How can you say that? How can it be bad to try to see the ripples?
I'm going to have to go with the Lucky Horseshoe on this on this one.
Seeing the effects of your actions is called being responsible.
Quote from r3p3nt »
Your argument was that there will always be something for the Mob/drug cartels to take advantage of. However they are weakened for every substance that is legalized; reducing their products and creating cheap, legal alternatives.
Let's follow this logic here.
There's a drug cartel in Columbia. They control the growth of cocaine. So clearly, their wealth would come from selling cocaine. Right?
So in the US, where buying and selling of cocaine is illegal, and therefore dangerous and limiting, we would weaken this cartel if we made the buying and selling of cocaine not dangerous and not limiting.
Yeah, you've got me sold... All we have to do is rent them some freighters to carry the stuff and we've just about destroyed them.
You know, I did say that you had to feel responsible ALONG WITH ALL THOSE OTHER THINGS. You all seemed to take one part of a sentence and focus on that, when I intentionally said that along with the other things. I don't think that feeling responsible is the only thing that makes you responsible, I had that whole extra part about not contributing to violence and not being able to stop it on an individual level. All those together are whats important, not the individual part. So good job debating by replying to one part of a multi-part sentence and using that as your entire argument against me.
...and I say that as long as you don't feel responsible, you don't actively contribute to violence and if you stopping your quest for enlightenment wouldn't stop it from happening in the first place, you aren't responsible.
I see now what you're trying to say here, but it took a bit. You need to work on choosing your words and grammar carefully to prevent further misunderstanding. Adding an "and" after the first comma would have helped a lot; the current wording implies that not feeling responsible causes you to not contribute to violence.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
I see now what you're trying to say here, but it took a bit. You need to work on choosing your words and grammar carefully to prevent further misunderstanding. Adding an "and" after the first comma would have helped a lot; the current wording implies that not feeling responsible causes you to not contribute to violence.
Yeah, I understand where thats coming from. It was a grammatical error, I meant to have a third point so I went with a comma instead of and, but half way through writing the sentence I decided to cut the last part out, and I didn't go back and fix it.
The problem isn't with trying to see the ripples per se. The problem is with using some good thing augured in a distant ripple as an excuse or justification to do something that is immediately bad.
Suppose I foresee that by doing you a cruelty today, I will cause you to realize a substantially greater benefit ten years from now. And then you die in nine years; then what? I've done you a cruelty and no good.
Then it sucks you didn't foresee, or maybe just neither of us could stop, my early demise. But you were attempting something; you were attempting something with what I believe to be reasonable hope, that you would succeed, rather than wait, good-willingly but passively, 'til the wind knock me over. You were trying, and surely I was acting, to help me, but if it's over in nine years, then let's take stock of what I got done in mine plus nine years and that is the measure of me - and for you, I tell you surely I would not revile you for that effort on my deathbed*, or from the view of any hypothetical, locally panoptic 'soul-existence' I should find myself soon after that time.
If something bad happens that undoes what you've tried, then that sucks. But you have to hope for the world where not everything goes wrong (preferably you'll need to hope less and less, and have a say more and more). You must believe that, under some post-effortful condition, how it is that you've enabled yourself really does make you more capable of good than before.
If **** happens, then be a person who had done, at all times, the best of what his own condition could have allowed him.
In your example it's not the case, but let's say you try something and this actually causes something worse to happen. Then that is what you knew. If you were unwise to see what you should have seen, in the room for error in your own plans, then you have found out now a foolishness in yourself (and a skill to work on), and that can only be for your own good. I don't see how it is good, even in a character-virtue model of morality, to sit on, self-doubtingly, one's untried faculties.
Do not merely accrue skills and speculations, but be something that acts as the thing it is, puts into the world the unique efforts which its existence (and own askesis) has made it capable of, and allow reality to scrutinize and history to make its judgments.
You certainly can't, and shouldn't; but you must bring to bear the fullness of your moral knowledge alongside your factual knowledge.
Of course, but that's just my issue. I know evil succeeds when good people do nothing, and what I have said is just what I have always interpreted this wisdom to mean for action.
Indeed, we learn by trial and error. And one of the fairly basic things we learn, if we are lucid thinkers, is that the further into the future we plan, the more revision our plans tend to undergo. There are too many unseen (and simply "un-seeable") variables.
So get better at winging it. Planning and coping both have a role and can equally incorporate knowledge, skill, and reason.
So I say: learn right from wrong; and then do what is good today for the sake of today, shun evil today for the sake of today, and deal with tomorrow when it gets here.
Clearly there's a problem with the extreme of that; just as surely what I have said must be tempered with the wisdom of knowing the limits of one's own knowledge. Of course in an infinitude of things, an infinitude of which don't cross my mind for just this reason, I just know too little, and know I know too little, to say that I would have any control over something that I attempted in that matter. But you aren't really going to say that I shouldn't think about the good of tomorrow. It's mysterious what you mean by the harm of doing drugs if you're not thinking even one day ahead.
And if you were being metaphorical... please, what precisely do you mean? How far ahead do you go, then? Does it "depend"? All I'm saying is allowing yourself to be sensitive to the context to your fullest extent that you can manage, and having the ... what is it, not authenticity exactly but... well the hope, and the striving, that you can make good choices, and become a thing which is more successful at seeing them out.
Settling in your way is... an end to that improvement.
*in my better judgment. You know we atheists have a rather drab view of dying.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Epic banner by Erasmus of æтђєг.
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
There's a drug cartel in Columbia. They control the growth of cocaine. So clearly, their wealth would come from selling cocaine. Right?
So in the US, where buying and selling of cocaine is illegal, and therefore dangerous and limiting, we would weaken this cartel if we made the buying and selling of cocaine not dangerous and not limiting.
Yeah, you've got me sold... All we have to do is rent them some freighters to carry the stuff and we've just about destroyed them.
In your "following of his logic", you are ignoring some basic factors of economics. When they become legalized, more people will begin making them because the price is so high. This increase in supply will cause the overall price to fall dramatically (even if there is an initial spike in demand due to more people wanting to try them). With the fall in price drug lords (to use your example) in Colombia can't be as profitable as they previously were. Its not just going to be a small drop either, the price reduction will be massive.
Since these Colombian drug lords are no longer the sole supplier for many users there overall power will drop. They don't have singular control over the supply and don't have as many people depending on them (monoply to a perfect competition situation). This combined with less profits will make drug lords drastically less powerful.
To the Op: I think that it is morally wrong. Users are creating the demand, and without the demand there is no market. Now one person one way or the other isn't going to hurt the drug cartels, but if everyone thought that one person could make a difference then everyone would stop. I think you have to do the best you can morally, and hope that others do too. (I hope that makes sense, I'm kind of tired right now :P).
When you're dealing with legal substances, you can call the police if someone robs your store or kills one of your workers. Legit business practices naturally push out most of the vice associated with organized crime.
Then it sucks you didn't foresee, or maybe just neither of us could stop, my early demise. But you were attempting something; you were attempting something with what I believe to be reasonable hope, that you would succeed, rather than wait, good-willingly but passively, 'til the wind knock me over. You were trying, and surely I was acting, to help me, but if it's over in nine years, then let's take stock of what I got done in mine plus nine years and that is the measure of me - and for you, I tell you surely I would not revile you for that effort on my deathbed*, or from the view of any hypothetical, locally panoptic 'soul-existence' I should find myself soon after that time.
I think you've missed the spirit of what I was saying.
Perhaps a doctor detects a tumor in a patient and the patient undergoes a painful operation to remove it, the intention being to prolong his life. And then a month later, he dies in a car crash anyway. Clearly it was right to perform the surgery; for even though all it accomplished in essence was to cause discomfort and pain, it cannot be qualified as a "cruelty" because its motive was good and (this is key) was known to be good by the patient. This is a far cry from me going up to you, punching you in the face and breaking your nose, and saying cryptically, "Trust me, you'll thank me for this later."
If **** happens, then be a person who had done, at all times, the best of what his own condition could have allowed him.
In your example it's not the case, but let's say you try something and this actually causes something worse to happen. Then that is what you knew. If you were unwise to see what you should have seen, in the room for error in your own plans, then you have found out now a foolishness in yourself (and a skill to work on), and that can only be for your own good. I don't see how it is good, even in a character-virtue model of morality, to sit on, self-doubtingly, one's untried faculties.
I question what you mean by "untried faculties." I certainly do wonder, from time to time, whether I could get away with a bank robbery; but I have no desire to put the relevant faculties to the test. If you're talking just about intellectual faculties, then I don't see how you should need to attempt a given action in order to accept, beyond a reasonable doubt, that its consequences will be negative or positive. Certainly we can all accept that murder is wrong without having to prove it to ourselves experimentally? Experimentation is useful to discernment in areas that are morally gray, of course; although the rigorous application of logic will reveal that the morally gray area is smaller than it's often taken to be.
Do not merely accrue skills and speculations, but be something that acts as the thing it is, puts into the world the unique efforts which its existence (and own askesis) has made it capable of, and allow reality to scrutinize and history to make its judgments.
Doesn't this happen inevitably? Or at least we all act, if not as the things we truly are, then as the things that we believe ourselves to be.
Of course, but that's just my issue. I know evil succeeds when good people do nothing, and what I have said is just what I have always interpreted this wisdom to mean for action.
Of course! I've been saying, "Do good!" And I've been saying, "Don't do evil as a means to good!" Bear in mind that, interference or non-interference by the good aside, evil succeeds by convincing people that it will have agood outcome. The Nazis didn't become mass-murderers for the sake of murder, but as a means to a hypothesized glorious future.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
There's a drug cartel in Columbia. They control the growth of cocaine. So clearly, their wealth would come from selling cocaine. Right?
So in the US, where buying and selling of cocaine is illegal, and therefore dangerous and limiting, we would weaken this cartel if we made the buying and selling of cocaine not dangerous and not limiting.
Yeah, you've got me sold... All we have to do is rent them some freighters to carry the stuff and we've just about destroyed them.
Your logic argument should apply to the mob example of prohibition as well... right? Oh woops.
The fact is that when legalized big business takes over, the drug cartels could never possibly compete if their drugs were legalized. You don't think the second cocaine became legal the cigarette companies would jump on the cocaine producing bandwagon?
Yes, I am saying the cartels would be non-existent in their current form if their drugs were legalized. The big moral dilemma of all the murder/crime/etc would be pointless and unneeded. You don't see these issues with alcohol and tobacco, but you WOULD if they were illegal.
... Or, is it the government's fault for making the drugs illegal, and thus the profitable purview of illegal organizations which otherwise would not be able to hide in the shadows and carry on socially destructive behaviors to anywhere like the same extent?
The assassin hit the nail on the head with a loud ping. Making something illegal creates criminals where there should be none, or at least, few. I blame the guvment. Does that make anyone who voted for these law makers/enforcers guilty too. Boy, what a vicious cycle....
Think of it this way: If you didn't buy magic cards would Wizards stop selling magic cards? If you yourself stopped, no, because many other people would continue to buy and play magic. However, if people as a whole stopped purchasing magic then wizards would not be able to sell their product and would no longer find it profitable to do so.
To return to the point at hand, if you yourself stopped buying drugs nothing would stop. It is indeed the fault of society itself. As long as we live in a society where drugs are used by people --which it will be forever-- then drugs become profitable.
When profit is to be made it always will. Are you doing something immoral? Yes. Will stopping it do any good? No.
On the topic of legalizing drugs that will only shift drugs from criminals to big corporations who are often times worse than criminals. Don't think chains like Marlbaro are any better than criminals. Sure their methods are different but it still promotes similar travesties in the world.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Shouldn't this thread then be called, "The Ethics of Rocks"?
I'm going to have to go with the Lucky Horseshoe on this on this one.
Seeing the effects of your actions is called being responsible.
Let's follow this logic here.
There's a drug cartel in Columbia. They control the growth of cocaine. So clearly, their wealth would come from selling cocaine. Right?
So in the US, where buying and selling of cocaine is illegal, and therefore dangerous and limiting, we would weaken this cartel if we made the buying and selling of cocaine not dangerous and not limiting.
Yeah, you've got me sold... All we have to do is rent them some freighters to carry the stuff and we've just about destroyed them.
No you didn't. You said you are only as responsible as you want to be. Your argument only had one layer.
I see now what you're trying to say here, but it took a bit. You need to work on choosing your words and grammar carefully to prevent further misunderstanding. Adding an "and" after the first comma would have helped a lot; the current wording implies that not feeling responsible causes you to not contribute to violence.
Yeah, I understand where thats coming from. It was a grammatical error, I meant to have a third point so I went with a comma instead of and, but half way through writing the sentence I decided to cut the last part out, and I didn't go back and fix it.
Then it sucks you didn't foresee, or maybe just neither of us could stop, my early demise. But you were attempting something; you were attempting something with what I believe to be reasonable hope, that you would succeed, rather than wait, good-willingly but passively, 'til the wind knock me over. You were trying, and surely I was acting, to help me, but if it's over in nine years, then let's take stock of what I got done in mine plus nine years and that is the measure of me - and for you, I tell you surely I would not revile you for that effort on my deathbed*, or from the view of any hypothetical, locally panoptic 'soul-existence' I should find myself soon after that time.
If something bad happens that undoes what you've tried, then that sucks. But you have to hope for the world where not everything goes wrong (preferably you'll need to hope less and less, and have a say more and more). You must believe that, under some post-effortful condition, how it is that you've enabled yourself really does make you more capable of good than before.
If **** happens, then be a person who had done, at all times, the best of what his own condition could have allowed him.
In your example it's not the case, but let's say you try something and this actually causes something worse to happen. Then that is what you knew. If you were unwise to see what you should have seen, in the room for error in your own plans, then you have found out now a foolishness in yourself (and a skill to work on), and that can only be for your own good. I don't see how it is good, even in a character-virtue model of morality, to sit on, self-doubtingly, one's untried faculties.
Do not merely accrue skills and speculations, but be something that acts as the thing it is, puts into the world the unique efforts which its existence (and own askesis) has made it capable of, and allow reality to scrutinize and history to make its judgments.
Of course, but that's just my issue. I know evil succeeds when good people do nothing, and what I have said is just what I have always interpreted this wisdom to mean for action.
So get better at winging it. Planning and coping both have a role and can equally incorporate knowledge, skill, and reason.
Clearly there's a problem with the extreme of that; just as surely what I have said must be tempered with the wisdom of knowing the limits of one's own knowledge. Of course in an infinitude of things, an infinitude of which don't cross my mind for just this reason, I just know too little, and know I know too little, to say that I would have any control over something that I attempted in that matter. But you aren't really going to say that I shouldn't think about the good of tomorrow. It's mysterious what you mean by the harm of doing drugs if you're not thinking even one day ahead.
And if you were being metaphorical... please, what precisely do you mean? How far ahead do you go, then? Does it "depend"? All I'm saying is allowing yourself to be sensitive to the context to your fullest extent that you can manage, and having the ... what is it, not authenticity exactly but... well the hope, and the striving, that you can make good choices, and become a thing which is more successful at seeing them out.
Settling in your way is... an end to that improvement.
*in my better judgment. You know we atheists have a rather drab view of dying.
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
In your "following of his logic", you are ignoring some basic factors of economics. When they become legalized, more people will begin making them because the price is so high. This increase in supply will cause the overall price to fall dramatically (even if there is an initial spike in demand due to more people wanting to try them). With the fall in price drug lords (to use your example) in Colombia can't be as profitable as they previously were. Its not just going to be a small drop either, the price reduction will be massive.
Since these Colombian drug lords are no longer the sole supplier for many users there overall power will drop. They don't have singular control over the supply and don't have as many people depending on them (monoply to a perfect competition situation). This combined with less profits will make drug lords drastically less powerful.
To the Op: I think that it is morally wrong. Users are creating the demand, and without the demand there is no market. Now one person one way or the other isn't going to hurt the drug cartels, but if everyone thought that one person could make a difference then everyone would stop. I think you have to do the best you can morally, and hope that others do too. (I hope that makes sense, I'm kind of tired right now :P).
I think you've missed the spirit of what I was saying.
Perhaps a doctor detects a tumor in a patient and the patient undergoes a painful operation to remove it, the intention being to prolong his life. And then a month later, he dies in a car crash anyway. Clearly it was right to perform the surgery; for even though all it accomplished in essence was to cause discomfort and pain, it cannot be qualified as a "cruelty" because its motive was good and (this is key) was known to be good by the patient. This is a far cry from me going up to you, punching you in the face and breaking your nose, and saying cryptically, "Trust me, you'll thank me for this later."
I question what you mean by "untried faculties." I certainly do wonder, from time to time, whether I could get away with a bank robbery; but I have no desire to put the relevant faculties to the test. If you're talking just about intellectual faculties, then I don't see how you should need to attempt a given action in order to accept, beyond a reasonable doubt, that its consequences will be negative or positive. Certainly we can all accept that murder is wrong without having to prove it to ourselves experimentally? Experimentation is useful to discernment in areas that are morally gray, of course; although the rigorous application of logic will reveal that the morally gray area is smaller than it's often taken to be.
Doesn't this happen inevitably? Or at least we all act, if not as the things we truly are, then as the things that we believe ourselves to be.
Of course! I've been saying, "Do good!" And I've been saying, "Don't do evil as a means to good!" Bear in mind that, interference or non-interference by the good aside, evil succeeds by convincing people that it will have a good outcome. The Nazis didn't become mass-murderers for the sake of murder, but as a means to a hypothesized glorious future.
Your logic argument should apply to the mob example of prohibition as well... right? Oh woops.
The fact is that when legalized big business takes over, the drug cartels could never possibly compete if their drugs were legalized. You don't think the second cocaine became legal the cigarette companies would jump on the cocaine producing bandwagon?
Yes, I am saying the cartels would be non-existent in their current form if their drugs were legalized. The big moral dilemma of all the murder/crime/etc would be pointless and unneeded. You don't see these issues with alcohol and tobacco, but you WOULD if they were illegal.
- Enslaught
The assassin hit the nail on the head with a loud ping. Making something illegal creates criminals where there should be none, or at least, few. I blame the guvment. Does that make anyone who voted for these law makers/enforcers guilty too. Boy, what a vicious cycle....
To return to the point at hand, if you yourself stopped buying drugs nothing would stop. It is indeed the fault of society itself. As long as we live in a society where drugs are used by people --which it will be forever-- then drugs become profitable.
When profit is to be made it always will. Are you doing something immoral? Yes. Will stopping it do any good? No.
On the topic of legalizing drugs that will only shift drugs from criminals to big corporations who are often times worse than criminals. Don't think chains like Marlbaro are any better than criminals. Sure their methods are different but it still promotes similar travesties in the world.