I take “morally neutral” to mean the same as what you mean here by “amoral.”
In my last post I showed that this means the dog’s behavior is reconcilable with morality: It is compatible with conformity to moral law. Nothing a dog does makes it the case that moral law has been broken.
-FrL-
I can picture is the Men on Film skit off “In Living Color”.
I’m going to make an arelevant comment and say to Grossbottom: that was awesome.
Ah, OK, thanks.
I stay away from GD for this very reason and so probably won’t read the linked thread. But I am glad it spilled over into here so I could read that beautiful smack down by Grossbottom.
I especially liked the “Don’t tap dance for me cocksucker, because I got a tv.”
That was a real taint painter.
Boy, is my thumb not on the pulse of the SDMB. Here I came in to post something about how I could possibly have managed to miss such a gigantic ass for several years, and am surprised to find a Grossbottom Cheerleader Squad.
I’m at least in the margin of the intended area of effect of Grossbottom’s wrath, and yet even I could not but appreciate the skill on display in that post.
(But this does not prevent me from recognizing that Grossbottom is fundamentally wrong about the issue under discussion, and also, that Grossbottom has been behaving in an inappropriately unpleasant fashion. (Not talking about his pit post–that was totally appropriate and well done.))
-FrL-
Credit where credit is due, man. I don’t know either of the players or what they are fighting about or who is right but that smackdown was a thing of beauty. Granted if GB is full of shit and talking out of his ass it would detract from my appreciation so for that reason I will not even read the thread which inspired it. I would not want a piece of poetry ruined by reality.
No, no, your problem is using your thumb to take the pulse. I’m told the thumb can’t be used because you’ll feel your own pulse in it rather than …
sorry. I forgot this was the Pit.
See “reason for editing”.
Troll? GomiBoy hasn’t been back and Grossbottom didn’t start the thread.
I read some of his recent posts, as well as his “response” to me.
Regards,
Shodan
I have to say that my rendering of “is irreconcilable with” is a lot closer to Grossbottom’s use than GomiBoy’s.
To say that x is irreconcilable with y does not (to me) mean that x is also irreconcilable with anti-y. So to say that war is irreconcilable with morality would not necessarily mean that war is also irreconcilable with immorality. But it could mean that, that’s one viable and reasonable way in which war could be irreconcilable with immorality, and therefore it would be entirely incorrect to conclude from the statement Grossbottom made, “war is irreconcilable with morality”, that Grossbottom had essentially asserted that war is inevitably immoral.
I would say that coercion as an organizing principle is irreconcilable with morality, but it is entirely reconcilable, and compatible, with the heights of evil and worst of moral transgression.
One could say that existentialism and social determinist theory is irreconcilable with morality also, but are equally irreconcilable with immorality and anything else pertaining to “good” or “evil” or value judgments in general, because at their heart they declare that all such things are artifacts of social location and “history” and do not in fact exist, that only notions of them actually do so. That doesn’t prevent someone else from reconciling the matter differently, and concluding that this very thing makes existentialism and social determinism immoral, but you certainly can’t conclude from the original statement that the person who said these things were irreconcilable with morality therefore believes that they are immoral.
GomiBoy, in continuing to go after Grassbottom for an accounting re: “war is immoral”, is in no position to declare Grassobttom to be “distracting the thread”.
Shodan, on the other hand, has asked a reasonable question which is not a reiteration of the same, and it was not answered.
Then I understand you to be saying that “war is irreconcilable with morality” means either “war is immoral” or “war is amoral”. Fair enough.
Then would it be correct to say that you believe that coercion as an organizing principle is immoral?
If Grossbottom had said that war was irreconcilable with morality and with immorality, that would have been clearer. But he seems to taken a position, and then either realized it was untenable, or realized he got a reaction by refusing to defend it.
He isn’t responding in any substantive sense, which leads me to conclude that the reaction is what he prefers. Hence, bridge-dweller.
Regards,
Shodan
That would be correct.
That would also be correct. I’m a fairly consistent anarchist.
Pretty much just harping on the one note, that GomiBoy is wrong in interpreting his “irreconcilable” post. You invited him to move on to elaborating on “war is amoral” (as an alternative formulation to “irreconcilable with morality”) but there has been no response yet.
I told you to attack it. I can’t defend what isn’t attacked, and so far all that’s been attacked is my use of the word irreconcilable. Well, that and my character, mostly by you, who appears to enjoy standing at the back of the room observing that I do not defend my position and not saying anything else to which I can respond. You do understand that I cannot defend against an attack you aren’t willing to make, don’t you?
We’ll make this is easy as possible for you, and I shall use a smaller word though I originally decided against its use (and we can all see how that turned out). My stance is that all war is and ever has been amoral, where amoral is articulated and illutrated very well by Contrapuntal’s contributions herein. And lest you succumb to the baser instincts of certain of your subforum cohabitants, we shall in anticipation of such a lapse define war as:
Main Entry: war
Pronunciation: \ˈwȯr\
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
1 a (1): a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations.
Attack, defend. Yes? You know this, yes? Good boy, go now, your turn.
Can I play? I’d actually like some clarification…
Generally when we say something is amoral, moral, or immoral, we mean it is one of those things for someone. For example “it is immoral for you as an individual to participate in that war as a soldier”, which is a different assertion (although not irreconcilably different, heh heh) than “that war should not be happening and therefore it is immoral for you as an individual to fail to participate in efforts to bring it to a halt”. And different yet to assert “it is immoral for us as a species to engage in wars”, as if the immorality thereof fell upon us all collectively (even perhaps the 2 year olds in the Kalahari desert who don’t know of war’s existence).
In saying “war is amoral” (or irreconcilable with morality), would you be asserting that an individual’s participation, lack of participation, active refusal to participate, and/or active participation in efforts to end (a) war are all actions that cannot be assessed in moral terms? Or is it more of a collective/aggregate assertion, that war, as an endeavor in which Society engages (and individuals’ behavior is meaningful primarily as a local manifestation of an organized collecive action, quite different from Joe shooting Bob in the parking lot of the bar), cannot be assessed in moral terms? If the latter, is it specifically because morality is a concept applicable to the actions of individuals and that war is not an individual activity? Or is it because the effects of war on individuals runs the gamut?
In short, care to elaborate on the basis by which you have reached this conclusion? I’m curious to see if I agree with you or not.
It is a reasonable question, but it is a hijack in either thread*. Dudes are perfectly free to ignore an invitation to a hijack. In my mind, insisting that another member go along with your hijack is jerkish behaviour.
Now, if Shodan needed an answer, he could start a thread in GD asking that very question of one and all, including ** Grossbottom **(and I must give kudos to Grossbottom for that post above. A masterpiece!) Shodan’s question is an interesting one, but not directly germane to either thread.
*The original thread was **“Politicians keep bringing up “The Draft.” Would people even go if conscripted?” **Although some discussion of the morality of war is germane, the thread is not “Can War ever be moral?” which I believe we have debated before- to no end.
Yes, but I’d like to hear from Shodan first so he doesn’t just leech his way into a non-debate discussion and lurk in the corner, sniping away while not actually putting himself on the podium.
Shodan? I’m waiting to defend my position. I suspect you won’t actually have the integrity to retract the troll comments, so I’ll just assume come the end of the day that you scurried off into your hole.
Really? Surprises me considering you write like a retarded cheerleader with tourettes. Clearly, starting a thread where the title, as well as first post, say ‘explain yourself or don’t, I don’t care’ and inviting you to join it by saying ‘I don’t care’ mean that I actually really do care, and will cry and weep and run away if it doesn’t go my way.
On with your idiotic attempt to justify your truly asinine behaviour:
Not the question and you damn well know it. Amoral / irreconcilable with morality / immoral is the question.
And now you’re lying. What a surprise – when one’s intellectual quiver is empty, all that’s left is imagination which you’ve cleary got. You imagine you can write and can read, which clearly ain’t true, then insult others. Really mature, really smart.
Sorry, wrong again. I didn’t keep arguing because I have a life outside of this board. Unlike you, I don’t get my gratification and personal value from a message board full of total strangers or run away crying when they don’t unanimously agree with me.
Misattribute? asked you three times what the hell you were talking about, since clearly I wasn’t the only one who thought you were completely full of shit. And unlike you, actually stayed polite and pleasant. Until you insulted me personally, and then I got a little frosty. Then I started this here thread so I could continue to be polite in the appropriate forum but allow you to show just what you really are. So bravo, chap, good show – you’ve shown quite clearly what kind of pathetic loser you really are.
Wow, what’s the weather like on your planet? I quoted you, exactly, twice, and provided a quote that exactly contradicted you from a mainline source; I even allowed you an additional chance to explain your views, as did Shodan – you didn’t answer either one of us. Your weak verbal debate skills didn’t exactly reduce me to tears, sunshine. I’m a bit stronger than that, and clearly a better person than you are.
You’re awful tough behind your keyboard to a total stranger you pathetic little whiner.
Nope, wrong again. I understood perfectly. You waffled when you realized you’d screwed up and made an indefensible statement. Since then you’ve been dogpaddling better than most, but you’re still waging a battle of wits whilst quite unarmed.
You first. You’re the one who started with the personal insults, when anyone dared to disagree with your idiotic premise in Great Debates of all possible places – who’da thunk people in a place called Great Debates might want to debate things? You’re the asshole here, not me. Act as if you’ve got any guts at all and we’ll go from there. Hell, I didn’t even insult you in the pit thread until you started it – kind shows just how pathetic you really are you useless little waste of oxygen and minerals.
Wow, on with the insults. Scary stuff, coming from an anonymous stranger who can’t explain a simple point without lapsing into idiotic behavior worthy of a five year old pitching a fit in a supermarket because mommy won’t buy them candy. Now let’s count up here
1 – You can’t explain your point
2 – You insult anyone who disagrees with you
3 – You say they’re tapdancing to distract from your own pathetic attempts to backpaddle from your own indefensible statements
4 – You hate Great Debates because people actually debate there, sometimes for months, on topics which they find interesting which you clearly do not,
Here’s an idea – DON’T GO SOMEWHERE WHEN YOU DON’T LIKE IT THERE. If you don’t fit in with what you call the pretentious brain trust as you call it, then don’t try so hard to join it. Go spit your vitriol and self-justification to someone who cares, sparky – I sure don’t.
I do believe the jury’s still out precious. All your tap dancing to the contrary doesn’t mean shit, and you post certainly ain’t your site. Your contention, you fucking prove it.
I don’t need, want, or care about your love any more than I care about the ridiculous vitriol spewing from your juvenile and idiotic mouth.
You’re wrong, you know you’re wrong, you attacked me three times for no reason in Great Debates, got cautioned twice, to distract from the fact you’re wrong, talk like a retarded cheerleader, and clearly have your head so far up your ass that you can see daylight from your ears. You can’t answer a simple question, you can’t explain yourself, and you certainly don’t have any justification for your assholic behavior.
So who gets the snaps in the circle now you pathetic little hack?