Hsinchu
Prince
Nope, and if a mod wants to give me a point for that, I'll take it. And if you think that Fifty needs you to fight his battles for him, I'm wondering why.
Ask a Philosopher!
- Thread starter Fifty
- Start date
Nope, and if a mod wants to give me a point for that, I'll take it. And if you think that Fifty needs you to fight his battles for him, I'm wondering why.
Thoughtful Thug
Deity
I like Hsinchu. I wonder if he had ever read any Michel Foucalt?
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
The rules for these sorts of threads generally exclude a "free for all" approach to answering questions. The thread opener and his cadre of approved "answerers" are the ones to whom questions are directed. This has nothing to do with fighting Fifty's battles for him, it has to do with the fact that what you are doing is probably unwanted and generally annoying; I know, I've run one of these "ask an X" threads before, and its disrespectful and annoying to have someone else answering questions when the thread is for you and your approved participants to do so.
_random_
Jewel Runner
I don't think that Cheezy was trying to fight Fifty's battles, but I believe rules regarding "Ask a..." threads do require that each person acting as an authority get individual mod approval. Anyhow, thank you for answering my questions.
Edit: X-post
Hsinchu
Prince
Great! I can apologize formally, then. It is not my intention to answer any or all the questions on this thread as an "approved participant" or otherwise. I was being partly facetious and moreover trying to motivate a discourse. In my mind I visualized Plotinus tearing me a new one for incorrectly answering the poster and me smiling because I enumerated an answer to a somewhat dry series of questions. It was not intended as disrespect.
However, my response directed toward Cheezy is not entirely fair. It was directed glaringly because I have a beef with Cheezy for starting something with me on another thread along the lines of "How do you purport to know anything? You've only been here for 30 days" as though veteran credentials are requisite to hold an opinion. I am perfectly aware that I was pushing at the boundaries of a rule, as I am wont to do, but I also don't really like certain pretentious tones taken and I am apt to take affront to them.
Anyone is welcome to answer questions, they just don't necessarily have any particular authority behind their answers.
Fifty's going to have a lot of catching up to do when he looks at this thread.
A newborn baby, or a person in a coma, doesn't have an actionable system of ethics - but people who think that humans qua humans have special moral value still think that newborn babies and people in comas count.
Personally I don't think that there is any good reason to make a hard and fast moral distinction between human and non-human life. Of course, most human beings are (probably) in a different moral category from most non-humans, but that is surely because of characteristics that they happen to have that are usually, but not necessarily, associated with being human - it is not because of their humanity itself.
Sorry, I can't see that at all. You might as well say that failing to execute a thief is tantamount to promoting theft! Failing to punish a violent offender is tantamount to promoting violence; but one may maintain the life of a violent offender and yet still punish him or her. I suppose that the question really revolves around how you define "pacifist". If a pacifist is someone who opposes war under all circumstances, then there's no reason why a pacifist couldn't support capital punishment, because that's a different issue. If, however, a pacifist is someone who opposes the use of violence, then I can hardly see how a pacifist could support capital punishment. The pacifist (on this definition) presumably seeks to minimise violence; the violence involved in incarcerating someone against their will is presumably less than the violence involved in killing someone (or releasing them to commit more crimes); so it seems that the only consistent view for a pacifist (on this definition) is to oppose capital punishment. Unless, of course, they thought that executing prisoners would have such an effect on society that violence would be reduced overall (because of the deterrent effect, or something). To reason like that, they would need to be some kind of consequentialist, holding that a violent act that has overall consequences of reducing violence is to be preferred to a non-violent act whose overall consequences increase violence. However, a deontologist pacifist - who thinks that violent acts are intrinsically immoral no matter what their consequences - would reject that reasoning.
Of course, that's for a pacifist who is a sort of fundamentalist about pacifism, and who think that minimising violence must take priority over all other considerations. I can imagine a pacifist who wishes to minimise violence, but who also thinks that other considerations may override this under certain circumstances. Such a pacifist might think that if life imprisonment is considerably more expensive than capital punishment then capital punishment might be justified on those grounds, with financial considerations outweighing pacifist ones. So from that point of view, a pacifist might favour capital punishment, but on grounds other than pacifism.
A newborn baby, or a person in a coma, doesn't have an actionable system of ethics - but people who think that humans qua humans have special moral value still think that newborn babies and people in comas count.
Personally I don't think that there is any good reason to make a hard and fast moral distinction between human and non-human life. Of course, most human beings are (probably) in a different moral category from most non-humans, but that is surely because of characteristics that they happen to have that are usually, but not necessarily, associated with being human - it is not because of their humanity itself.
Sorry, I can't see that at all. You might as well say that failing to execute a thief is tantamount to promoting theft! Failing to punish a violent offender is tantamount to promoting violence; but one may maintain the life of a violent offender and yet still punish him or her. I suppose that the question really revolves around how you define "pacifist". If a pacifist is someone who opposes war under all circumstances, then there's no reason why a pacifist couldn't support capital punishment, because that's a different issue. If, however, a pacifist is someone who opposes the use of violence, then I can hardly see how a pacifist could support capital punishment. The pacifist (on this definition) presumably seeks to minimise violence; the violence involved in incarcerating someone against their will is presumably less than the violence involved in killing someone (or releasing them to commit more crimes); so it seems that the only consistent view for a pacifist (on this definition) is to oppose capital punishment. Unless, of course, they thought that executing prisoners would have such an effect on society that violence would be reduced overall (because of the deterrent effect, or something). To reason like that, they would need to be some kind of consequentialist, holding that a violent act that has overall consequences of reducing violence is to be preferred to a non-violent act whose overall consequences increase violence. However, a deontologist pacifist - who thinks that violent acts are intrinsically immoral no matter what their consequences - would reject that reasoning.
Of course, that's for a pacifist who is a sort of fundamentalist about pacifism, and who think that minimising violence must take priority over all other considerations. I can imagine a pacifist who wishes to minimise violence, but who also thinks that other considerations may override this under certain circumstances. Such a pacifist might think that if life imprisonment is considerably more expensive than capital punishment then capital punishment might be justified on those grounds, with financial considerations outweighing pacifist ones. So from that point of view, a pacifist might favour capital punishment, but on grounds other than pacifism.
Imperialmajesty
Emperor
The egg came first.
Of course, you are looking at the philosophical undertone of the problem
However, the importance of the question was resolved more or less by Darwin and the theory of evolution. A group of birds started laying eggs until one day, a non chicken or a group of non chickens lay an egg that can be considered... thats my guess anyway. And what is God? You might as well be asking the question what is (Blank). It is a meaningless question imho.
The egg came first.
Of course, you are looking at the philosophical undertone of the problem
And what is God? You might as well be asking the question what is (Blank). It is a meaningless question imho.
Question: What is your philosophical background?
Imperialmajesty
Emperor
Don't have one.
ParkCungHee
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2006
- Messages
- 12,921
Well it's evident that he's not very in vogue, but that leads me to my next question, and admitedly it's a lot trickier.
Why is Hegel so out of favor?
I mean, I'm coming at this from a historian's point of view, and an intellectual historian at that so I'm obviously a little biased on the importance of Hegel, but I mean, it's fairly obvious that he was once a fairly well read philosopher, and he would have a good deal to say on those topics.
Is it, and I mean no offense because most of what I've read "on him" is second hand source, because he's such an intimidating read?
Also, everyone knows that Hegel's ideal state wasn't 19th century Prussia, it was 1930s Italy of course.
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
Of course, you are looking at the philosophical undertone of the problem
Eggs predate birds by at least several hundred million years.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey guys! I've not forgotten this thread, just got back from being out of town and also just getting over a bit of an illness. I'll start catching up tonight. 
Hsinchu
Prince
Hey guys! I've not forgotten this thread, just got back from being out of town and also just getting over a bit of an illness. I'll start catching up tonight.
hooray
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
Although the idea of evolution existed in Ancient Greece, I was under the impression that it was (Erasmus) Darwin who reintroduced it in the the modern era.
Edit: oh, wikipedia seems to say Pierre Maupertuis beat him to it.
Edit: oh, wikipedia seems to say Pierre Maupertuis beat him to it.
Hsinchu
Prince
Thank the "Big Bang" for Wikipedia?
Imperialmajesty
Emperor
Of course, but I was talking about an egg containing a Chicken.
Imperialmajesty
Emperor
Yes, but he was the first person that propelled it to its position as a centrally held scientific theory and by that extension, lessened the extent by which the question "Which came first, the chicken or the egg" was asked as a philosophic question, because Darwin's theory provided the tools to answer that question.
