…over the years I have argued plenty with Octopus over the years, and I have found the same.
Exactly. If someone puts a gun to my head, and orders me to murder an innocent person, I know what I would like to say I would do, I know what I would probably do, and I am disappointed in myself that there is a large gap between them.
But no one really knows what they would do until actually confronted with such a situation.
I guess the question is, would Max turn in (or at best expel) the “fugitive” slave for fear of consequences to himself if he were to do otherwise, or because he believes it is moral to do so whether or not there would be consequences to himself, simply because the law might prohibit giving shelter to a slave? Does Max see a difference between the consequences to himself and morality?
Because I will admit to some sympathy for the proposition that one might do what the law demands (or refrain from doing what the law prohibits) for fear of the consequences in the alternative, even if it would be immoral, because reality often provides us with examples of our failure to act morally. I think it’s important to consider our own limitations, as it may help us to see how important it is to strive for a just society. One that will not put us in such places, having to deal with such moral quandaries, in the first place. (Eg: the only society in which one must contemplate the potential consequences of aiding a person the law treats as missing property versus the moral imperative against treating people as if they were mere property is one in which people can, under the law, be considered property, therefore we can sidestep such quandaries by simply writing the law such that people cannot in fact be viewed as mere property).
But I have no sympathy for the proposition that absolute adherence to the laws of “society” (whatever that is, whoever gets to decide who falls within it and who does not) is always moral (or at least never immoral).
I’ve been part of a sometimes violent (although not by me) insurrection against an oppressive state. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
I have less than zero tolerance for cowardice of the type Max is supposedly claiming (not that I believe anything he says, as he’s a troll). A landed White man helping a fugitive slave in 1850’s Vermont is not the same as someone with a gun to their head. It’s a useless comparison.
No, of course it’s not. And FWIW I don’t even see Max staking his claim on cowardice—on an understanding of his own moral limits—but on a belief that it would be genuinely wrong to go even so far as to shelter the human being for a night just because the law would brand that human being a slave, subject to the property rights of a purported “owner.”
ETA: But I’m one of those people who on the one hand is both confident it would be wrong to be a Nazi or even be totally silent with respect to Nazis taking over one’s country, and yet also unwilling to say with confidence, “If I had been a German in Germany in 1933-1945, I would not only have not been a Nazi, I would have given my life to fight the Nazis.” I don’t have sufficient information about my actual moral fortitude—my ability to act morally as I see it in the face of a powerful yet unambiguously immoral opposition—to say that for certain. I mean, I hope I would, but then I think there’s a danger to adopting that belief too readily. I think it has the potential to lead to the exact opposite effect in reality: to give one a false and unearned sense of security in their own moral courage to the point that when the state turns corrupt, rather than see the hazard to themselves head on (the hazard that the state may in turn corrupt or at least co-opt them), that the state isn’t really corrupt because if it were… well, gosh, they as a moral individual would have done something about it already. It’s like putting on a set on a set of blinders.
In short, I believe introspection on moral fortitude is important, but I don’t see that as the issue here with Max. I just see a deeply flawed moral system.
Pair this statement with Dr Deth in another thread conceding that the Nazis were “totally wrong”, and we can see that a moral revolution is occurring on the Dope. 
So, you’d be fine with your parents being imprisoned and executed for giving birth to you. Good to know.
Remember, when you say it’s OK to make something illegal, you are also advocating for punishing the people that do those things.
I hadn’t been following most of the threads Max_S has been posting on so I was not aware of what a pedantic legalistic impervious racist asshole he was until now, wholly demonstrated in this thread by himself and himself alone.
Thank you, Pitters.
I really don’t see how so many people can read this post – Pitting Max_S - #376 by Max_S – and continue to engage this sociopathic creep in conversation.
He has an equally idiotic misconception of language, that words have no objective meaning, that they mean nothing more nor less than the subjective intent of the specific speaker. What derives from that obviously stupid premise are a whole lot of stupid but stubborn conclusions that mean any engagement with him in any language thread (whether theoretical, or related to SDMB policy) is invariably confusing and counterproductive.
But it’s notable that both his legalistic view of morality expressed here and his stupid misconception of the nature of language converge on a conclusion that racism is okay.
Fighting misogyny - but "cunt" and "bitch" are still okay words - #114 by Max_S
(second half of the post, in response to @Irishman’s question)
Hey, he’s only skeptical of voting rights measures that benefit people of color. What’s so bad about that? I mean, he apparently doesn’t give two shits about the actual voting (anti-rights) measures that are being enacted and that appear calculated to deprive people of color of the right to vote. Perhaps those are okay to him because under the Constitution, before all those libruls (excuse me, radicals) got involved in mucking it up with things like the 14th amendment, neither Dred Scott nor any other person of color could ever be considered a legal person or “citizen” under the Constitution. According to that sort of originalist logic, it’s actually super moral for state legislatures to work ardently to deprive such people of the franchise because it’s getting back to the original intent of our slaveholding founders, don’t you know?
Hey, I’ve agreed with @DrDeth on some things, and disagreed on others. And he is often rigid in his arguments (something a lot of us share), but I never felt he was morally bankrupt. Wrong, sure, but so am I from time to time. Or just that we had very different views or priorities, so, yeah, being human. But again, never considered him evil or immoral.
Max on the other hand, this thread made me realize I did not know them at all, and what I have found I do not ever wish to associate with.
I’ve been wrestling with this exact moral quandary for the past couple of weeks, since my state will almost certainly ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned; trying to decide if I have the moral courage to risk prison to help a woman in crisis. I hope I do, but I don’t know how far I can screw my courage when it comes to the sticking point. All these discussions about the morality of helping a fugitive slave aren’t all that hypothetical, any more.
Were they ever? Again, there is always injustice in the world yet it seems that most do nothing more then complain about it. There are many opportunities to be that moral hero.
Well, I believe if Max were living in Nazi Germany, he’d be considered a half breed mongrel and a threat to racial purity.
And I’ve got this image of him yelling “I’m in the attic!”
In Max’s defense, his brutal honesty and admission of the real repercussions of using a highly flawed method of Constitutional interpretation in that thread is highly refreshing. He (correctly) points out the likely outcomes of using a method of Constitutional interpretation (if there is little to no respect for stare decisis by the court) such as “originalism” or “textualism” that other posters on this message board (including Shodan and Bricker) have advocated using. He’s brave enough to be honest about the results of adopting his method of Constitutional interpretation.
I don’t know what’s worse. Someone who is mistaken or deluded about the consequences of his views. Or someone who is a cold, heartless sociopath about them.
I vote for the second option.
It’s not brave to admit that if you had your way a lot of other people would suffer for it. It’s like somebody saying “this is going to hurt you a lot more than it will hurt me” right before they beat the shit out of you.
Agreed, he has ruthlessly deduced the logical implications of his premises.
The part he missing is that if a consequence of this kind of deductive process is (for example) the deduction that an atomic electron must spiral into the nucleus and disintegrate in 10^-14 seconds, then there is probably some flaw in the premises.