I like nature guy, I'm nature guy to some extent, but we can't return to some previous more innocent state of being without facing the consequences that entails. Back-to-nature should own up to the consequences, and in a world of 7, 8 billion people those aren't pretty I'd say. — ChatteringMonkey

I agree. The point I was making was that absolutely every single solution to that problem will be ideologically driven. If we want to feed the 7 billion with high tech solutions - that's an ideological commitment to technology. If we want to use the most low tech solutions possible and bring the population down as fast as we can - that too is an ideological commitment. If we believe that more 'natural' methods of agriculture can be high yielding enough to feed everyone - that too is an ideological commitment (after all, it's not as if the high tech methods exist yet, so why can't we equally imagine future low-tech methods being discovered).

What I object to is the glossing of status-quo based solutions with the veneer of pragmatism as an attempt to paint them as more 'grown up' a solution, to paint all others as ideological, but the present state of affairs as being somehow more down-to-earth.

We are where we are because of an ideological commitment to the principles of governance and economics which guide our decisions. We needn't be.

If ssu couldn't brown nose US power, he wouldn't know how to breathe. — Streetlight

The level of servility in those latest remarks of his surprised me even at this stage...

Since when did "Biden says..." become part of any argument about what is actually the case?

Again, not sufficient for what, to whom, why? — neomac

I'm not going to hand-hold you through the argument. If you can't remember where we are, that's your loss. I asked about methods for determining ideas which were wrong, your appealed to 'aggregate methods', I asked what they might be and you said...

If we are in a forum debating things we can link sources, provide arguments , offer definitions. — neomac

Now you're saying that is not, in fact sufficient to determine wrong arguments at all, but further ...

whenever I found your arguments fallacious as straw man, misquotations, contradictions, question begging claims, lack of evidence, blatant lies, etc.) or questionable on factual or explanatory bases, I argued for it. — neomac

Except that all of the above are completely subjective, so you've still given nothing other than your judgement as a measure. Arguments are wrong because you think they are. Hence it is not true that...

I didn't offer an argument in the form of a logic deduction — neomac

I asked you how you assess claims to be false and you said...

I try to identify the logic structure of the argument, — neomac

Now you're saying you don't. Which is it?

I’m mainly interested in reasoning over pertinent arguments on their own merits, more than in resulting opinion polls and intelligence contests — neomac

It's entirely an 'intelligence contest'. You're relying entirely on the fact the your personal judgement of what is "straw man", what is a "misquotation" what are "contradictions" which are "question begging" which have a "lack of evidence" which are "blatant lies" which claims are "questionable"...all of these are subjective judgements which the people making the claim would obviously disagree with you on. So you are doing nothing more than saying that your judgement over these is better than theirs. An 'intelligence contest'

things can be perceived, represented, or valued differently, yet that doesn’t prevent us from explicating and navigating these differences in more or less rational ways, and define accordingly margins of convergence where cooperation is possible and beneficial. — neomac

Great. So let's have those methods then. You keep vaguely pointing to the existence of these supposedly 'rational' methods (which I've somehow missed in my academic career thus far - which ought to be of concern to the British education system), yet you're clandestine about the details. Are they secret?

you started talking about possibilities (“possible interpretations”, “could perfectly rationally”), yet you concluded your argument with a fact (“And indeed, many have” concluded that perfectly rationally look at those facts and conclude etc.) giving the impression that the possibilities you were talking about were actually the case — neomac

It is a fact that many have reached different conclusions. I can't see what your problem is with that. Are you saying that all parties agree on this?

that the same facts (e.g. the ones mentioned by ssu) have been looked at and assessed with perfect rationality to conclude something incompatible with ssu's conclusions hasn’t been shown yet. — neomac

...oh you are! Yes, well done. Everyone in the world agrees with ssu on this one, you've nailed it. I'm surprised I didn't read about that one in the newspapers - "Global agreement! First time since 1+1=2"

Not sure about that either. First, I have no idea how one would or could calculate such a probability — neomac

There's no need to calculate it. It's sufficient that it exists. In order for a country to be called 'a security threat' is is simply definitional that their probability of causing harm has to be above some threshold, since it is a fact that no country has a zero probability of causing harm to another and no country has a 100% probability of causing harm to another. As such, it absolutely must be a judgement. Unless you're saying there's some actual number above which it is definitional that a country is a 'security threat'.

Why, the Russian have only made reasonable proposals — ssu

So you first imply that Russia are late to the negotiating table, then that no position they might come with is reasonable anyway. If control of anti-Russian far right groups, territorial claims over Donbas are off the table, then what exactly did you expect Russia to bring when you said...

some diplomatic approaches to end the war. — ssu

..? 'Diplomatically' agree to keep things exactly as they were, retreat from their military positions and walk away?

That Biden has said he's not looking for regime change in Russia — ssu

Putin has said he's not looking for regime change in Ukraine. You didn't believe that. Your bias is astounding. Biden says "For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power" and you're willing to ignore that at the drop of a hat to replace it with the 'official line', but Putin mentions something about Ukrainians and Russians being 'one people' some time back and that's enough for you to impute a clear intention to take over the whole country. Your sycophancy over the US is pretty appalling.

The romantic "nature guy" opposition is even more ideological or should I say religious. — ssu

As opposed to what? There's no default position on how the world ought to be from which a concept of 'back-to-nature' might be an ideological deviation. Your own personal preference for how the world ought to be is ideological to no lesser a degree.

One may well dislike modern technology. It's not just a given that we must maintain as high a population of humans as it's possible to achieve. We each argue for the world to be the way we think it best.

By all means criticise the arguments (technology=no work, for example), but arguing that they are ideologically driven is impotent; all arguments are.

a way for Russia to signal that it's open for some diplomatic approaches to end the war. — ssu

You mean more of a way than just directly saying it?

We will be ready to return as soon as Ukraine shows a constructive position and provides at least a reaction to the proposals submitted to it — deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko

It's laughable the way you try and present this as if we're all waiting with baited breath for Russia to come to the negotiating table when it's been present there for practically the entire invasion.

What's missing is any commitment from the US, without which negotiations will be toothless (seeing as they're directly bankrolling the whole war and it's now openly admitted that it's in a proxy war with Russia)

And now the Ukrainians themselves...

any concession to Russia is not a path to peace, but a war postponed for several years. — Mykhailo Podolyak

...but lovely to watch you twist the US and Ukraine's refusal to negotiate into a narrative where we're all supposed to be patiently waiting for those recalcitrant Ruskies to join the table while the noble and patient West wring their hands in beneficent concern.

Note the ought not? This is supposedly a moral position, as can be seen in the OP. Hence such discussions are fraught with over-reaction. — Banno

Unavoidable, I think. As I've said before (only a little tongue in cheek) most epistemological theories are just various attempts to find a 'bigger stick' with with to beat those whose opposition to one's own beliefs is an impediment. The attempt to remove one's stick is understandably resisted.

Despite my sympathy with the human-scale realism of a colloquial definition of 'truth' I can see how even that has it's appeal to the stick-wielders; an accessible truth means that you might well be the one who's got it. There's an undeniable psychological appeal to that. Both Peirce's truth and falsification makes truth unavailable to anyone; the same property which makes it, ironically, pragmatically useless as a term is also the one which makes it psychologically unappealing (it's pretty useless as a 'stick').

I can't think of any situation where a declaration of belief is required. — praxis

The comment to which you're replying was about the notion of belief, not the declaration of one.

I see. I thought your response to the OP was a good summary of why it's mistaken, but I didn't see where 'truth' came in - hence the query.

I am as baffled by the "I don't believe anything" species of epistemology as I am by the "I assess everything rationally and derive thus the 'truest' facts". They seem as gross a misunderstanding of the dynamic and collaborative nature of belief as each other. The former (the example of which we have here) seems the more eccentric of the two. I can't think of a reason why anyone would want to profess such a view. I get that it makes one sound ever so slightly Solomonesque - devoid of bias - which I think is the root motivation behind claims to epistemological purity, but surely this self-image of dispassion is only of any use if others are tempted to enquire of your judgement at some future time. At which point our OP would have to say "I don't judge"... Anyway, idle psychologising.... Thanks for the clarification.

The EU just sanctioned 2/3 of his crude oil. So at best he would be able to sell a small part of it at a huge discount. — M777

You mean this sanction...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/703573

Why don't you call a specialist in the scientific study of human behavior? — Olivier5

About the exact number that constitutes 'too often'? I'll ask around, but I don't recall any papers on the subject.

Why so clandestine? If you already know the number, why aren't you just telling me, it seems like an important thing to know.

Yes, I do. — Olivier5

OK. What's the number then?

I've edited my answer. — Olivier5

To what end? You still have not provided anything other than subjective judgements about what constitutes "almost", and "a lot".

What if I agree with you on principle, but disagree that I do it 'a lot', that in fact, the number of times I do it is only 'a few'?

Are you suggesting there's some empirical fact about how many times constitutes 'a lot'?

Not to mention the fact that you have not actually counted the occasions at all bug are instead relying entirely on your subjective impression of the frequency.

Well that's just replaced one set of completely subjective judgements with another. I asked how much 'more guilty' constitutes too much more and you give me "almost", and "a lot". How near to systematic is 'almost' and how often is 'a lot'?

My claim is that some are more guilty than others — Olivier5

Ah, as I suspected. So how much more guilty constitutes a lack of 'good will'? 10% more? 15%? How have you measured 'more guilty'? Do you have those figures to hand? Some kind of tally, I presume?

Because otherwise we'd have to accept that it merely seems to you as if I do it more often than you. It merely seems to you as if the difference in frequency is sufficient to warrant the conclusion about 'good will'

Yet, the argument was that...

It is sufficient for people posting in good will. — Olivier5

The 'it' here being the determination of rational from irrational arguments. Are you saying that such determination is dependent on the way things seem to you to be?

As to your claims.

The issues, with regard to my discussion with@neomac are these...

extensive — ssu

well reported — ssu

assume — ssu

as a show-of-force — ssu

very often — ssu

All of these are interpretations. Necessary ones to support a theory. Russia might well have made 'a small number' of hybrid attacks. The threats may have been 'badly reported'. They may not have 'assumed' anything about their role, but rather justifiability concluded it. They may not have used refugees as a show of force, but rather for some other purpose. They may have violated air space quite 'infrequently'.

All of these are possible interpretations, they're not ruled out by the empirical facts (there's no empirical fact, for example, about how often is 'very often'). As such the facts underdetermine the theory. One could perfectly rationally look at those facts and conclude they are insufficient to warrant an assumption that Russia represents a security threat to Europe. And indeed, many have.

Any country with an army has a non-zero chance of raising a security issue with a European country. No country is 100% going to invade. So whatever the evidence, we need to make a decision about what level of probability is going to constitute, for us, a 'security threat'. That decision cannot be made on the basis of any empirical data. It's a purely political decision driven entirely by one's ideological commitments.

I guess the response I'll get to this is a list what the US has done to Third World countries. Because that I guess makes all above totally OK behavior. — ssu

That would make sense as a preemptive defense if we were arguing about whether such behaviour was 'OK'.

But since everyone with a level of analysis above that of a five year old already agrees that neither set of actions are 'OK', then it misses its mark by miles.

The 'OK'ness of Russia's actions are neither here nor there. We're not their judge, we're not sitting at the pearly gates deciding whether to let them in.

The question is what it is 'OK' to do about those actions.

This is where the behaviour of the US becomes relevant. If the US behaves similarly but we do not act to defend against them, then doing so to defend against Russia is hypocritical. Hypocrisy is, at the very least, cause for concern.

when poster X goes through the trouble of rephrasing what another poster Y has already phrased, there is a risk for a straw man. — Olivier5

Uh huh. So if we look back at all your posts we'll find only exact quotes, yes? No rephrasings? Or is it OK when you do it, but risky for others?

If poster X does so very often, and his victims very often do not agree to the rephrasing, and berate him publicly for it, that is an indication that X might be addicted to straw men. — Olivier5

Likewise, we'll find no dissent attached to any of your rephrasings? Everyone agreed that your rephrasings were accurate representations of the original proposition?

Is that your claim? Or are we all guilty of misrepresentation, and thus none of us posting in 'good will'?

Or, are we just seeing yet another boring example of your inability to tell the difference between the way things seem to you, and the way things actually are.

We can differentiate between some statement being true, and our believing that it is true. This is a commonplace; it's a distinction worth making because it allows us to on occasions to be wrong - ...What this shows is that we need the notion of "belief" in order to make a basic distinction between what we think is true and what is actually true. — Banno

I don't see how it necessarily follows. If I have a method of cleaning windows, I can conceive of a better method that might one day become apparent. I don't have to have a concept of the method by which windows are cleaned in order to have a concept of a better method by which windows are cleaned.

Likewise with your keys. I can have a a concept of a better assumption as to where the keys are without having to have a notion of the truth of where the keys are. It seems to me to be perfectly possible to use the idea of better models absent of any notion that one such model is the model.

A good willed poster does not misrepresent systematically what he is responding to. — Olivier5

Uh huh. And how do you determine if that which is being responded to has been 'misrepresented'?

It is sufficient for people posting in good will. — Olivier5

I see. And how do you determine if a post is 'in good will'?

If we are in a forum debating things we can link sources, provide arguments , offer definitions — neomac

Most of the intelligent posters here have linked sources, provided arguments and offered definitions. It doesn't seem to have been sufficient.

I try to identify the logic structure of the argument, so e.g. in case of a deduction premise and conclusion , to check if it's logically valid. — neomac

OK, so take me through the process with "Russia is a security threat to Western countries". We should have a list of premises which logically entail that conclusion. So what is that list?

I don't even know what opinions you are talking about how can I possibly believe they all are indefensible and irrational?! — neomac

You don't need to know what those opinions are for my claim "you find all alternative opinions, from scores of military and foreign policy experts...all of them...indefensible and irrational" to apply, you only need know they exist. If a single expert disagrees with you then (according to your principle) it must be because he is irrational, because you are better than him as rational analysis. This follows from...

1. If there are two claims that I find both defensible after rational examination, I would find more rational to suspend my judgement. — neomac

and

2. You have not suspended judgement hereon the proposition in question (nor have you done so on many other related propositions in this thread)

The only alternative I can think of is that you think every expert in the world agrees with you. Is that what you think? Otherwise, the mere existence of experts who disagree with you should cause you to suspend your judgement simply on the charitable assumption that they're not idiots because you'd automatically assume their position to be at least rational.

the point is not to assess people or opinions, but to assess actual arguments, so e.g. what are the actual arguments — neomac

Of course it's about people. You assess argument A to be irrational, I assess it to be rational. No further assessment of A is going to resolve that difference, we've (for the sake of argument) extracted all the propositions and evidences within argument A one-by-one and I still find it rational, you still find it irrational. There's simply nowhere left to go other than decide if your judgement or mine is the better.

I'm not sure how you understand it or intend to apply it. In what sense do the fact that I listed underdetermine the theory (?) that Russia is a security concern for the West? — neomac

I can't find such facts as a list (not so as to be sure that I'm referring to the facts you're wanting me to refer to). I don't think that matters though. It's quite a general principle that facts underdetermine theories, I don't think it's application here would be any different to the general case.

in such uncertainty, can they bet on the Russians playing nice? — Olivier5

So you're saying the default position is to continue war unless there's proof one ought to stop.

I can't see how that makes any moral sense.

I'd say one ought to avoid war unless one is overwhelmed by evidence that it is necessary. It seems really callous to say one ought to continue (or worse, pursue) war unless one is overwhelmed by evidence that one should stop.

There is no method that aggregates all the methods. — neomac

So you aggregate the methods how? Randomly?

Whenever peers and experts disagree with me, I should examine how rational their arguments are — neomac

Fascinating. So how do you do that?

And this trust can be again more or less rational. — neomac

How?

If there are two claims that I find both defensible after rational examination, I would find more rational to suspend my judgement. — neomac

Really? So with your opinion here you find all alternative opinions, from scores of military and foreign policy experts...all of them...indefensible and irrational. Your rational skills are so amazing that you outsmart all these experts?

either they are smarter than I am, or I’m smarter than they are, or we are equally smart but we fail to understand each other for non-pertinent reasons or we are all stupid but everyone in their own way . — neomac

Yet you've ignored the argument about underdetermination. Why is that?

There are all the murders already committed against civilians. That is evidence. — Olivier5

As there were by Ukrainian forces in Donbas before the invasion. So shall we let neither side have it?

My answer is: the actual, documented behavior of said occupying troops in Bucha and hundreds other places is indicative of what will happen in such a scenario. — Olivier5

Good. So list the atrocities in occupied Crimea which give you cause to believe a Russian occupied territory will be worse than a Ukraine occupied one. Compare those to the ones reported in Ukraine occupied Donbas and explain how you arrive at the conclusion that Russian occupied Donbas will be so much worse that it is worth thousands of lives to avoid it.

We already have an example of a Russian occupied territory of Ukraine. Why are you avoiding using it to make your judgements?

Since you cannot counter them — Olivier5

I shall counter them in kind...

Points 1 and 2 are not debatable; the EU will most probably not be extremely generous with Ukraine, and the Russians could not be persuaded to call it a day sooner than you think. Their forces too are not fast eroding. They could not collapse too. Point 4 is suitable for discussion.

With reason and arguments rather, which you failed to address — Olivier5

Bollocks.

You said...

the EU will most probably be extremely generous with Ukraine — Olivier5

That's just bald assertion with neither evidence nor argument provided.

And...

the Russians could be persuaded to call it a day sooner than you think. — Olivier5

Again, absolutely devoid of either argument or evidence.

And...

Point 4 is to wooly for discussion. — Olivier5

Vague handwaving.

One important point to keep in mind here, as I've mentioned to @ssu also, is that avoiding war is a good in its own right. Resisting the drive of arms dealers and bankers to make money out of misery is also a good in its own right. And, for those of us on the left, fighting against corporate hegemony in general is a good in its own right. That means that arguments in favour of such strategies only need to be plausible for it to be justified to hold them. We only need show they're worth a try.

Contrariwise, arguments in favour of war, or that favour corporate profiteering do not have moral ends in their own right. To argue in favour of such ends one must argue that we (unfortunately) must adopt such strategies to avoid worse outcomes.

That means counterarguments to each position are different.

To argue against the former one must show it is not even possible to hold such a view. That one is (regrettably) compelled by the evidence to reject it.

To argue against the latter, however, one only need show that a plausible alternative exists, that we are not compelled by the evidence to reluctantly accept war, we have another route to try.

As expected. Raise any actual points and you just dismiss them all with bald assertion and vague handwaving...

Shall we just go back to insulting each other?

I contend point 3. Ukrainians have shown a certain resolve and interest is staying independent. I guess they don't want to go the way of the Uighurs. — Olivier5

On what basis. I've provided the latest official measurements of political freedom, corruption, well-being... Ukraine doesn't come out significantly higher than Russia on any measure. So what information do you have to the contrary?

And even if we were to put (3) as more uncertain, does that then outweigh 1, 2, 4, and 5?

I should have known that you can't possibly put forth any positive argument. — Olivier5

I've put forward an argument. I'm just not going to pretend I came up with it out of the blue. I read it.

The argument is that ceding territory to Russia will be a less harmful strategy overall than continuing to push them out of Ukraine.

The main points used to support it are;

1. Ukraine are unlikely to be able to push Russia out easily, so such any such strategy will lead to a very long war, the damage from which would be considerable.

2. To have any chance at all, Ukraine would have to indebt itself massively to the US and Europe, neither of whom have loan terms which are friendly to the debtor.

3. Ukraine is neither a stable, nor a particularly free country so life under Russian puppetry is not likely to be meaningfully different to life under Ukrainian rule.

4. Any remaining problems are less harmfully solved by economic and diplomatic pressure than by war.

I could also add, from separate sources;

5. Ukraine has a serious far-right problem and is a major illegal arms trader, flooding it with weapons could lead to far more civilian deaths in the long term than would be saved.

You made an argument — Olivier5

Not me, people like Kissinger. If you're having trouble spotting which the argument is, it's the bit after the words "The argument is..."

Yeah, ignoring the argument doesn't make it go away.

Are you taken into consideration the behavior of Russian troops in occupied Ukraine? — Olivier5

That's the war we're trying to stop (or ought to be). The treatment of Ukrainian resistance during the Russian invasion has been monstrous. That's why we're trying to put an end to the Russian invasion as quickly as possible.

I could ask you exactly the same question. In advocating the policy of pushing Russian forces out of Ukraine (no matter how long that takes) have you taken into consideration the behavior of Russian troops in occupied Ukraine? All of which will be worsened the longer the war continues.

Compare how the Ukrainians dealt with pro-Russian elements in Donbas with how Russia dealt with pro-Ukrainian elements in Crimea. Any major differences you know of? Those would constitute a basis for an argument about the likely outcome of ceding territory.

I am making the argument that the Russians have no particular reason to stop killing Ukrainians, even after they sign a potential peace deal, and that in actual fact, they do kill, torture, rape and rob a lot of civilians wherever they occupy Ukraine. The only way to stop these killings is to push the Russians back into Russia. — Olivier5

No, you're not 'making the argument' at all, you're just asserting it. You've given no evidence, or reason to believe that "The only way to stop these killings is to push the Russians back into Russia". The argument is that ceding territory would have the same effect (with a smaller loss of life). You've offered no counter to that argument at all beyond some spurious allusion to Stalin's genocides.

Right. So you are making the argument that the Russian government (even in peacetime) is morally worse than the Ukrainian government? On what grounds?

If something Stalin did counts, then are we going to invoke the massacre of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgents back in WWII? It's as ridiculous to suggest that Stalin's atrocities are a good measure of current Russian internal policy. Gods, it really shows the paucity of your arguments. Only a few pages ago I was being reprimanded for assuming the situation in Ukraine now was similar to that in 2014 and here you are invoking Stalin as representative of Russian policy!

Ukraine is not a 'free country'. By every single measure of freedom and well-being it ranks similar (or even below) Russia. Here, for example are the 2021 figures on corruption https://risk-indexes.com/global-corruption-index/

Belarus (undoubtedly a Russian puppet state) ranked 53 on the United Nations Human Development. Ukraine, ranked 74.

What actual evidence (ie from less than half a century ago!) have you got that Ukraine is so much better than Russia (in peacetime) that we ought to support the sacrifice of thousands of lives the cause?

As if chopping your way out to some dumb remark you can smirk about, wasn’t even more weird. — neomac

OK. I'll try to take you seriously. How do any of the 'methods' you list apply to the debate here? How do they lead to a decision on one theory over another?

The points I made for example are sufficient to rationally justify my perception of the Russian threat against the West — neomac

Yes, but other - perfectly intelligent - people disagree. Your epistemic peers disagree. So either you are the sole possessor of some magic ability to discern what is rational and what is not, or there is a legitimate difference of opinion about the two conflicting theories which cannot be resolved by appealing to rational support (since that forms part of the disagreement to be resolved). Hence the question why choose side A over side B?

You can list a dozen reasons why your choice of side A is reasonable, rational, and I'd probably agree with the vast majority of them, but we're not talking about why side A is one of the available options, we're talking about why you chose it over side B, which is also one of the available options (reasonable rational people have also reached that conclusion).

Either you're arguing that you're just much smarter than all of them, or you have to concede that their position too is reasonable and rational - ie, in Quinean terms, the facts underdetermine the theory.

Prior to any consideration of political regime, and the varied levels of freedom and security they afford to their citizens, to me the first and most important point here is that of aggression vs defence. — Olivier5

Right. So as usual you're answering a question that wasn't even asked. @unenlightened's original question, which intrigued me, was about the moral difference between the Russian and Ukrainian governments, not the situation they currently happen to find themselves in (aggressor and defender).

No one is in favour of aggression, so arguing against it is just empty virtue signalling. The point about the moral worth of governments is one about what to do now that one of those governments has attacked the other. The point being made, as I understand it, was that since there's only hair's breadth between different governments (when not at war), then ceding territory as a means of ending war has little moral opposition other than your demand for 'punishment' (that Russia must not gain anything by its actions). In terms of people's well-being, it matters little if they're governed by Russia or Ukraine. It may well matter a lot to them, as a preference (they may be passionate about Ukrainian sovereignty), but as third parties, there's no moral weight at all to what some population of people just happen to prefer. This should be obvious; if Ukrainians happened to prefer a Nazi dictator, for example, we'd not support that. That Ukrainians happen to prefer a Ukrainian government over a Russian one is similarly morally neutral unless the Ukrainian government is significantly more worthy (in peacetime) than the Russian one.

I don't think there's a single person here who wants to see aggression rewarded, or side with the aggressor. But then I think you know that already, it just makes a useful distraction to avoid actually addressing the arguments to simply add your little 'Putinista' labels to anything you can't counter.

The travesty here is that we (the world in general) ought to be talking about how to end this war (and every other war) as quickly as possible, but instead we're talking about how to most effectively 'punish' Russia for its aggression. It has odd echos of the gun control debate ("it's the perpetrators we need to punish more, not the gun culture that needs to change"). If ceding territory ends the war (even has only a good chance of doing so) then that's a huge positive. To counter that there'd need to be a massive negative. All you've given thus far to weigh against it is the "punish Putin" argument and the "Ukraine is better than Russia" argument. @unenlightened's point about the lack of real distinction between governments undermines that second counter-argument. To revive it, you'd have to show that the prospective peacetime Ukrainian government (the one we're aiming for in defending against Russia) would be significantly morally better than the prospective peacetime Russian government (the one that would be in place in the ceded territories). Hence your arguments about aggressors and defenders are irrelevant.

What I said, originally, is that it is neither naïve nor immoral nor unphilosophical to support a democracy that is being attacked by a dictatorship. On the contrary, it is the natural, logical, and moral thing to do. — Olivier5

Yep. And then your sole support for that assertion was the people you've met in some African nations prefer democracy. Which completely ignores the question of whether such support is the "moral thing to do".

If one cannot be sure any specific democracy is morally superior to any specific dictatorship, then on what ground is supporting a war of the former against the latter the "moral thing to do", given the tragic consequences of such a war?

to now pour them into the largest concentration of Nazis in Europe? My God its horrifying. — Streetlight

And the largest trader in black market weapons in Europe too. It's a fucking powder keg.

...but hey, we have to reign in that relentless Russian imperialism which, since the end of the Soviet Union has seen them occupy almost an entire country.