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Nicolai Borovskaya
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Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 464
Location: Wherever the fictons carry me
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 Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 1:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Sigurd Volsung wrote: | | If it will make things clearer here is my list of crimes that I would like to be made into capital offenses: Premeditated Murder (it many states it already is though very rarely is the death sentence given), Man Slaughter through criminal neglect (this would include driving while intoxicated), Rape (this is my big one), and Kidnapping. If a dog has rabies we put it down because it is dangerous, any person sick enough to commit these crimes deserves the same treatment. |
[RANT WARNING!] And a bit off topic.
I agree with you for the most part, Sig, and capital punishment should be mandatory in those cases. Manslaughter through criminal neglect is appropriate. In the drunk driving aspect I agree completely, I've always thought that should be premeditated murder, anyway.
I would add terrorism to the list. It would include kidnapping, but, in some circumstances, not childnapping. There needs to be a way to include a value judgment of circumstances in childnapping. Bombing, arson, and so forth, essentially any form of random violence, especially in support of some 'cause', should definitely be included. Age is not a factor in this unless Faginy is involved, in which case the Fagin (look it up) also gets executed, with prejudice.
Rape is a sensitive one. Felony rape, absolutely. But I personally know of cases where the sex was consensual and then rape was cried later. What do you do in this case? Or in the case of statutory rape, when it was consensual and only the law called it rape? I know of one case personally where she was 18 and he was 17 and she was prosecuted. And convicted. Again, there is a need for discriminatory judgment here, and currently the law makes no provision for that.
And one other item. Perjury. Very common in rape accusations, on both sides, for example. I believe that the sentence for perjury should be the maximum sentence for the crime at trial, period. No discretion of the court allowed. No slaps on the wrist here, as is presently done. And yes, the one who commits the perjury may well get a more severe sentence than the offender. It is appropriate.
And a law officer or lawyer falsifying evidence (a form of perjury)? Double the sentence. Law enforcement and lawyers should be held to a higher standard. After all, they enforce the law.
[edit] And let's not forget the judiciary in this. Double or even triple the sentence for them. [/edit]
I believe that the individual is responsible for his (or her) actions. And the individual should stand up and take that responsibility. For good or bad. No casting of blame allowed. "The devil made me do it" and "It was for their own good" are excuses, nothing more. And damnably poor excuses at that.
Temporary insanity should never have been allowed as a legal defense. It is just another way of avoiding responsibility for one's actions. In rare cases I might allow it as a mitigating factor, but never as the foundation of a defense.
[/RANT]
[edit]
| Lucius_Vane wrote: | | Good and evil are objective, right and wrong are subjective. What is right and wrong is something to be determined on a personal basis, whether on your own or on a societal level. However good can be defined as anything that is done for the betterment of society (whether you gain anything or not) while evil is that which is done for the benefit of the self (whether society gains anything or not.) In this regard, we have to disassociate good from right and evil from wrong. They can be paired up in any way, depending on the situation. |
Good and evil, right and wrong, are all subjective and depend on context and the culture within which they exist. (As is this statement.  )
I would define evil as that which is done without regard to the rights of others or of society, especially when it is to their detriment. That which is done to the detriment of self, is stupidity.
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Nicolai
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When you talk about damage radius, even atomic weapons pale before that of an unfettered idiot in a position of power. |
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WhiteStorm
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Joined: 03 Jun 2008
Posts: 123
Location: Forever in Winter
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Is the betterment of society objective or subjective? |
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Lucius_Vane
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Joined: 23 Oct 2006
Posts: 386
Location: Turn around...
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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| WhiteStorm wrote: | | Is the betterment of society objective or subjective? |
This is irrellevent, I'll explain below.
EDIT:
Actually, it probably is, I'll try and explain. The goal of betterment of society is objective. It is what would be called good. However, how it is accomplished would vary from person to person. So while the act itself is subjective and varies, the intent itself stays the same and is objective.
| Nicolai Borovskaya wrote: | | Good and evil, right and wrong, are all subjective and depend on context and the culture within which they exist. (As is this statement. ) |
Right and wrong, yes, good and evil, no. See below.
| Nicolai Borovskaya wrote: | | I would define evil as that which is done without regard to the rights of others or of society, especially when it is to their detriment. That which is done to the detriment of self, is stupidity. |
This is true (except for the stupidity part, it could theoretically be good). Good is for society and evil is for the self, however being good does not preclude being detrimental to ones self and being evil does not preclude being detrimental to society. They certainly could be, but they could just as easily be beneficial or completely impartial.
As an example, the act of breathing would be considered evil. However, I doubt you could find anyone that would claim it is wrong. It is something that is done selfishly, but has almost no effect on society. Conversely, someone who assassinates another person to ensure stability in their country would be commiting a good act. Whether you consider it right or wrong depends on your point of view on the matter.
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Sigurd Volsung
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Joined: 21 Feb 2004
Posts: 3216
Location: The Twin Cities
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 6:22 pm Post subject: |
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As far as temporary insanity goes as far as a defense there is one of those I would defend, Battered Wives Syndrome. If your not familiar with this one let me explain the first case.
A woman killed her husband while he was a sleep, she did this because he had been physically abusing her practically every day of their marriage. The only time she felt safe enough to act was while he was a sleep, she had killed him and the defense was that the years of abuse had finally caused her to defend herself in away that was not at a time of immediate self defense. Thus Battered Wives Syndrome came into exsitence. The law didn't helper so she helped herself, and I would classify that as justice. By the way she set the guy on fire and let him burn to death.
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Howellfan
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Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 188
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 6:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Aslaug said:That being said, I also consider it a serious violation to try to tell others what the 'right faith' is. In my opinion, no human being can rightfully claim to be closer to the truth about divinity than any other |
Aslaug, as I suggested before, there's a contradiction in this position. It would be one thing if you said 'no human being can rightfully clain to have the whole truth - neither Evangelical tradition nor even most scientists today would make a claim to that(Indeed, the book of Job makes a point of saying that some answers, like a full explanation for suffering, we aren't going to get!) But that is not what you are stating. You are claiming instead that no faith is any closer to the truth than any other, and that claims to exclusive truth by any faith are by their nature wrong. This seems to me questionable on the face of it. One faith claims a personal, involved God - to the point of describing His followers as his 'bride' and compare idolatry to adultary. Another -as I understand, at least - claims that to speak of knowing God in such an intimate way is dissrespectful at the least. Here we have a matter of foundational importance to any faith, indeed one of the questions that one's religion is all ABOUT;How do/es (the)God/s relate to us, and how should I respond? And yet it is patently foolish to speak of both positions being 'equally true'. They must either both be wrong(Perhaps the is no God. Perhaps whatever is out there takes no interest in our affairs.), or one must be right and the other wrong. And the one in error stands either in offense to God on the one hand, or with a deprived view of our relationship with God on the other. I see no reason not to label either error as being 'further from' devine truth, and so say that adherents of either position are justified in making such a claim about the adherents of the other. What of the history of the America's contained in the Book of Mormon? It is true or it is false, and if it is false Mormonism as a doctrinally distinct faith crumbles to dust. Similiar issues run through many faiths, inseperable from the faith as a whole. They cannot be avoided.
One may invoke the story of the blind men and the elephant. But one forgets that the story is told from the perspective of one who sees the WHOLE truth. To claim that all faiths MUST be no closer to the truth than any other is to make the very claim to special knowledge that is being criticized - an untennable contradiction. It may be true - at least among certain major religious streams of world - but without special revelation we simply cannot KNOW. If you would respect the truth-claims of others, in sympathy and understanding even when in strong disagreement, then one must respect the claims in their entirety, including the exclusive bits. |
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Skazwolf
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Joined: 10 Jul 2007
Posts: 325
Location: California
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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I'm a Christian.
You know what I hate? People who think faith is of public importance. Like this guy's letter in this week's Time.
"By conveniently waiting until after he stepped down as Prime Minister to embrace Roman Catholicism, Blair demonstrated that his political career was more important to him than his faith." Frédéric Renard, BRUSSELS
Nope, he's not complaining that the PM is a different religion. He's complaining that Blair didn't say he was Roman Catholic until he stepped down.
And no offense, but I don't really think the whole Roman Catholic thing isn't really true to the "spirit" of faith. Having one huge organization interpreting my belief doesn't really seem like a good idea to me. Again, no offense, and if someone is willing to explain, I'm willing to listen. I haven't really considered my self to be in any Christian denominations, and I'm not really familiar to all their views and stuff. |
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Aslaug
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Joined: 04 Jan 2005
Posts: 1861
Location: Slagelse, Denmark
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:18 am Post subject: |
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| Howellfan wrote: | | And yet it is patently foolish to speak of both positions being 'equally true'. |
Why?
First of all, I find the remark somewhat offensive, but I'll let that pass and simply suppose you didn't mean it as a personal attack. Secondly, I know you explained but I strongly disagree with your explanation. Your are working from the basis that there -is- one truth out there, but divinity is by definition so much bigger than a human being that there is no reason why any one of us should be able to grasp or fathom it. Why should one God exist? Why should many Gods exist? Why should ANY deity at all exist? Why can't it be that there is one god, and many gods...and that there is no god, and that all of these things are true? I am trying not to limit myself to three dimensional lines of thinking. If divinity has revealed itself to a Christian in a monotheistic religious manner, then that may very well be as true as divinity having revealed itself to a Hindu as millions of Gods and Devas. Why must one exclude the other?
It must because we are bound by traditional thinking, but in terms of religion, I refuse to be.
I maintain that no human being can rightfully claim to be closer to the truth about divinity than any other. That none of us can say 'I absolutely, positively and without doubt know what is true, and the rest of you should/must all worship in the way I tell you to because of that knowledge'.
That, to me, is a violation of other people's integrity. You seem not to understand entirely what I mean when I say that each person must find their way to faith on their own, if they are meant to find it at all. This includes finding their own way of worshipping, and so long as it happens in a socially acceptable way that doesn't break any laws (I would personally object strongly to a faith that calls for the death or harming of innocents or the destruction of other people's property as a generally accepted means of worship), it is not for me to say whether they are right or not.
If it is right for them, then that's fine with me. What I do is right for me. It does not have to be the same, and it does not have to mean that I am more right than them or vice versa. In my world, there's room for all of us to be right. It is a concept rarely found in religion these days, I know that...but it is a central concept in how my own beliefs are practiced. |
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WhiteStorm
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Joined: 03 Jun 2008
Posts: 123
Location: Forever in Winter
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:17 am Post subject: |
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| Lucius_Vane wrote: | | WhiteStorm wrote: | | Is the betterment of society objective or subjective? |
This is irrellevent, I'll explain below.
EDIT:
Actually, it probably is, I'll try and explain. The goal of betterment of society is objective. It is what would be called good. However, how it is accomplished would vary from person to person. So while the act itself is subjective and varies, the intent itself stays the same and is objective. |
How can you measure each person's intent to see that it's objective? Unless you just refer to "the intent" independently of people, in which case I wonder how it can even exist objectively.
/noting the two different meanings of objective in here. |
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Lucius_Vane
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Joined: 23 Oct 2006
Posts: 386
Location: Turn around...
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 2:10 am Post subject: |
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| WhiteStorm wrote: | How can you measure each person's intent to see that it's objective? Unless you just refer to "the intent" independently of people, in which case I wonder how it can even exist objectively.
/noting the two different meanings of objective in here. |
It is objective in that if someone is doing something for the benefit of others then it is a good act, regardless of whether or not others see it that way or not. While it might be seen by others as right or wrong, or perhaps interpreted as an evil act, that will change nothing. It is all about intent. It's almost certain that we won't know what a person's true motives are, but in the end that changes nothing.
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WhiteStorm
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Joined: 03 Jun 2008
Posts: 123
Location: Forever in Winter
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:28 am Post subject: |
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| Lucius_Vane wrote: | | It is objective in that if someone is doing something for the benefit of others then it is a good act, regardless of whether or not others see it that way or not. |
Which you can tell how?
| Lucius_Vane wrote: | | While it might be seen by others as right or wrong, or perhaps interpreted as an evil act, that will change nothing. It is all about intent. It's almost certain that we won't know what a person's true motives are, but in the end that changes nothing. |
Except that without being able to judge their intent somehow it's somewhat difficult to accurately assert that it "stays the same". |
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Syrius
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Posts: 1463
Location: The S.S. ScurvyDog, Arizona! YARR!
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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Power without justice equals tyranny.
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Howellfan
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Posts: 188
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Aslaug wrote:First of all, I find the remark somewhat offensive, but I'll let that pass and simply suppose you didn't mean it as a personal attack. |
Yikes. 80 No, it was not meant as a personal attack. I did worry later that it would come across that way and ask your forgiveness for doing so. 
I do, though, respectfully but strongly disagree with your opinion here. I will confess first off, though, that I am disagreeing with your opinion as I understand it. I am not entirely certain I am clear on the view you are arguing. Would you agree, for example, with the following working definition of 'religion', which I am working from:
'[Religion] is a set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things human beings should spend their time doing....It contains a master narrative, an account about the meaning of life, along with a recommendation for how to live based on that account of things.' (Timothy Keller;'The Reason For God')
This is a very broad definition! If we take it as our starting point, does this then permit a purely private faith. Is it possible, pragmatically speaking, to avoid bringing our faith/s - so defined - into the public square, to judge, as we are constantly demanding of our news and media outlets, with 'the view from nowhere?'
I don't believe so. Again, from the same source:
"Imagine that Mrs. A argues that all safety nets for the poor should be removed, in the name of 'survival of the fittest." Mrs. B might respond "The poor have the right to a decent standard of living-they are human beings like the rest of us!" Mrs. A could then come back with the fact that many bioethicists today think the concept of "human" in artificial and impossible to define. She might continue that there is no possibility of treating all living organisms as ends rather than means and that some always have to die that others may live. That is simply the way nature works. If Mrs. B continues with a pragmatic argument, that we should help the poor simply because it makes society work better, Mrs. A could come up with many similar pragmatic arguments about why letting some of the poor just die would be even more efficient. Now Mrs. B would be getting angry. She would respond heatedly that starving the poor is simply unethical, but Mrs. A could retort, "Who says ethics must be the same for everyone?" Mrs. B would finally exclaim: "I wouldn't want to live in a society like the one you are describing!"
I would contend that to have a 'faith' -again, as broadly defined earlier - at all is to have a view from 'somewhere', some specific point to which your individual combination of culture, experience and intellect have led you. Some people's 'there' will be in the same neighborhood, even the same building;other's will be oceans apart.
It is true, belief in a greater reality - one shared, incidentally, by most scientists, almost by nature of their profession - is an act of faith, itself. But what, then, is the alternative? What is - or rather, what is our best try at - 'the view from nowhere'? A polity of pure deconstruction, to see through and see through and see through until - I do not say this 'personally', but for argument's sake only - one at last sees nothing at all? A world where all meaning, all purpose and all truth -even the truth of reason itself(for why should a natural selection that favors survival produce a mind capable of grasping fundamental truth?) - become invisible? There is no such thing, even in science, as 'absolute proof', hence the need for rules of thumb such as Ocam's razor. Only arguments and evidences which when fully understood will convince MOST rational people at most places and times but from which there may still be a rational escape that isn't pig-headed stubborness.
The 'brotherhood of man' is perhaps even more an American ideal than it is a human one, and it is American optimism to believe that once we've cut through the bombast and narrow-minded thinking, there exists beneath a society that can coexist and cooperate easily, could we only but reach it. There isn't, because we all begin at bottom from our own unique starting points. Irreconcilable life-truths will remain with us - we are too small yet for it to be otherwise! Which means coexistence and pluralism will require the hard work of meeting the fault lines with compassion, understanding, and humility-
-we are so boned.
Last edited by Howellfan on Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Teric
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Posts: 2566
Location: Southern California
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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I've been hesitant to jump in here, because my own beliefs are very deep and I don't want to get involved in any conflict.
However, I do want to put forth one question:
Are morals relative, or absolute? Meaning, is morality above humanity, being something that is unchanging? Or is morality defined by humanity, depending on the prevailing ideas of the day? Or, better yet, does humanity perceive morality to be relative, and attempts to define it as such, when in fact it is really absolute? Or, on the other hand, do the deeply religious sectors of humanity attempt to establish absolute morals (each on their own terms, mind you), when, perhaps, they only exist because humanity has given them birth?
If morality is absolute, then man's logic and reasoning is irrelevant and powerless to define it. On the other hand, if morals are relative, then all of the attempts by the world's religions to establish 'absolute truth' are futile.
I subscribe to the former, myself, but I wanted to open this up for discussion.
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Kelvin
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Location: That is not important. Just don't turn around.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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I think it works both ways. Morals are absolute, but only that they're there, and that they work somehow. The exact manner of their workings, however, are somewhat relative to the person trying to define them based on how they were taught right from wrong, and on their life experiences. That's just my opinion, though.
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Lucius_Vane
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Joined: 23 Oct 2006
Posts: 386
Location: Turn around...
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Mike Regan wrote: | So by this definition Hitler saw the Jews as bad and that removing them would make it better for the rest of the world. The Holocaust was then a good thing.
His intent was to make the world better by removing all trace of the Jews but I think you will not find many that agree it was a 'good act'. |
I think you mean a 'right act'. Right and wrong are what is subjective, good and evil, objective. If he did the holocaust out of a want to benefit society, then it's a good act. You're making the mistake of connecting good with right and evil with wrong. They are completely different things.
Now, assuming that you meant to use 'right act,' what makes those people who think that the holocaust was wrong correct? Now before I get hit with a s***storm of posts or pm's, I'm not endorsing the holocaust. I personally think it is one of the worst events in history, just short of the burning of the library at Alexandria. What I'm saying is, what makes someone like me correct? What basis do I have for making these claims? They are all personal opinion, and they have no bearing on whether it was a good or evil act.
| WhiteStorm wrote: | | Which you can tell how? |
Only the person performing the act can truly know.
| WhiteStorm wrote: | | Except that without being able to judge their intent somehow it's somewhat difficult to accurately assert that it "stays the same". |
How does not being able to judge whether a specific action is done for oneself or for the group change the idea that the former is evil and the latter is good? I think you might be misinterpreting my answers.
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