I actually support the Russians since they are the only ones "hard" enough to stick up to the west, although I don't support bloodshed, I still don't think losing its buffer zone without making any form of resistance is a stance that should be taken by a country as stalwart as Russia. No offence to Americans and EU people but I think they got enough influence on this world already.
And why exactly do you need people to "stick up to the west"?
While you certainly state the truth when you say that no country would willingly lose a buffer state/reduce their sphere of influence, your reasoning behind it seems silly.
Guess I'd need to be more specific about what I meant. In simple terms, Russia get Crimea since that area is pro-Russia and speaks and thinks like the Russians do. The other part of Ukraine which obviously would like to align to the west should be allowed to do so. If you know the region's history, it was Kruschev who "gave" away Crimea to Ukraine in order for better diplomatic relationship back in the 50s or 60s. Basically peaceful solution by splitting the country into ethnic halves which would also reduce conflicts in the future.
Certainly it's not a game, however you'd be quite surprised that there are quite a lot of people who dislike America & EU's plolicies and arn't from places like China or Russia. Australia has its own problems with Indonesia anyway, certainly not on the same scale. Also our own prime minister Tony Abbot is not exactly helping Australia by sticking to the US and Japan while our biggest trade partner and economic crutch is China. So being Australian and seeing Aus acting in line with the US seems silly to me when our direct benefit comes from China. In short, being Australian doesn't mean we automatically like US foreign policy and this "alliance". I doubt many of us would call ourselves "the west" anyway. I guess some of my opinions regarding "fairness" can be considered childish, however I really do wish for a balance of power somewhat :/
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Also our own prime minister Tony Abbot is not exactly helping Australia by sticking to the US and Japan while our biggest trade partner and economic crutch is China. So being Australian and seeing Aus acting in line with the US seems silly to me when our direct benefit comes from China. In short, being Australian doesn't mean we automatically like US foreign policy and this "alliance".
And that's fine. The difference is that China, to the best of my knowledge, is not trying to attach marionette strings to your government or make you choose between them and the West. China's kind of a big trading partner for America and Japan, too, you know. It's not like our countries have to be exclusive. That's the real tragedy: Russia created this crisis from nothing by deciding to act like a clingy jealous (ex-)lover.
I guess some of my opinions regarding "fairness" can be considered childish, however I really do wish for a balance of power somewhat :/
No good comes of a balance of power between free and unfree states. It just leads to geopolitlcal tensions and, y'know, half the people not being free.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I actually support the Russians since they are the only ones "hard" enough to stick up to the west, although I don't support bloodshed, I still don't think losing its buffer zone without making any form of resistance is a stance that should be taken by a country as stalwart as Russia. No offence to Americans and EU people but I think they got enough influence on this world already.
I can sort of see what you mean. I support Russia in this case to. America thinks they have complete control over the world, they need to realize they don't. Russia and China are probably the two countries that they can't bully around. America is like the sixth grader who likes to push around first graders, then when another sixth grader comes along they don't know what to do.
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Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at the cost of the interests of others is immoral.
- I proactively put a security system on my house. We know this is not a immoral thing to do.
I admit to being misleading. You should consider yourself as a person as well, just not above others in importance. Therefore the correct version would be:
"Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
Even barring that correction: It depends on how many people you're living with, as if you're living in a family you'd be protecting interests of others and not just yourself. It could also be argued that if you did it with the intention of catching the criminal, and therefore stopping him from robbing others, you would be protecting others. The key here is that you would be helping others with it, as well. All it comes down to is: Was your intent to protect only yourself, or to protect or help others as well?
If living alone and not doing it to stop the criminal from robbing others, it'd depend on whether you'd believe you'd do more good with the money than the thief. I.E: the morality of the action is based on your subjective perception of multiple things. If your plans with the money were to start a new business and help local economy by creating jobs, and you believed the thief would just take it to feed their drug habit, it would be moral to protect your ability to do good. I.E: If you genuinely believe you're a good person, protecting yourself is protecting the good you would do.
The morality of things are determined by pre-determined rights (in the sentence above, by the legitimacy of interests).
Necessarily requires circular logic to justify the pre-determined rights and the legitimacy to begin with. I've yet to see a sustainable model for morality formed in this way.
Using your own methodology (a iterated prisoner's dilemma), if the number of players is high enough the Nash equilibrium is everyone acting aggressively. Because it's literally impossible to keep 100+ nations on the pareto point while there's a huge reward for leaving it.
In dynamic games you see that this happen when players acts favor the short term - the rewards they will reap in the next iteration were they are being aggressive while everyone is being passive is bigger then what they will loose in the other iterations of everyone being aggressive. This result will be aggravated if every other player insist in being passive, because more of the iterations after the first nation breaks the equilibrium will be rewarding.
The sad thing is, the more every nations defends piece, more reward war offers, the same way the more cooperative the players are, more rewarding will be to be the non cooperative player. If every nation signed up a no-nuclear treat tomorrow, the first nation to build a nuke would conquer the world.
If we are to believe in game theory and prisoners dilemma, the most secure solution is everyone having a nuke, not everyone not having one.
Now, would this differ if in these games the people involved would have to gamble with their life in order to be aggressive? The assumption always is that the cost of aggression can be recouped to begin with, and as far as war comes, lives of others are of no consequence. This is an extremely skewed point of view. Nations propagate this view, of course, because that is their function. To free people from thinking about the actual costs associated with actions. And again, one of the reasons why I hate nations as a concept.
Just because it's beneficial to act in some way doesn't make it moral to act in that way. One of the key defining features of humans is the capability to empathy, and taking interests of others into accord.
Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at the cost of the interests of others is amoral. But because Nations as a concept allow people to distance themselves from that making the decision to act so, it's completely fine for them to do whatever they would ever want. Because either everyone is responsible or no one is. Nations are a mechanism that allows people to act immorally without acknowledging responsibility.
No, you're mistaking the concept of power.
No, I'm not. You're supposed to act moral no matter whether you're powerful or weak.
Unless you want to argue that might makes right, and all other considerations of morality are irrelevant. At which point the nicest thing I can say is that I disagree with you.
All those things you mentioned are illegal in a normal society. But only because the state holds far greater power than any given individual and can inflict punishment at will.
But, look at states where individuals DO hold more power than the state itself. The individual does whatever the hell they want. They are no longer beholden by any law; because the state cannot act on the law at will.
So your argument is that, for the most part, humans are immoral creatures? Know what? I agree. I would claim that it's primarily because of their ignorance that they commit immoral acts. Because of their incapability to see the other side of the coin, or in some cases unwillingness to do so. (Which I view, in itself, immoral.)
But: Just because it's so, doesn't mean it should be so. Claiming that would be a form of naturalistic fallacy.
You seem to be thinking that everyone should operate on the same ideals as you do. But obviously they do not; they believe in the concept of power. What will you do now? Will you merely rage on about how everyone is hypocritical and how everyone else is being bad (or unethical or w.e.) for not operating in the same thought process you are?
Yes.
And I will continue to insist that people who are unwilling to take morality into accord when making decisions are horrible, horrible people.
I also have another question to you- Suppose that I am a business owner, and I wish to expand my business. But by expanding my business, it is absolutely inevitable that other business owners will be harmed, and in fact many of them will go out of business. Do I still have a right to expand my business?
Depends on a lot of factors. If you do so, can you provide jobs for a similar amount of people as the others did, or can you make some product cheaper to the general public? Can you make the production more efficient, allowing some part of the workforce to move into other jobs and therefore creating long-term benefits for the economy? Or will all the other companies fire everyone, leading all of them to commit suicide and to leave behind 25 crippled widows and 130 blind children each, to starve in the slums, while you achieve monopoly status and raise the prices of the product. (And that the product you're making was an essential medicine a lot of people needed.)
It could be either, depending on the circumstances. And more specifically, on what you believe it'd achieve. If you honestly believed that you could improve the situation and to create more good for others by doing so, it would be a moral action. Even if you, in the end, happened to be wrong. Because it's the intent behind the actions that counts. If your primary motivator would be to maximize gain for yourself and damn the rest, knowing well that you'd do more overall damage, it would be an immoral action. Even if you ended up
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The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
"Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
"Greater cost of interests of others" is the key point here. You can't compare two different kind of interests of two different persons without elaborating on a "universal scale of interests" of some sort - which is what I meant about pre-determined rights. Using the very example I gave again, me staling a security system represents a conflict of interest, my own and the one of the robber. To solve this moral problem is to determine which one of the interests should prevail - and your general rule doesn't do the job, as either my interest or the robber's could be "the one with greater costs".
Even barring that correction: It depends on how many people you're living with, as if you're living in a family you'd be protecting interests of others and not just yourself. It could also be argued that if you did it with the intention of catching the criminal, and therefore stopping him from robbing others, you would be protecting others. The key here is that you would be helping others with it, as well. All it comes down to is: Was your intent to protect only yourself, or to protect or help others as well?
By installing the security system I would be helping others but I would be hurting others as well. I would be hurting the entire community of robbers, all their families and all the dozen of business that would benefit from the robber taking my stuff. How do you decide which one of us holds the righteous interest - the people who benefits from me getting the security system or the people who benefits from me not installing it ?
If living alone and not doing it to stop the criminal from robbing others, it'd depend on whether you'd believe you'd do more good with the money than the thief. I.E: the morality of the action is based on your subjective perception of multiple things. If your plans with the money were to start a new business and help local economy by creating jobs, and you believed the thief would just take it to feed their drug habit, it would be moral to protect your ability to do good. I.E: If you genuinely believe you're a good person, protecting yourself is protecting the good you would do.
So are you saying the morality of each individual actions are determined by that individual own subjective perceptions ?
So, if the thief believe he will give a better destination to my money, my security system is immoral. But if I believe I'm will give the better destination, my security system is moral.
So me installing the security system is both moral and immoral, it depends on the observer. At this point, how morals can be used to solve the conflict of interest if every interest is legitimate as long as one believes he intents well?
Necessarily requires circular logic to justify the pre-determined rights and the legitimacy to begin with. I've yet to see a sustainable model for morality formed in this way.
Circular logic is only a issue inside a single argument (ex: A > A.)
But A > B and B > A without a external argument confirming A or B is not avoidable thing. Logic and math revolves around that kind of circularity (ex: to prove mathematical induction you need to assume well ordering and to prove the well ordering you have to assume induction - there's no way you can prove one without using the order and if they are wrong mathematics is wrong. ex2: the very old cliche, "there isn't a logical reason to be logical that escapes circularity").
Every argument, moral and theory of science and philosophy is circular, all you have to do is ask "why?" a indefinite number of times until you question the foundations of everything. Using that "weapon" against you, can you tell me why one is morally correct based on the intent of their actions, not the actions itself ? It seems you just assumed that is correct.
Guess I'd need to be more specific about what I meant. In simple terms, Russia get Crimea since that area is pro-Russia and speaks and thinks like the Russians do. The other part of Ukraine which obviously would like to align to the west should be allowed to do so. If you know the region's history, it was Kruschev who "gave" away Crimea to Ukraine in order for better diplomatic relationship back in the 50s or 60s. Basically peaceful solution by splitting the country into ethnic halves which would also reduce conflicts in the future.
Certainly it's not a game, however you'd be quite surprised that there are quite a lot of people who dislike America & EU's plolicies and arn't from places like China or Russia. Australia has its own problems with Indonesia anyway, certainly not on the same scale. Also our own prime minister Tony Abbot is not exactly helping Australia by sticking to the US and Japan while our biggest trade partner and economic crutch is China. So being Australian and seeing Aus acting in line with the US seems silly to me when our direct benefit comes from China. In short, being Australian doesn't mean we automatically like US foreign policy and this "alliance". I doubt many of us would call ourselves "the west" anyway. I guess some of my opinions regarding "fairness" can be considered childish, however I really do wish for a balance of power somewhat :/
Crimea doesn't just have ethnic Russians. It also has a lot of ethnic Ukranians and Tatars. Balkanizing the area isn't guaranteed to keep the tensions at bay, because of various diasporas of ethnic groups across Europe during the various wars it has had over the years. What you're asking for is ethnic cleansing to fit your idea of an ethnically pure country free of conflict. There's a reason why this area is called the powder keg of the world. It has been subject to various world wars, general wars, and humanitarian interventions. A Russian invasion will only exacerbate this. It will also alter the energy policies of the rest of the world, because it will destabilize Ukraine, the state in which 80% of Europe's natural gas runs through. The US may be forced to alter its policy to ship LNG to Europe to keep the continent from being kept energy-poor by an aggressive Russia, and shale plays may come to a town near you.
And yes, Australia is the West. It is a commonwealth nation that identified more with Britain than Russia. It is a Global North country with a common law system. It even shares a great deal of history with another common law system, the US, in that it operated on sociopolitical doctrines of terra nullius to expel and murder indigenous inhabitants because they "were not human."
The US's Treasury bonds are mostly held by the Chinese. If it wasn't for the Chinese we wouldn't have gotten through the recession. It doesn't mean we're friends. The Chinese technocratic-authoritarian model is admired by African dictators more than Western democracies.
I can sort of see what you mean. I support Russia in this case to. America thinks they have complete control over the world, they need to realize they don't. Russia and China are probably the two countries that they can't bully around. America is like the sixth grader who likes to push around first graders, then when another sixth grader comes along they don't know what to do.
How is this about America? The U.S. wasn't even involved in the dispute that started this whole crisis - that was over Ukrainian treaties with Russia and the European Union. Yes, America has now condemned Russia's actions, as have all the other Western democracies, because Russia's actions are objectively condemnable. You need to be thinking first and foremost about the rights of the Ukrainian people to territorial integrity, to political sovereignty, and to government accountability. If you support Russia's violation of those rights because you think it'll score points against another country lying halfway around the world from them that you happen to dislike - well, then you seriously need to reconsider your priorities.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The point is that US and Russia will continue to spread influence, which pisses of other countries (That are mostly helpless to stop it.) and costs a lot for both of the two. From the viewpoint of Russia and US (Who don't seem to care about pissing other countries off.) the optimal situation that doesn't lead to one getting shafted is both of them agreeing to an agreement to stop the invasive foreign politics.
Based on your other post, its seems you are serious with this kind of contridictory arugment. Indivduals, groups, communities, states, nations will do things in their own self-interest. What makes the countries that get "pissed off" and are "helpless" responses any more valid than Russia or the US? The reason countries get "pissed" is because their self-interest were violated. The US, Russia and Albainia are only concerned with their countries interest. They do not exist for the intrest of other countries. Your idea the US should forgo its own self-interest to appease another countries self-interest is rather contridictory in my opinion. If you do not want the US to stop "pissing off" other countries maybey you should stop thinking of the "pissed off" countries self-interset as any more important or valid.
If I walk on the street, and punch someone, and then proceed to steal their wallet. They have no right to be pissed?
The relation of nations to nations is different from the relation of persons to persons. The morality of an action upon a nation is different. There's nothing contradictory in maintaining moral compunctions regarding persons in particular while also maintaining that a nation exists for its own benefit.
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So are you saying the morality of each individual actions are determined by that individual own subjective perceptions ?
Of course they are. Unless you propose some meaningless universal law, that assumes everyone to be perfectly aware of everything, and therefore violating the laws of morals randomly because they can't stand up to the standards of being omnipotent.
To be moral, you're supposed to choose the action that brings the greatest good to the best of your ability, and to improve your abilities of doing so as much as possible. By engaging in discussion and letting others challenge your views. (Which I'm glad you're doing here.)
So, if the thief believe he will give a better destination to my money, my security system is immoral. But if I believe I'm will give the better destination, my security system is moral.
No. You're the one doing the action here, therefore it's about what you believe. You make the decision to install or not install the system. Likewise, your perception of the thief's actions to break into your house do not determine the morality of the action. If he understood the cost and the damage he would cause to you, but believed he could do more good with the money than the damage he'd cause, he could be acting morally. (As unlikely as it is.)
By installing the security system I would be helping others but I would be hurting others as well. I would be hurting the entire community of robbers, all their families and all the dozen of business that would benefit from the robber taking my stuff. How do you decide which one of us holds the righteous interest - the people who benefits from me getting the security system or the people who benefits from me not installing it ?
It doesn't matter which one of you holds the righteous interest. It only matters whether or not you hold a righteous interest when installing the system. And whether or not your decision was born out of consideration of the situation, and thinking about the other side of the coin, or whether you succumbed to willful ignorance of those facts.
As an outside observer, it's impossible for me to be a judge of this with perfect, or even great accuracy.
Let me explain it this way: The universally best action is by definition that each one of us could subscribe to, if we were completely unbiased and rational, since it maximizes the average amount of good we'd receive. Veil of uncertainty is a good thought experiment on this. Nevertheless, human beings are by definition biased, and may believe they are doing the best thing while being wrong. I do not see being wrong as immoral. Thus, morality is determined by the intention of actions trying their best to do unbiased decisions.
At this point, how morals can be used to solve the conflict of interest if every interest is legitimate as long as one believes he intents well?
It is up to the person making the decision. This means that their decision will carry with it their biased views of values, but they should do their best to see the situation from the point of view of others, and to see how their view of values applies to them.
It seems like you desire some universal values, or a book you can check to affirm yourself of the morality of your own decisions, or those of others. I admit that my view doesn't make acting morally easy, or free individuals from thinking to themselves. It certainly makes it even harder to judge the actions of others, and in some cases it makes it impossible to do so. And yes, for this very reason my view can't solve the conflict of interests as you present it, from an outsider perspective.
Ultimately I don't see this as much of a problem, as judging the morality of others, as much as everyone (Myself included.) likes to do it, doesn't do much. It by definition happens after the action has been done, and thus can't affect the action. It can, however, help you decide on how to arrive at the best decision on your course of action, and that's what matters. I can even make a checklist on it. (This is probably incomplete.)
1. Consider possible courses of action. 2. For each course of action, think how it would affect people it relates to. 3. Judge the effects of each of these effects based on your own values. 4. Pick the course of action that maximizes the average good, not the good for yourself or your friends.
Every argument, moral and theory of science and philosophy is circular, all you have to do is ask "why?" a indefinite number of times until you question the foundations of everything.
True. Mathematics holds certain axioms, but they do not even try to justify them.
Using that "weapon" against you, can you tell me why one is morally correct based on the intent of their actions, not the actions itself ? It seems you just assumed that is correct.
No, I can't prove my views, but I can try to justify them.
I'm trying to look at this from practical viewpoint. Models that try to judge actions based on them alone rather than the intent of the people doing them are ultimately worthless, since they rely on idealized versions on capabilities of humans. I can't view being wrong as immoral, unless it's due to willful ignorance of facts presented.
Also because universally attaching values to specific actions, rather than the intent behind them, is always a biased action, because humans are by themselves biased. So these just create more widespread propagation of biases, and end up with guidelines of "never lie", which stop people from considering the consequences of lying or not lying in any given situation. Ironically, strict "universal" laws of morality free people from the responsibility of actually considering the consequences of their actions.
I'm not saying my model is perfect, but I'd claim that it's better than most others. It's certainly harder to follow, and often takes more time to reach a decision. At the same time it's more forgiving, since as long as you do your best and try not to be wrong, you're on the right path. (As opposed to say, certain branches of christianity that condemn a number of people to eternity in hell for not following arbitrary rules they didn't know even existed.)
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The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
The relation of nations to nations is different from the relation of persons to persons. The morality of an action upon a nation is different. There's nothing contradictory in maintaining moral compunctions regarding persons in particular while also maintaining that a nation exists for its own benefit.
You're right in general to caution against an overreliance on the analogy between nation and person. That can lead thinkers astray in a lot of ways (it's even worse than the nation::family analogy). However, it remains true that a nation is composed of people, that the actions of a nation are the actions of people, and that actions upon a nation are actions upon people. It does not run afoul of the fallacy of composition to say that a nation's constituent people have the same moral obligations as people always do.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Guess I'd need to be more specific about what I meant. In simple terms, Russia get Crimea since that area is pro-Russia and speaks and thinks like the Russians do. The other part of Ukraine which obviously would like to align to the west should be allowed to do so. If you know the region's history, it was Kruschev who "gave" away Crimea to Ukraine in order for better diplomatic relationship back in the 50s or 60s. Basically peaceful solution by splitting the country into ethnic halves which would also reduce conflicts in the future.
Certainly it's not a game, however you'd be quite surprised that there are quite a lot of people who dislike America & EU's plolicies and arn't from places like China or Russia. Australia has its own problems with Indonesia anyway, certainly not on the same scale. Also our own prime minister Tony Abbot is not exactly helping Australia by sticking to the US and Japan while our biggest trade partner and economic crutch is China. So being Australian and seeing Aus acting in line with the US seems silly to me when our direct benefit comes from China. In short, being Australian doesn't mean we automatically like US foreign policy and this "alliance". I doubt many of us would call ourselves "the west" anyway. I guess some of my opinions regarding "fairness" can be considered childish, however I really do wish for a balance of power somewhat :/
Crimea doesn't just have ethnic Russians. It also has a lot of ethnic Ukranians and Tatars. Balkanizing the area isn't guaranteed to keep the tensions at bay, because of various diasporas of ethnic groups across Europe during the various wars it has had over the years. What you're asking for is ethnic cleansing to fit your idea of an ethnically pure country free of conflict. There's a reason why this area is called the powder keg of the world. It has been subject to various world wars, general wars, and humanitarian interventions. A Russian invasion will only exacerbate this. It will also alter the energy policies of the rest of the world, because it will destabilize Ukraine, the state in which 80% of Europe's natural gas runs through. The US may be forced to alter its policy to ship LNG to Europe to keep the continent from being kept energy-poor by an aggressive Russia, and shale plays may come to a town near you.
And yes, Australia is the West. It is a commonwealth nation that identified more with Britain than Russia. It is a Global North country with a common law system. It even shares a great deal of history with another common law system, the US, in that it operated on sociopolitical doctrines of terra nullius to expel and murder indigenous inhabitants because they "were not human."
The US's Treasury bonds are mostly held by the Chinese. If it wasn't for the Chinese we wouldn't have gotten through the recession. It doesn't mean we're friends. The Chinese technocratic-authoritarian model is admired by African dictators more than Western democracies.
While Crimea has ethnic Tartars and Ukrainians, isn't it majority ethnic Russian? If they want to join Russia, then they should be allowed to.
While Crimea has ethnic Tartars and Ukrainians, isn't it majority ethnic Russian? If they want to join Russia, then they should be allowed to.
First of all, just because they're ethnically Russian doesn't guarantee that they want to join the state of Russia. The current acting president in Kiev is ethnically Russian, and he's certainly no friend of Putin's. There are a lot of ethnic Mexicans in California, too, but nobody's seriously talking about giving the state (back) to Mexico - it's simply a nonissue.
Secondly, even if there is a large majority who want to join Russia (I don't think a simple majority would suffice to justify such a dramatic change), it matters how this goal is accomplished. The international community has a major legitimate interest in deterring opportunism, brinkmanship, and bullying, even when they happen to result in an outcome that would in a vacuum be considered desirable. The message to Crimean separatists needs to be, "You can do this peacefully and democratically, and we will help you with that if you ask, but we're not going to reward you for installing your own government at gunpoint before you've even tried the other way." And the message to Russia needs to be, "DON'T."
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
"Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
So selling at a profit is immoral? .
Assuming the buyer is consenting to buy and that you haven't given them misinformation, they must feel that what they're buying is worth the cost. So nope.
Now if you're talking about horribly gouging people for something they need to buy...
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
You are shifting the goal post. No where in that qoute does it say anything about "feel" or "consent".
Selling something at a profit isn't inherently at greater costs to the interests of others. Transactions can be beneficial for both parties. This is the ideological foundation of a capitalist society. I am not shifting the goal post and I suggest you consider what someone is actually saying before picking words out and throwing a popular phrase at them.
I could have been more clear, though.
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
Yes, it inherently is. That is how profit is made.
EDIT: Any transaction that someone "wins" (i.e. gains more than the other) is immoral, according to that statement. You interjecting some arbitrary value on the feelings one has when they purchase something is a subjective and almost laughable argument. Not to mention assuming all transactions are fair value unless they meet another arbitary and subjective standard you'd set for "gouging" to the point where if someone paid for something, obviously their need/want for it is great if they are willing to pay a huge mark up....if they paid for it it must mean its they are getting fair value becuase they felt the need for it.
EDIT: Any transaction that someone "wins" (i.e. gains more than the other) is immoral, according to that statement.
Right. And my point is that noone "wins" a transaction if both sides are profiting from it. As long as both sides have good info and are willingly entering into the transaction, noone "wins", noone is being scammed, you aren't being immoral by that viewpoint. You're wrong that the one who gains more is "winning".
I'm not moving the goalposts, you're misunderstanding the argument and not seeing that you never did reach the goalposts.
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
Right. And my point is that noone "wins" a transaction if both sides are profiting from it.
So all transactions are "fair" as long as both sides "profit" in some way? It does not matter the extent of the profit? As long as I get some satisfaction out of my purchase, no one "wins" a deal.
As long as both sides have good info and are willingly entering into the transaction, noone "wins", noone is being scammed, you aren't being immoral by that viewpoint.
That is not what the statment says. This is you editing and adding in context that is not there. Further, you insist that as long as people are willing and not ignorant, they cant lose a transaction, i.e. get ripped off.
You're wrong that the one who gains more is "winning".
The whole premise of the qoute weare talking about is one entity proactivty gaining an advantage over the other who does not gain as much.....in other words, winning a trasaction of some sort. Are you reading the same qoute as me?
I'm not moving the goalposts, you're misunderstanding the argument and not seeing that you never did reach the goalposts.
Read the qoute again. You at the very least are taking it out of context and adding some illogical elements to it.
Read the qoute again. You at the very least are taking it out of context and adding some illogical elements to it.
I don't think I am. Read the part that says "at the cost of the interests of others", that's everything.
It is in the interest of others to have as much resources (defined as whatever you want, but typically material goods) as they can have.
Right. And my point is that noone "wins" a transaction if both sides are profiting from it. As long as both sides have good info and are willingly entering into the transaction, noone "wins", noone is being scammed, you aren't being immoral by that viewpoint. You're wrong that the one who gains more is "winning".
That would be incorrect if we go by the original statement, here "Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
That pretty much defines what business owners do. They are not really concerned with your interests, and will act at every opportunity to gain as much as they can. This typically means that they'll charge more than whatever that resource is actually worth.
This directly contradicts my interest, which is to gain as much resources as I can. By directly charging me resources, and more resources than that resource I want is worth at that, a business owner is acting against my interest and "acting to forward one's interest at greater cost to the interests of others".
That I need whatever resource the business owner provides is irrelevant; I would benefit much more if I just got that resource while still having whatever resource I would have needed to give you (in other words, for free). And this is key. Any action that forces me to give away resources is acting directly against my interest. And as soon as the business owner acts to gain a profit, he is acting in the manner described in the original statement.
What you're saying can certainly hold true, but not in regards to what the original statement says. The original statement essentially becomes a "one or another" type of statement, which wouldn't really hold any ground in reality.
No, I'm not. You're supposed to act moral no matter whether you're powerful or weak.
Unless you want to argue that might makes right, and all other considerations of morality are irrelevant. At which point the nicest thing I can say is that I disagree with you.
Might does make right. Everything in the world relies on the assumption that there is a force to back up what is said/written.
Even the Civil Rights movement of the 60s relied extensively on power. Political and emotional power. Do not mistake power to merely mean physical or violent force; there are many forms of power.
So your argument is that, for the most part, humans are immoral creatures? Know what? I agree. I would claim that it's primarily because of their ignorance that they commit immoral acts. Because of their incapability to see the other side of the coin, or in some cases unwillingness to do so. (Which I view, in itself, immoral.)
But: Just because it's so, doesn't mean it should be so. Claiming that would be a form of naturalistic fallacy.
I don't believe in any sort of innate morality. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
That you and I act in what is supposedly a moral manner is absolutely irrelevant in my view. We act as such because we've grown up in an environment where it is fashionable to act as such, and we've been taught as such.
Compare that to people who grew up surrounded by violence, or even with no human influence at all and in the woods!
Innate morality doesn't exist.
Based on the rest of your post, it's clear that you believe in some form of innate human goodness. Mind explaining why?
It could be either, depending on the circumstances. And more specifically, on what you believe it'd achieve. If you honestly believed that you could improve the situation and to create more good for others by doing so, it would be a moral action. Even if you, in the end, happened to be wrong. Because it's the intent behind the actions that counts. If your primary motivator would be to maximize gain for yourself and damn the rest, knowing well that you'd do more overall damage, it would be an immoral action. Even if you ended up
What if I attempted to exterminate every religious people in the view that it would create ultimate good for others?
That fits the criteria you set up here-
I honestly believe that wold improve the situation and create more good for others->moral action.
Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
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And why exactly do you need people to "stick up to the west"?
While you certainly state the truth when you say that no country would willingly lose a buffer state/reduce their sphere of influence, your reasoning behind it seems silly.
Certainly it's not a game, however you'd be quite surprised that there are quite a lot of people who dislike America & EU's plolicies and arn't from places like China or Russia. Australia has its own problems with Indonesia anyway, certainly not on the same scale. Also our own prime minister Tony Abbot is not exactly helping Australia by sticking to the US and Japan while our biggest trade partner and economic crutch is China. So being Australian and seeing Aus acting in line with the US seems silly to me when our direct benefit comes from China. In short, being Australian doesn't mean we automatically like US foreign policy and this "alliance". I doubt many of us would call ourselves "the west" anyway. I guess some of my opinions regarding "fairness" can be considered childish, however I really do wish for a balance of power somewhat :/
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You speak English. You have a liberal capitalist constitutional democracy. You're the West, at least for the purposes of this conversation.
No good comes of a balance of power between free and unfree states. It just leads to geopolitlcal tensions and, y'know, half the people not being free.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I can sort of see what you mean. I support Russia in this case to. America thinks they have complete control over the world, they need to realize they don't. Russia and China are probably the two countries that they can't bully around. America is like the sixth grader who likes to push around first graders, then when another sixth grader comes along they don't know what to do.
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I admit to being misleading. You should consider yourself as a person as well, just not above others in importance. Therefore the correct version would be:
"Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
Even barring that correction: It depends on how many people you're living with, as if you're living in a family you'd be protecting interests of others and not just yourself. It could also be argued that if you did it with the intention of catching the criminal, and therefore stopping him from robbing others, you would be protecting others. The key here is that you would be helping others with it, as well. All it comes down to is: Was your intent to protect only yourself, or to protect or help others as well?
If living alone and not doing it to stop the criminal from robbing others, it'd depend on whether you'd believe you'd do more good with the money than the thief. I.E: the morality of the action is based on your subjective perception of multiple things. If your plans with the money were to start a new business and help local economy by creating jobs, and you believed the thief would just take it to feed their drug habit, it would be moral to protect your ability to do good. I.E: If you genuinely believe you're a good person, protecting yourself is protecting the good you would do.
Necessarily requires circular logic to justify the pre-determined rights and the legitimacy to begin with. I've yet to see a sustainable model for morality formed in this way.
Now, would this differ if in these games the people involved would have to gamble with their life in order to be aggressive? The assumption always is that the cost of aggression can be recouped to begin with, and as far as war comes, lives of others are of no consequence. This is an extremely skewed point of view. Nations propagate this view, of course, because that is their function. To free people from thinking about the actual costs associated with actions. And again, one of the reasons why I hate nations as a concept.
Just because it's beneficial to act in some way doesn't make it moral to act in that way. One of the key defining features of humans is the capability to empathy, and taking interests of others into accord.
No, I'm not. You're supposed to act moral no matter whether you're powerful or weak.
Unless you want to argue that might makes right, and all other considerations of morality are irrelevant. At which point the nicest thing I can say is that I disagree with you.
So your argument is that, for the most part, humans are immoral creatures? Know what? I agree. I would claim that it's primarily because of their ignorance that they commit immoral acts. Because of their incapability to see the other side of the coin, or in some cases unwillingness to do so. (Which I view, in itself, immoral.)
But: Just because it's so, doesn't mean it should be so. Claiming that would be a form of naturalistic fallacy.
Yes.
And I will continue to insist that people who are unwilling to take morality into accord when making decisions are horrible, horrible people.
Depends on a lot of factors. If you do so, can you provide jobs for a similar amount of people as the others did, or can you make some product cheaper to the general public? Can you make the production more efficient, allowing some part of the workforce to move into other jobs and therefore creating long-term benefits for the economy? Or will all the other companies fire everyone, leading all of them to commit suicide and to leave behind 25 crippled widows and 130 blind children each, to starve in the slums, while you achieve monopoly status and raise the prices of the product. (And that the product you're making was an essential medicine a lot of people needed.)
It could be either, depending on the circumstances. And more specifically, on what you believe it'd achieve. If you honestly believed that you could improve the situation and to create more good for others by doing so, it would be a moral action. Even if you, in the end, happened to be wrong. Because it's the intent behind the actions that counts. If your primary motivator would be to maximize gain for yourself and damn the rest, knowing well that you'd do more overall damage, it would be an immoral action. Even if you ended up
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
"Greater cost of interests of others" is the key point here. You can't compare two different kind of interests of two different persons without elaborating on a "universal scale of interests" of some sort - which is what I meant about pre-determined rights. Using the very example I gave again, me staling a security system represents a conflict of interest, my own and the one of the robber. To solve this moral problem is to determine which one of the interests should prevail - and your general rule doesn't do the job, as either my interest or the robber's could be "the one with greater costs".
By installing the security system I would be helping others but I would be hurting others as well. I would be hurting the entire community of robbers, all their families and all the dozen of business that would benefit from the robber taking my stuff. How do you decide which one of us holds the righteous interest - the people who benefits from me getting the security system or the people who benefits from me not installing it ?
So are you saying the morality of each individual actions are determined by that individual own subjective perceptions ?
So, if the thief believe he will give a better destination to my money, my security system is immoral. But if I believe I'm will give the better destination, my security system is moral.
So me installing the security system is both moral and immoral, it depends on the observer. At this point, how morals can be used to solve the conflict of interest if every interest is legitimate as long as one believes he intents well?
Circular logic is only a issue inside a single argument (ex: A > A.)
But A > B and B > A without a external argument confirming A or B is not avoidable thing. Logic and math revolves around that kind of circularity (ex: to prove mathematical induction you need to assume well ordering and to prove the well ordering you have to assume induction - there's no way you can prove one without using the order and if they are wrong mathematics is wrong. ex2: the very old cliche, "there isn't a logical reason to be logical that escapes circularity").
Every argument, moral and theory of science and philosophy is circular, all you have to do is ask "why?" a indefinite number of times until you question the foundations of everything. Using that "weapon" against you, can you tell me why one is morally correct based on the intent of their actions, not the actions itself ? It seems you just assumed that is correct.
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Crimea doesn't just have ethnic Russians. It also has a lot of ethnic Ukranians and Tatars. Balkanizing the area isn't guaranteed to keep the tensions at bay, because of various diasporas of ethnic groups across Europe during the various wars it has had over the years. What you're asking for is ethnic cleansing to fit your idea of an ethnically pure country free of conflict. There's a reason why this area is called the powder keg of the world. It has been subject to various world wars, general wars, and humanitarian interventions. A Russian invasion will only exacerbate this. It will also alter the energy policies of the rest of the world, because it will destabilize Ukraine, the state in which 80% of Europe's natural gas runs through. The US may be forced to alter its policy to ship LNG to Europe to keep the continent from being kept energy-poor by an aggressive Russia, and shale plays may come to a town near you.
And yes, Australia is the West. It is a commonwealth nation that identified more with Britain than Russia. It is a Global North country with a common law system. It even shares a great deal of history with another common law system, the US, in that it operated on sociopolitical doctrines of terra nullius to expel and murder indigenous inhabitants because they "were not human."
The US's Treasury bonds are mostly held by the Chinese. If it wasn't for the Chinese we wouldn't have gotten through the recession. It doesn't mean we're friends. The Chinese technocratic-authoritarian model is admired by African dictators more than Western democracies.
How is this about America? The U.S. wasn't even involved in the dispute that started this whole crisis - that was over Ukrainian treaties with Russia and the European Union. Yes, America has now condemned Russia's actions, as have all the other Western democracies, because Russia's actions are objectively condemnable. You need to be thinking first and foremost about the rights of the Ukrainian people to territorial integrity, to political sovereignty, and to government accountability. If you support Russia's violation of those rights because you think it'll score points against another country lying halfway around the world from them that you happen to dislike - well, then you seriously need to reconsider your priorities.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The relation of nations to nations is different from the relation of persons to persons. The morality of an action upon a nation is different. There's nothing contradictory in maintaining moral compunctions regarding persons in particular while also maintaining that a nation exists for its own benefit.
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Of course they are. Unless you propose some meaningless universal law, that assumes everyone to be perfectly aware of everything, and therefore violating the laws of morals randomly because they can't stand up to the standards of being omnipotent.
To be moral, you're supposed to choose the action that brings the greatest good to the best of your ability, and to improve your abilities of doing so as much as possible. By engaging in discussion and letting others challenge your views. (Which I'm glad you're doing here.)
No. You're the one doing the action here, therefore it's about what you believe. You make the decision to install or not install the system. Likewise, your perception of the thief's actions to break into your house do not determine the morality of the action. If he understood the cost and the damage he would cause to you, but believed he could do more good with the money than the damage he'd cause, he could be acting morally. (As unlikely as it is.)
It doesn't matter which one of you holds the righteous interest. It only matters whether or not you hold a righteous interest when installing the system. And whether or not your decision was born out of consideration of the situation, and thinking about the other side of the coin, or whether you succumbed to willful ignorance of those facts.
As an outside observer, it's impossible for me to be a judge of this with perfect, or even great accuracy.
Let me explain it this way: The universally best action is by definition that each one of us could subscribe to, if we were completely unbiased and rational, since it maximizes the average amount of good we'd receive. Veil of uncertainty is a good thought experiment on this. Nevertheless, human beings are by definition biased, and may believe they are doing the best thing while being wrong. I do not see being wrong as immoral. Thus, morality is determined by the intention of actions trying their best to do unbiased decisions.
It is up to the person making the decision. This means that their decision will carry with it their biased views of values, but they should do their best to see the situation from the point of view of others, and to see how their view of values applies to them.
It seems like you desire some universal values, or a book you can check to affirm yourself of the morality of your own decisions, or those of others. I admit that my view doesn't make acting morally easy, or free individuals from thinking to themselves. It certainly makes it even harder to judge the actions of others, and in some cases it makes it impossible to do so. And yes, for this very reason my view can't solve the conflict of interests as you present it, from an outsider perspective.
Ultimately I don't see this as much of a problem, as judging the morality of others, as much as everyone (Myself included.) likes to do it, doesn't do much. It by definition happens after the action has been done, and thus can't affect the action. It can, however, help you decide on how to arrive at the best decision on your course of action, and that's what matters. I can even make a checklist on it. (This is probably incomplete.)
1. Consider possible courses of action.
2. For each course of action, think how it would affect people it relates to.
3. Judge the effects of each of these effects based on your own values.
4. Pick the course of action that maximizes the average good, not the good for yourself or your friends.
True. Mathematics holds certain axioms, but they do not even try to justify them.
No, I can't prove my views, but I can try to justify them.
I'm trying to look at this from practical viewpoint. Models that try to judge actions based on them alone rather than the intent of the people doing them are ultimately worthless, since they rely on idealized versions on capabilities of humans. I can't view being wrong as immoral, unless it's due to willful ignorance of facts presented.
Also because universally attaching values to specific actions, rather than the intent behind them, is always a biased action, because humans are by themselves biased. So these just create more widespread propagation of biases, and end up with guidelines of "never lie", which stop people from considering the consequences of lying or not lying in any given situation. Ironically, strict "universal" laws of morality free people from the responsibility of actually considering the consequences of their actions.
I'm not saying my model is perfect, but I'd claim that it's better than most others. It's certainly harder to follow, and often takes more time to reach a decision. At the same time it's more forgiving, since as long as you do your best and try not to be wrong, you're on the right path. (As opposed to say, certain branches of christianity that condemn a number of people to eternity in hell for not following arbitrary rules they didn't know even existed.)
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
You're right in general to caution against an overreliance on the analogy between nation and person. That can lead thinkers astray in a lot of ways (it's even worse than the nation::family analogy). However, it remains true that a nation is composed of people, that the actions of a nation are the actions of people, and that actions upon a nation are actions upon people. It does not run afoul of the fallacy of composition to say that a nation's constituent people have the same moral obligations as people always do.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
While Crimea has ethnic Tartars and Ukrainians, isn't it majority ethnic Russian? If they want to join Russia, then they should be allowed to.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
First of all, just because they're ethnically Russian doesn't guarantee that they want to join the state of Russia. The current acting president in Kiev is ethnically Russian, and he's certainly no friend of Putin's. There are a lot of ethnic Mexicans in California, too, but nobody's seriously talking about giving the state (back) to Mexico - it's simply a nonissue.
Secondly, even if there is a large majority who want to join Russia (I don't think a simple majority would suffice to justify such a dramatic change), it matters how this goal is accomplished. The international community has a major legitimate interest in deterring opportunism, brinkmanship, and bullying, even when they happen to result in an outcome that would in a vacuum be considered desirable. The message to Crimean separatists needs to be, "You can do this peacefully and democratically, and we will help you with that if you ask, but we're not going to reward you for installing your own government at gunpoint before you've even tried the other way." And the message to Russia needs to be, "DON'T."
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
So selling at a profit is immoral? .
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
Now if you're talking about horribly gouging people for something they need to buy...
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
I could have been more clear, though.
EDIT: Any transaction that someone "wins" (i.e. gains more than the other) is immoral, according to that statement. You interjecting some arbitrary value on the feelings one has when they purchase something is a subjective and almost laughable argument. Not to mention assuming all transactions are fair value unless they meet another arbitary and subjective standard you'd set for "gouging" to the point where if someone paid for something, obviously their need/want for it is great if they are willing to pay a huge mark up....if they paid for it it must mean its they are getting fair value becuase they felt the need for it.
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
I'm not moving the goalposts, you're misunderstanding the argument and not seeing that you never did reach the goalposts.
So all transactions are "fair" as long as both sides "profit" in some way? It does not matter the extent of the profit? As long as I get some satisfaction out of my purchase, no one "wins" a deal.
That is not what the statment says. This is you editing and adding in context that is not there. Further, you insist that as long as people are willing and not ignorant, they cant lose a transaction, i.e. get ripped off.
The whole premise of the qoute weare talking about is one entity proactivty gaining an advantage over the other who does not gain as much.....in other words, winning a trasaction of some sort. Are you reading the same qoute as me?
Read the qoute again. You at the very least are taking it out of context and adding some illogical elements to it.
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
It is in the interest of others to have as much resources (defined as whatever you want, but typically material goods) as they can have.
That would be incorrect if we go by the original statement, here "Proactively acting to forward one's own interests at greater cost to the interests of others is immoral."
That pretty much defines what business owners do. They are not really concerned with your interests, and will act at every opportunity to gain as much as they can. This typically means that they'll charge more than whatever that resource is actually worth.
This directly contradicts my interest, which is to gain as much resources as I can. By directly charging me resources, and more resources than that resource I want is worth at that, a business owner is acting against my interest and "acting to forward one's interest at greater cost to the interests of others".
That I need whatever resource the business owner provides is irrelevant; I would benefit much more if I just got that resource while still having whatever resource I would have needed to give you (in other words, for free). And this is key. Any action that forces me to give away resources is acting directly against my interest. And as soon as the business owner acts to gain a profit, he is acting in the manner described in the original statement.
What you're saying can certainly hold true, but not in regards to what the original statement says. The original statement essentially becomes a "one or another" type of statement, which wouldn't really hold any ground in reality.
Might does make right. Everything in the world relies on the assumption that there is a force to back up what is said/written.
Even the Civil Rights movement of the 60s relied extensively on power. Political and emotional power. Do not mistake power to merely mean physical or violent force; there are many forms of power.
I don't believe in any sort of innate morality. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
That you and I act in what is supposedly a moral manner is absolutely irrelevant in my view. We act as such because we've grown up in an environment where it is fashionable to act as such, and we've been taught as such.
Compare that to people who grew up surrounded by violence, or even with no human influence at all and in the woods!
Innate morality doesn't exist.
Based on the rest of your post, it's clear that you believe in some form of innate human goodness. Mind explaining why?
What if I attempted to exterminate every religious people in the view that it would create ultimate good for others?
That fits the criteria you set up here-
I honestly believe that wold improve the situation and create more good for others->moral action.
Make sure to keep this debate on its (current) separate course from the other Crimea thread.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.