I can definitely see that.
As I said around post 475:
“ While I agree with nearly all the critiques of Max in this thread, perhaps we need to better define what we mean by “if you were a Vermonter in 1858,” or whatever.
What is this “YOU,” exactly? You as you are today, magically transported back in time? Or not at all — i.e., the same as saying “think of a Vermonter in 1858”? Or some blend?
It seems Max is treating this as a blend, and the rest of us are thinking of it as the first option. I have to agree with Max, that first option is pretty unhelpful for any debate (he didn’t say these words, but it’s how I see this discussion developing). There was NO ONE like a 2022 person then, with all that has happened and evolved (culturally) since.
It’s why John Brown (that very year) was so very, very, very exceptional. Even without all the Kansas and Harper’s Ferry events, his (failed) farm in New Elba, NY was utterly unique in how the black partners were treated entirely as equals. Emerson, Thoreau, and the like were nowhere close to this.
Which is to say…I find Max profoundly wrong, but I don’t think “what would you have done if you were (X person in X situation before around 1967)”-type questions are helpful in this thread.”
Except that there were quite a number of people in 1858 Vermont and even Mississippi, who did help slaves to escape. It doesn’t require a 2022 perspective to see that slavery was wrong, people back then got it, too.
And I already ripped this BS apart.
True. I still think it’s not the most helpful tool for conversing with Max (or anyone) in an effort to clarify each other’s, and our own, mental and moral structures.
We are not asking “what is a Vermonter of the era likely to do”, we are saying “what would your moral compass, as developed today, advise in that situation?”
I agree that discussing how we ought to feel about a Vermonter from the era should take that context into account. But just because someone’s action is understandable in context doesn’t mean that we cannot discuss whether the action itself, regardless of justification, was moral.
Turning in the slave is an immoral act. I can understand that a Vermonter from that era may take that act due to fear for his own safety (although as WE points out that fear is ill founded). That justification doesn’t change the underlying morality.
God, no. I agree. But there are much better tools and conversation pieces than these Back to the Future scenarios for elucidating the moral abyss at the core of this pitee’s frame of mind.
This sentence is nonsensical; moral justification determines the morality of an act. If you pretend there is no justification, the act is neither moral nor immoral, by definition.
~Max
…speaking of nonsensical sentences…
That one leads to the inescapable conclusion that immoral acts can be justified.
They can’t. That’s why they’re classified as immoral.
That said, I think both of you would have been better served by using the term rationalization.
I feel like there might be some muddling of justification vs. explanation/excuse (or purported justification).
Just because an explanation is put forward as if it were a justification for an act does not mean the act was actually justified, even if the explanation offered was actually true (not offered in bad faith).
So a farmer in 19th century Vermont might try to justify handing over a man that the law says should be treated as mere property by explaining that he acted in accordance with the law and he believes that makes his act justified, but I am not obliged to agree with him. I may nevertheless conclude that his purported justification is nothing of the sort, and he in fact acted immorally according to my standards.
After Max-scrolling my way through this, so far, I can’t help but stumble upon the odd Max quote box - often for relevance to the post I’m reading - and see, in particular, yeah, what a no-Jews-in-my-basement type this tone-deaf scoundrel-fuck is.
Aw yeah cool, so do I especially when “tell it like is” types like Mike Lindell and L Lin Wood stand unwaveringly behind their sometimes loudish pronouncements.
I’ll agree, but I’ll say it’s more of a freakingly obvious than reasonable position (well, sure - still that) for the mods to take, if I may proffer.
Well said, and is the exact reason why once in a while I’ll take it up with some poopyhead I think is trolling or just being jerkish. Or why I might post in this thread.
Indeed, good to keep in mind. The unreachables just sometimes need to be bull-shitted at, that’s all.
Retracted
I did a 21st century perspective here,
~Max
Turning over a human being to slave owners is unconscionable.
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Telling a runaway they can’t stay here isn’t turning them over. I would only turn them in if the personal consequences of letting them go made it necessary.
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Maybe What_Exit has a point. I had been assuming you don’t turn over runaway slaves to slave owners, but to a justice of the peace or sheriff or U.S. Marshalls or something.
~Max
What a strange moral framework.
Take murder. I think we can both agree that killing someone is, in general, wrong. There’s some measure by which we derive this from first principles - a utilitarian may say that killing is wrong because of the potential benefits to society the person you are killing could have provided; a devoutedly religious person might point at the 10 commandments; etc.
However you arrive at the conclusion that killing another human being is immoral, now consider the situation of self defense. How do you decide whether killing in self defense is justified?
You compare the two scenarios and what happens in each one. Again, the moral framework you use to evaluate the two scenarios is not really relevant here. The point is, if your moral framework justified self defense, it must weigh the damage done, the actions taken, and whatever else your framework finds relevant to determine which path is the better, more moral one.
Now, in my moral framework at least, the death of an assailant is a bad thing. That bad thing may be outweighed by potential harm to me, his status as the aggressor, etc etc. And so I may decide that lethal force against an assailant is justified. But that doesn’t change the fact that the act of killing is a morally negative one, even if in this case it is part of the most morally positive path forward, all things considered.
While I agree, that is a rule of thumb, a heuristic. Properly considered, an act truly devoid of any intention is a mere reflex with as much moral weight as an act of nature. And I have in the past written about the morality of a physical reflex which ends up killing people - I could dig up the post, but the gist of it is that I don’t believe you are culpable. That’s why there are lesser punishments for negligence; negligence is a different act.
For the purposes of decision making, morality is relative. If one choice is the most morally positive, it is the moral choice. And as I wrote above, you always have a choice. Even when you are “forced” by the circumstances to do a horrible thing, that means you think the circumstances justify (moralize) what would in other circumstances be an immoral act. To wit, if killing a person is the most morally positive choice, then killing that person becomes moral.
~Max
Yes, many a WWII German Jew was relieved that they were only turned in to the regular police and not the Gestapo.
Racist motherfucker also pretends to have no concept of regret, guilt or shame.
People do things they themselves consider immoral all the damn time. Morality isn’t the same as justification.
Yes, in cases of moral cowardice or hypocrisy; however, it cannot be immoral to make the best possible choice for the right reasons.
~Max