destructive events and acts directed at groups being classified as "genocide".

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The term "genocide" was coined by Raphael Lemkin to describe the acts of the Nazi regime in Europe. He also applied it to the extensive destruction of the Armenian people by Turkey in 1915. Those two events set a high bar for an event to qualify as a genocide.

Please note, moderator, that I didn't find it necessary to describe your response in derogatory terms. — BC

It does matter, because now you are making someone "defend a genocide" rather than a war, and being this is a philosophy forum, people are just going to "rest their case" because "genocide". All done, now we can go home... You must be a genocide-supporter see! What did I tell ya! Yeah, it is a tactic to make the debate about defending genocide, but what if I do not agree those are the terms of this debate? Then you will point to whatever person wrote this or that article which has supported your case. And then we are at a standstill. Okay, and then what? Well, one person will say, "At least I'm not for genocide?!" But then I can just turn it around and say Hamas supports genocide, or is committing genocide in whatever way they have capacity to do so. Okay, now what? It's a straw man debate and moves the substantive questions of how force should be used in war to a realm of something else.

It was military action, taking place overwhelmingly on the eastern front, that decided that war. — Tzeentch

I would quibble over this, as after the Invasion of Normandy, the Western front became overwhelmingly successful. But yes, the turning point were the battles on the Eastern front.

Similarly for Japan, Japanese resistance was not broken by bombing but by their political leadership understanding the futility in carrying on the fight. They were ready to sue for peace before the Allies nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. — Tzeentch

Perhaps. And it is this is why I bring it up. The arguments should be made for how hard one should use military force, not other issues that are not the case, like "this is a genocide", which again given the history of actual genocides, seems like a cynical ploy. I think the inaccuracy of that framing, means it should be dropped for a more apt argument about how war is to be conducted.

Strategic bombing as a means to a decisive victory is understood to be wrong in military academic circles. Given that fact, I think the intentional mass murder of civilians can't be justified even in these wars in which much was at stake, thus I view them all as war crimes and morally abject. — Tzeentch

Okay, but you see that is a different argument. That is saying "War, what is it good for?". War can never be justified. But again, different type of argument. Now that the argument has become properly framed, the debate can in good faith continue. I would say that there is a middle ground where "War is never justified", and "Maximum force is necessary to achieve objective". I think it is indeed the case that most generals tend towards the maximal. However, I think you should always allow the enemy to have ways of standing down. I think in this case, it could be argued that Israel can propose ideas for Hamas to stand down, even if Hamas (for whatever reason) does not do this themselves. I noticed in your examples, you provided ways in which indeed the enemy did sue for peace by standing down. Well, that is not the case right now with Hamas. If the objective is to get rid of Hamas, there are only a few ways that could go. But as Friedman points out, perhaps a worse fate for Hamas would have to live amongst the people they dragged into this mess. But it wouldn't be just "leave them be to reform with new batch of terrorists". Rather, it would have to be an international force, including Israel supervising the area until they commit to peaceful political parties. I do not think it would be responsible for Israel to just leave, nor do I think it responsible for them to simply take it over with no plan. So we can agree on it there.

Certainly. However, there is a crucial element that shouldn't be overlooked.

An insurgency can only be undertaken against an occupier.

So when Western countries are facing stubborn insurgencies that don't allow themselves to be rooted out, the first question should be: why are we there as the occupier in the first place? — Tzeentch

But this again assumes EVERY insurgency is morally justified. That is a ridiculous notion. "You represent the underdog, and are willing to fight for a cause, and do so using terrorism, therefore your cause is right". That doesn't make sense. Just because, for example, Isis, or the Lord's Resistance Party, or Islamist insurgency in the Sahel, or the Sandinistas, or Contras, or the Shining Path, or the represents an "insurgency" or some "underdog" doesn't mean they are morally justified to carry on with their operations.

8000 children murdered, and apologists are outraged over…the accuracy of “genocide” and “concentration camp.” — Mikie

over 2,000+ people were killed at Pearl Harbor. It ended with the dropping of two atomic bombs, and now a prosperous Japan. What's your point? Am I justifying any of the violence, no. But it does matter because there is a HUGE difference between WAR and GENOCIDE.

Ok, can you send me the link the post?

Let's complain about the Hebrew invasion of the "promised land" and then immediately talk about what we all know about what the Israelis have done to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. That bullshit would be anti-Semitism.

Dammit why can't anybody on this forum read the posts they're responding to? :groan: — frank

I mean dude, these are the terms the people actually fighting often think in, so stop being so dismissive. The far right in Israel think in terms of regaining "Samaria and Judea".. that is ancient. The Muslims think in terms of clearing the ancient Muslim Empire of any group having political control of once Muslim controlled lands. That is how Jihadists think. This isn't ancient history, even if it should be.

In fact, I don't even know your point. Muslims/Arabs "colonized" the Middle East by conquering the other empires there! You can't get more "colonizing" than that! Whether or not the inhabitants converted peacefully over time is another matter.

In the case of the various different kinds of bombings of Vietnam and Cambodia (including chemical ones), I think this may qualify as genocide given the sheer scale of mass killings and the decades-long impact of the atrocities. That impact is still felt today. Was the mass killing of civilians intentional? In the case of the Vietnam war, I think so. It's a typical phenomenon seen during counterinsurgencies, where the conventional force grows frustrated with its inability to break the resistance, and turning on the civilian population out of frustration. — Tzeentch

I mean, I think this is all you need for your arguments to have some merit. Generals tend to go right to the hammer, without considering other tools. But I also think there is a sort of naivete of how warfare manifests. It depends on the objectives and what is being fought over. In this case it is getting rid of an organization that exists to fuck over your population whenever they have the capacity and a chance to do so. It is also to retrieve hostages whilst not giving them what they want. Some objectives require massive force. For example, destroying Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan probably needed massive amounts of force. It is arguably true as well, that Israel could use even more aggressive force (but they don't) to win their objective. But if they are showing some restraint, it can be argued that they should show more restraint. Again, a theme here, is viewing Hamas/Palestinians as having absolutely no autonomy. That is not true. Hamas has the ability to negotiate in terms that would prevent the war from continuing. That is to say, they can make an agreement to leave to Qatar and hand over the hostages forthwith. They could call for an international provisional government perhaps and hand over the hostages. I think Thomas Friedman has a good plan here:

It’s time for the U.S. to tell Israel to put the following offer on the table to Hamas: total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, in return for all the Israeli hostages and a permanent cease-fire under international supervision, including U.S., NATO and Arab observers. And no exchange of Palestinians in Israeli jails. — Thomas Friedman

What Western countries have always had a hard time figuring out is how to conduct asymmetrical warfare whereby the enemy hides amidst the population, uses tunnels, and in the case of groups like Isis and Hamas, use a variety of barbaric terrorist methods, no matter the cost to their own people.

Netanyahu might go at some time, but I think the real problem is the extreme right, people like Smotrich and others. They won't go away and the moderates in Israel are few without much support. The Labor party is a tiny opposition party. People that push for the "From the Sea to the River"-soluntion without the Palestinians and are totally against any kind of Palestinian sovereignty do have a lot of power. And from their viewpoint, why not?

Equally difficult is the Palestinian politics. Democratic elections might give authority, but I think with the current environment and actions of the IDF, that might also not get elected the kind of people that we Westerners would assume to solve the situation. — ssu

Well, the Labor Party with Ehud Barak was voted in previously, and right after Netanyahu, so there has been a model in the past for such things!

Equally difficult is the Palestinian politics. Democratic elections might give authority, but I think with the current environment and actions of the IDF, that might also not get elected the kind of people that we Westerners would assume to solve the situation. — ssu

Yes. I think the weird unknown here is Abbas and Fatah. The way some people have phrased it, rather than being equivalent to something like a Labor Party or peacniks, they are like Hamas-lite. They still give pensions to terrorists and such. Abbas himself has practically a major in Holocaust-denial (that was his thesis). So I don't really no what their ability to work as "moderates" are, other than they aren't openly supporting terrorism at the moment. But, I have always thought Bibi never nurtured the relations with Fatah and Abbas, and for cynical gain I am sure. So again, Netanyahu and rightwing has to go, and Fatah, I don't even know what to do with that other than find someone who is moderate whether in Fatah or some outsider. I have heard rumors of another guy, I forgot his name.. who might be some moderate voice that both Gaza and West Bank respect?

What I think we got to get away from, absolutely, is looking at ndividuals as completely not autonomous if they are on what you perceive as the "underdog" side.

I've lost count how many times the Palestinian areas have been built by outside money just for Israel to destroy the buildings as "terrorist strongholds". — ssu

Yet after October 7th, are we even doubting there is terrorist activities. I just think this should be stricken as another "strafe" comment, rather than substantive.

Just curious when is there a distinction between genocide and simply the consequences of war itself? Was the carpet bombing of North Vietnam genocide or bad war policy? Was the bombing of Berlin genocide or how the strategic goals of the war were carried out in order to gain unconditional surrender.

I think rather @Hanover is suggesting that rather than dealing in the substance this is using cynical ploys at terminology by so framing this “hypocritical and ironic narrative of moral equivalence”, as he put it.

Rather, the framing of the question should be whether this is the right military strategy, and overall approach to resolving this issue. Their objective might come at too high a cost. But this is also playing in the hands of Hamas. However, it now has to live with the consequences of leading their people down a suicidal path, so they should allow an international coalition to govern the region provisionally, as long as the hostages are given back. Hamas has to step down on some fashion, that seems to be the crux here along with the hostages.

Great points.

Meaning is use, and it's no coincidence that the language used to describe the Israeli response is intended to write an ironic and hypocritical narrative of the Jewish experience by comparing today's Israel to yesterday's Nazis. It's an argument of moral equivalence.

The terms bantered about here like genocide and concentration camps bear no resemblance to what those terms mean to Jews, and we cannot pretend they are not being used sardonically and intentionally to say "you escaped persecution only to be like those you escaped." — Hanover

This seems to be exactly what’s implied.

I’m not going to go out on a limb here and say that most extreme factions of Palestinians (which are a majority), in absence of an army, use terrorism as a way to assert their “genocidal” beliefs. Oh does that sound like it’s overusing the word? Well, everyone can do it I guess. But as I said earlier, everyone’s going to use their particular cudgel. Whatever Bibi’s policies were in the West Bank, Hamas, Gazans ruling party, made their own series of poor decisions. But I’m sure you’ll find a way to justify that and then turn it around and blame the Israelis for their bad decisions. Always leads to the same answer of the blame game. I wonder why… Whether it’s convenient or not, they were given boatloads of cash and squandered it and blamed Israel. They could have just set up elections, worked on development, etc. there were other avenues, that would have led to simply trading in economics instead of rockets. But when one takes everything as an a priori truth that “Israel has been, is, and will always be wrong” then you’ve already got your conclusions.

But I’m willing to admit, none of these actors right now are playing in the realm of idealism. There is no turn the other cheek and live in harmony. These are two brutally realist actors. I guess one might say the jihadism of Hamas might make them a bit different than realism. Not sure just fundamentalist I guess. Certainly, if mothers consider suicide bombers and rapist murderers as a positive thing, perhaps there is some values out of line there.

This is also why war is different than other conflict. Here you have large populations all holding various ideas that might differ from their official state policies. Yet if the official state policies are hostile and bad natured, then the populations will suffer.

Thanks. that's pretty much as I'd understood the sequence. For my part I was initially reluctant to engage with the topic, because there are so very many issues bumping up against one another. — Banno

:up:

The obvious issue, clear again in what you just wrote, is the difference between counterpart theory and transworld identity - between David Lewis and Kripke. That's no small thing.

Another issue is potential confusion between an individual - the thing picked out by a proper name - and a person - what it is to be schopenhauer1 and not someone else. These are not the same, and it is not a simple matter to set out their interaction. — Banno

Yep, and I think this is all related. To clarify, I think my theory has a causal-theme running through it, that happens to involve substance, and not the other way around.. And both of these theories of "identity" are rather more to do with objects and their relations. Even though it started as a sort of transworld-esque discussions of personal identity in various worlds, it became more of a counterpart theory of what about an object (even if its human) across all possible worlds. As we discussed earlier, more Kripke less Lewis (or so the discussion revealed as I was unpacking the ideas).

I became involved when it was clear that there was insufficient distinction being made between individuals and kinds. That at least is handleable. — Banno

My distinction was causal-historical AND substance for individual and substance only for kinds. And I can explain that more if needed. But as you say...

And there's also the anachronistic notions of essence and substance that will need cleaning. — Banno

Agreed, but I am not going to discount substances as part of the equation. Even Kripke Hilary Putnam (I believe?) uses "H2O", as an example. Why can't that substance be used to describe this kind of essentialist notion?

Causal-historical: Point in time and space when all possibilities of a person can occur, including the actual one now. This is only allowable due to its
Substance: Gametes meeting at that point in time.

Each of these is at least an essay, or a thesis, rather than a post. — Banno

Absolutely, but I don't mind a continual dialectic on it to see where it goes, as it hits on so many relevant philosophical topics at once.

But to cut to the chase, I don't think it inevitable that genetics determines personhood. Rather that's one approach amongst many. — Banno

Only if it is discounted why it is that these gametes and not others would by necessity have to be involved in someone even existing as they are, right now.

But there are simply too many threads here. — Banno

I don't mind unpacking each one and seeing how or if they fit.