It’s not as immoral to me.
Yes, both of these statements are true.
Okay, but you said that you thought Bush’s war was not immoral at all (rather than just less immoral), due to the genuine although mistaken belief. Do you really believe that nothing can be immoral as long as the belief of the actor that the action will make things better, or is the morally right thing to do, is genuine?
So do you believe that the Iraq war was not immoral at all, or just less immoral than it would be were it undergone for non-genuine reasons (such as profit, or oil, or revenge, rather than defeating terrorists, or saving the Iraqi people)?
Well, my heavens. That sounds so… relative, morally speaking.
No, but your question doesn’t follow from what I said. Some actions are themselves genuine evil, and cannot be justified even if the actor believes that the action will make things better. But going to war isn’t such a case.
I think it’s possible for actions to be less or more immoral than other actions.
With respect to the Iraq War, my beliefs about its morality arise from my beliefs that certain factual predicates are in fact true – namely, that President Bush didn’t lie about his belief that there were chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in play, and that their use was imminent enough to justify armed attack.
This is, I hope you can see, NOT the same thing as saying that there were chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in play, and that their use was imminent enough to justify armed attack.
In other words, if Bush’s belief had been true, his actions would have been justified. For this reason, I don’t see his actions as immoral, nor do I see a colorable difference between “his actions” and “the war.” (For the limited purposes of this particular discussion, anyway).
Can we just skip the rest of this dopey thread and talk about this instead? Can you imagine that Sonics team with Scottie Pippen on the wing with Gary Payton and Nate McMillan? That would have been the best perimeter defensive team maybe of all time. I think they’ve have swallowed up even the Bulls once everybody got good.
I think I understand what you mean. I see Bush’s (and his team’s) lack of intellectual curiosity, lack of due diligence, dismissal of good input like that of General Shinseki, and unscientific insistence on looking for evidence to confirm their suspicions rather than looking for evidence of what was really occurring (all of these assertions are based on my understanding of what actually occurred in the lead up to the war), adding up to extreme negligence to the point of immorality.
I believe Bush genuinely believed what he said, but I also believe that he allowed himself to be fooled (and even fooled himself) – his lack of skepticism, and lack of due diligence to actually challenge his own biases and assumptions, were extremely immoral.
Do you disagree with it put this way?
Bear in mind that Bricker is a conservative Roman Catholic of a certain age, and therefore believes that one incident of oral sex is much worse than a war in which hundreds of thousands–mostly non-Catholics–died and which has destabilized the world for decades to come.
It all depends on if one was illegal and the other not strictly, provably illegal beyond reasonable doubt.
Yet he also believes that the war in Iraq was not immoral despite the Church finding it was, so he’s more than willing to reject the stance of the Catholic Church … when it fits his politics that is.
And add Shawn Kemp to the mix. You’re absolutely right – Seattle would have been every bit the powerhouse that Chicago was.
Yes, I disagree. I don’t agree that someone can accidentally or mistakenly commit an immoral act. I agree that the error arose from bias confirmation: the uncritical belief in information that matched preconceived bias and the high degree of scrutiny given to information that ran counter to preconceived bias. I don’t agree that’s immoral, u less you’re aware that you’re doing it.
That’s not true.
That’s a pretty shitty thing for you to say, unless** Bricker** actually said what you claim he did. Did he?
To me it’s like an alcoholic refusing to accept that his addiction is hurting his family – it’s immoral for him to continue to believe that drinking is acceptable when a little honest thought would reveal the pain it causes his family.
Another way to put it is like this – it’s highly immoral to go to war without due diligence, unbiased fact-finding, and honest skepticism. Do you disagree with that statement?
I accept that we may just disagree on this, but I’m a bit surprised. An “honest” white supremacist might really, honestly believe that he is assisting a group of just vigilantes giving justice to a rapist, but in reality he’s taking part in a lynch mob, and it’s extremely immoral.
This statement suggests confusion about Catholic doctrine.
There is no geas laid upon all Catholics to accept all stances of the Catholic Church. There are stances of the Catholic Church I reject, and others I accept even though my politics would otherwise suggest I would’t. I oppose the death penalty, a position aligned with the Church but not the typical conservative position, and I disagree with the Church’s position on legal same–sex marriage, just to pick two examples.
As I suggested above, some acts are intrinsically evil, and good intent cannot save their actor from immorality in committing them. But ordering troops into combat is not such an act: it is possible to do it in good faith.
So I don’t agree that Bush thought he was going to war without due diligence. The fact that he lacked the introspection to realize his error does not translate into immorality.
Tell me: when the Rolling Stone UVA gang rape article came out, several members of this community inveighed furiously against UVA. Was that immoral?
To me, it doesn’t matter what Bush thought – he went to war without due diligence. He and his team should have known better, and I believe they exercised self-deceit. It crosses into immorality, and extreme immorality, to me, because of the cost in human lives. They were negligent with thousands of human lives, and such negligence is highly immoral when it comes to this potential cost. Just like a train conductor or pilot who drinks, but honestly believes that he can still operate the train/plane safely while drinking, is behaving very immorally, because he’s being negligent with human lives.
Possibly, but if so the level of immorality (by internet posters furious inveighing) was so minute as to be negligible, because the forseeable cost is negligible.
In that example, though, the drinker can’t plausibly claim good faith, because the law criminalizes his conduct.
Was it, though? I grant that each poster’s support was small, but in aggregate their voice led to very undeserved consequences for the fraternity and UVA itself.
Or how about the guy that leaves your party drunk? You didn’t know – he wasn’t slurring his words and you only saw him drink two beers. But you could have checked with other guests or purchased a home BAC breath tester. Was it immoral for you to let him drive away without the due diligence that would have discovered the nine shots of rye and the 0.12 BAC?