I pit the statement from the US Embassy in Cairo

The BBQ Pit
421

There are a lot of fine distinctions here that I was afraid to bring up or sort through.

Accountable implies somebody else is holding me accountable. This would occur if I had managerial authority for example.

Taking responsibility implies that I’m not fobbing off moral ownership on somebody else. If somebody forces me at gunpoint to litter, I might not take responsibility for littering. But say I’m in a crowd surrounding 2 angry men and I start chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” I wouldn’t say I am responsible for the forthcoming fisticuffs. I am however responsible for my own behavior, which objectively increased the probability of fisticuffs, which can have real consequences.

So taking responsibility means I am not redirecting blame.

Utilitarians such as myself take a broader than average view of responsibility. In fact, that’s a valid criticism of that particular moral system.

PS: Appropos nothing, the law has the concept of joint and several responsibility. So if 2 people sign a $1000 lease, person A is responsible that the entire sum gets paid, as is person B, as far as the landlord is concerned. The point being that responsibility for an incident doesn’t have to sum to one.

422

It’s a “fine distinction” kind of subject!

Okay. It means, basically, there is someone to whom you must give an account, someone who can demand at least a summary of what you did and why.

I basically see it, although I might be just a bit of a PITA and ask what “blame” means… Again, does it involve my being compelled to take any concrete action – pay a fine, issue an apology, even go to jail – or is it enough to say, “My bad, I accept the blame, I take responsibility,” etc.

(I’m old enough to remember Richard Nixon emphasizing the difference between taking responsibility and taking blame…)

I want to be an utilitarian; in my view, it is a very good second approximation to a moral system. (The Golden Rule is a pretty good first approximation.) I’ve never quite seen why Utilitarian ethics and morals are in disrepute in some philosophical circles.

My first introduction to these ideas was in a couple of books by Jonathan Glover, most notably “What Sort Of People Should There Be” and “Causing Death and Saving Lives.” He has the knack of writing simply and understandably about these titanically complex ideas.

423

Avoiding the former led to quite a bit of the latter in his case.

424

Nope. You’re falling into the common error of thinking that agreeing with terrorist assholes about anything is the same thing as appeasing terrorist assholes.

But they’re not the same. Appeasement is making concessions that you would not ordinarily be willing to make simply because you’re afraid of some thugs hurting you.

That doesn’t apply in this case. I think it’s just fine to condemn deliberately offensive religious bigotry no matter who is or isn’t pissed off by it. And I think it’s fine if our government officials condemn it in the name of our country, too. That’s not appeasement.

At the risk of throwing you into even more of an incoherent frenzy, common sense and respect for truth require us to acknowledge that even terrorist assholes can be right about some things. The terrorist assholes are right if they say that the sun rises in the east, and they are right when they say that promulgating offensive and insulting religious bigotry is a dickish thing to do.

Where they’re wrong is in thinking that they or anybody else has the right to use violence as a response to that kind of dickishness.

425

You go righ on agreeing with them, then. Semantics and willful ignorance it is!

I’m sure any who may read this are welcoming you to their particular chapter of the assholes of the planet earth club with open arms, even as I type.

426

Next I suppose you’ll tell him to go back to Russia.

427

So… terrorists can never be right about anything? Is that what you’re saying?

428

Well, that’s kind of what you have to do when a terrorist asshole happens to be right about something.

If a terrorist asshole proclaims that 2+2=4, are you going to insist that the rest of us all have to say 2+2=5, so as not to “appease” the terrorist asshole?

429

No, only when they murder people. If bad math had anything to do with it.

I live in the real world.

Reality. Yeah, try it sometime. :wink:

430

Really?!? So if, say, a terrorist asshole with a math fixation happens to murder somebody in the name of his sacred principle that 2+2=4, you would insist that everybody else should say that 2+2=5?

Because otherwise they’d be “appeasing” a murderous terrorist asshole by agreeing with him that 2+2=4?

So do we all. But some of us don’t agree that “the real world” requires us to change or suppress our sincere beliefs and principles depending on what murderous terrorist assholes want us to do or say.

I think the Innocence of Muslims movie was a hateful piece of offensive bigoted crap that should never have been made. I also think that nobody has any right to use legal suppression, violence or threats of violence to try to infringe the free-speech right of the filmmakers to make such a movie, or to “punish” any Americans for the fact that our society supports that free-speech right.

I hold both those opinions irrespective of whether any murderous terrorist assholes agree or disagree with them.

Integrity of principle. Yeah, try it sometime. :wink:

431

Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs.

432

What you seem to be saying is you don’t mind appeasing terrorists if the feel-good factor leaves a principled taste in your mouth.

433

Exactly. I know a lot of decent people who hold pro-life views, who are appalled by anti-abortion terrorism. And, for my part, I know of cases where people have conducted terrorist acts backing principles that I actually do happen to share. For instance, I’m opposed to whaling, and oppose cruelty to animals – but the anti-whaling terrorists and PETA are crazed, violent lunatics. I agreed with some (not all!) of what the Unabomber said in his manifesto. (Much of it was unintelligible…)

It does sometimes happen that terrorists say things that good and decent people agree with. It complicates the situation horribly. We have to disclaim the means of expression, while guardedly admitting agreement with the message itself.

434

Tail between legs, I ran over to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Moral Responsibility

When a person performs or fails to perform a morally significant action, we sometimes think that a particular kind of response is warranted. Praise and blame are perhaps the most obvious forms this reaction might take. … Thus, to be morally responsible for something, say an action, is to be worthy of a particular kind of reaction—praise, blame, or something akin to these—for having performed it. Emphasis added. That’s their definition. They then contrast with other types of responsibility. …we might say that higher than normal rainfall in the spring is responsible for an increase in the amount of vegetation or that it is the judge’s responsibility to give instructions to the jury before they begin deliberating. In the first case, we mean to identify a causal connection between the earlier amount of rain and the later increased vegetation. In the second, we mean to say that when one assumes the role of judge, certain duties, or obligations, follow. Although these concepts are connected with the concept of moral responsibility discussed here, they are not the same, for in neither case are we directly concerned about whether it would be appropriate to react to some candidate (here, the rainfall or a particular judge) with something like praise or blame. Oddly, I think of it more in terms of blame than praise. When I take responsibility, I’m saying that I’ll take the blame for it, to the extent that blame is warranted. You are correct that this is distinct from, say, legal responsibility: the latter might have more concrete consequence.

Does one have a moral responsibility to take legal responsibility for an action? Probably. But whether one has a moral responsibility to suffer a concrete punishment for one’s wrongdoing is something that really needs to be discussed for a particular example. There may or may not be a rough and general rule, but I doubt whether there’s a single comprehensive principle.

435

What I’m actually saying is that sticking up for your own principles is not the same thing as appeasement.

Anybody who thinks they have to automatically do the opposite of whatever a terrorist wants, irrespective of what they themselves think is right, is merely letting terrorists push them around in reverse.

436

I am not calling you a liar. You agree that it is possible you jumped to a conclusion.

I am in the same boat as you in terms of looking for this picture: I have found nothing. If there is pictural evidence I have no doubt that someone with better internet-search chops than both of us put together would have it and would paste it loud-and-proud at the top of one of those online screeds decrying muslim atrocities. If it had appeared on CNN, it could not be suppressed without a vast organized conspiracy.

437

The medical examiner of Steven’s body, IIRC, stated that he died of smoke inhalation, and was dead before they got him into the car.

438

Others have already responded to this, but I think their general point, that this doesn’t actually clarify anything, is correct.

The point I’m trying to make is that it’s not just black and white. If you take all possible instances of “I said something, and then at least somewhat motivated by what I said, someone else did something violent and evil”, you won’t be able to confidently and clearly draw a nice bright line with “accountable” on one side and “not accountable” on the other, and never the twain shall meet.

I agree there are cases where clearly the speaker is NOT accountable. I agree there are cases where clearly the speaker IS accountable. But I also think there’s a big gradient in between. Sure there’s a line that is drawn legally, but that’s because legally there has to be a line. But saying that the legal definition of fighting words neatly and clearly divides all such situations into ethical and unethical is just as silly as arguing that not only is it illegal to take a photo of a 17-year-old-plus-364-days but legal to take a photo of an 18-year-old, that there’s actually a massive ethical difference between the two.

439

First, I’ve shown that your feelings of responsibility seem to be coming from another direction (other than speech).

The point I’m trying to make is that you’re making it more complicated that it really is and in the process come to a position that actually encourages more violence.

It IS black and white for the most part. Except in cases where there is an incitement to violence, the speaker is NOT responsible for any ensuing violence that comes out of the reaction to his speech. You assume too readily that people do not have even an iota of self-control to NOT be violent whenever presented with speech that they disagree with. For the most part, people have been more ready to think this of a not insignificant number of Muslims because they have behaved so appallingly in recent times. I want to stop this and lay the responsibility squarely on these barbarians as we all do for ANY OTHER GROUP OF PEOPLE in the world.

440

This is all good stuff…and thank you for citing it. Yet it still leaves me perplexed.

What if I’ve got an iron-clad ego, and don’t care for blame or praise?

This goes to another issue entirely, namely, the independent “reality” of ideas. In the good old American west, if someone called you a coward, well, you just had to get up and walk over to him and hit him. Code of the west.

But what about those of us who don’t care? Zeke says, “Yer a coward,” and I says, “I don’t pay much attention to what you think.”

Much of the discussion has involved the concept of “fighting words.” Well, what if I’m just not moved enough to fight? “Yer papa’s a n----- and yer mama’s a k------.” “Oh, you knew my parents? They never bothered to speak of you at all.”

So with responsibility. “This is your responsibility.” “Okay, let it be so. Now, move aside, would you, you’re blocking my view.”

What if one is philosophically devoid of this kind of idealism (or is it realism? I can never remember!) – the idea that words have a kind of intrinsic reality, and that being held to blame is, itself, a kind of punishment.

Obviously, all of these ruminations fail entirely when the blame is accompanied by concrete physical penalties. If I get pelted with mudballs every time I walk down the street, because, well, that’s what you do to cowards out here in Coltville, then the punishment is very real. But think, instead, of an environment like this, a discussion forum where words and only words are hurled.

I accept responsibility for this highjack… What are the consequences?

That sounds entirely reasonable. Ultimately, I guess it leads to the re-invention of a criminal code.

“If a man seeketh to park his oxcart, and another man quickly occupieth the place before he can do so, the aggrieved man may let the air out of the other man’s ox.” Tom Weller.