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Greetings:<br><br>
I promised a lecture on utilitarianism and morality, but I said that I
did not have time. Since someone without a clue is harassing me,
I'll do the lecture in small units.<br><br>
Before I get to the issue at hand, I need to repeat an essential moral
point about abortion. One cannot make a moral equivalence between
aborting a fetus and killing innocent persons unless the fetus is a
person. As I have repeated too many times on this list, our moral,
legal, and religious traditions have not recognized that the fetus is a
person until late in pregnancy. Until our respected traditions are
changed with good reasons and the laws are revised, abortion is the
taking a human life (equivalent to other mammalian lives), not the murder
of a human person. For more see
<a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/abortion.htm" eudora="autourl">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/abortion.htm</a>.<br><br>
As one who respects all life, I would not want any woman to request an
abortion unless there are very good reasons to do so. But I would
respect her right to do so under the law, and a I certainly would not
want anyone to condemn her for murdering a person, because the early
fetus is not a person. Remember that 91 percent of abortions are
performed during the first trimester.<br><br>
As to the alleged moral value of expedient acts, let me just refute it by
a simple example. Let's say that someone attacks me and is
threatening my life. Let's also say that I am armed and that I kill
my attacker. Killing persons violates basic morality. I have
committed a wrong and I would feel terribly guilty about it, and if I
were a religious person I would seek repentance for my act. (Actually,
unbelievers can also repent in their own ways.) The fact that the law
would clear me because it was a justified killing in self-defense does
not in any way remove the moral fact that I've done wrong.<br><br>
Let's say that I'm watching a Vandal game with Tom Hansen in my backroom.
Let's also say that a homicidal maniac comes to door armed with an AK-47
and handguns. The maniac says that he has read Tom's posts on V2020
and that he deserves to die. He also says that he has good
information that Tom is at my house. I quickly make up a big fat
lie and say that Tom is not at my house and was never my friend.
Somehow I convince him and the brute goes away.<br><br>
Under a duty or rule based ethics, I again would have to say that I broke
the rule about truth telling. Expediency made me break that rule,
but I broke it nonetheless. Lying to save a friend's life is an
expedient act, but it has no moral value. Again, as a person with
conscience, I would repent of my actions.<br><br>
This example, I believe, shows the superiority of virtue ethics.
Honest people have developed a strong disposition to tell the
truth. This moral habit is a virtue. The fact that this
unusual situation has forced me to tell a lie does not make me a
liar. Far from it: after this ordeal I immediately return to my
habit of truth telling. Rule based ethics would say that I have
broken a rule, but virtue ethics says that virtues are supreme and that
moral imperatives and moral prohibitions are simply abstractions from the
virtues and the vices respectively.<br><br>
Let me now repeat my point. The saturation bombing of Germany and
Japan may have been an expedient act to win military victory. But
in no way was it a moral act.<br><br>
I've known Larry Johnston, the UI physicist who designed the trigger for
the atomic bomb, ever since I arrived in Moscow 34 years ago. He is
a good man and a devout Christian. In all the public pronouncements
on his part in the atomic bombing of Japan, I've never heard him say that
he was sorry. I've never had the courage ask him personally, but I
hope that the next time he's interviewed he will finally express some
remorse. <br><br>
Using evil means to justify a desired end can be called "good"
only if you are crass utilitarian who holds that as long as there is
50.0000000001 percent more hedons (units of pleasure) than dolors (units
of pain) in your actions, then you are acting morally.<br><br>
I once saw a great utilitarian maxim in a bathroom stall on the 3rd Floor
UI Admin. Building. It said: "A long war is a small price to
pay for eternal peace." This is theological utilitarianism
gone wacko, but here is the hedonic calculus: eternal life for the
righteous victors represents an infinite number of hedons and it will
always trump any possible number of dolors committed in the name of the
righteous war on earth. So let us all join the fundamentalists of
our choice and kill all the unbelievers because "a long war for God
is a small price to pay for eternal peace." Reductio ad
absurdum.<br><br>
Sorry, but I just discovered that I can't do anything in "small
units." This is the end of my lecture on ethics.<br><br>
Nick Gier<br><br>
Your life is a test. If this were a real life, you would have been
given proper directions. <br><br>
And please don't tell me that proper directions are found in the Koran,
the Bhagavad-gita, or the Bible! In the Gita Krishna advised Arjuna
that it was OK to kill his relatives on the other side, because nothing
he or anyone does can touch the eternal soul. Arjuna then led his
troops into a battle that, if we believe the reports, caused the largest
number of causalities in the history of warfare. Onward Religious
Warriors!<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Nick suggests that an expedient
means of ending a war, and thus saving <br>
potentially tens of thousands of American lives, cannot fairly be
regarded <br>
as a moral act.<br><br>
Fascinating!<br><br>
Have a pleasant weekend ya'all. -T<br>
----- Original Message ----- <br>
From: <nickgier@adelphia.net><br>
To: <vision2020@moscow.com><br>
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 2:38 PM<br>
Subject: [Vision2020] Why the Nagasaki Bombin and Why So Soon
After?<br><br>
<br>
> Greetings:<br>
><br>
> There is credible evidence that the main reason for the Nagasaki
bombing <br>
> was to test a different type of bomb. I don't have the details
or <br>
> references at my finger tips, but they are available.<br>
><br>
> Furthermore, when I have time I want to lecture the list about the
moral <br>
> failings of utilitarianism, the only "moral" theory that
can conclude that <br>
> the ends justify the means, and theory that has been used quite a
bit by <br>
> at least two on this list.<br>
><br>
> I believe that the atomic bombing of Japan, just as any conventional
<br>
> bombing of populated centers, can have no moral justification at
all. It <br>
> can be justified as only an expedients means to a desired end and
nothing <br>
> more than that.<br>
><br>
> Nick Gier<br>
><br>
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> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.<br>
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>
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> =======================================================<br>
><br>
> <br><br>
<br>
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List services made available by First Step Internet, <br>
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
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<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=2>"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the
application of it to human affairs."<br>
--Ralph Waldo Emerson<br><br>
"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings
who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."<br>
--Mohandas Gandhi<br><br>
"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot
be discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each
part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on
the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our
intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science,
religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its
various parts." --Ma</font><font size=1>x Planck<br><br>
</font>Nicholas F. Gier<br>
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho<br>
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843<br>
<a href="http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm" eudora="autourl">http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm</a><br>
208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950<br>
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO<br>
<a href="http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm" eudora="autourl">http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm</a><br><br>
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