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Post by mikemarshall on Jun 17, 2009 15:43:43 GMT
Are we justified in using methods that we know to be morally wrong in order to achieve what we consider to be a good end?
Is it justifiable for a terrorist to kill innocent people to promote a belief system that he or she considers to be wholly good?
Is it justifiable to use torture to obtain information if it is used in the belief that one's own cause is the morally virtuous one?
Is it justifiable to use harsh punishments to express our disapproval of a particular course of action?
Is it ever acceptable to murder another person?
Is it ever acceptable to execute another person?
I could continue but I think those are a few fairly relevant contemporary moral dilemmas in which passions run extremely high on both sides of the debate.
I hope that my questions will stimulate members to post their own thoughts on these knotty problems.
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♫anna♫
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jun 17, 2009 23:48:33 GMT
Are we justified in using methods that we know to be morally wrong in order to achieve what we consider to be a good end? Is it justifiable for a terrorist to kill innocent people to promote a belief system that he or she considers to be wholly good? Is it justifiable to use torture to obtain information if it is used in the belief that one's own cause is the morally virtuous one? Is it justifiable to use harsh punishments to express our disapproval of a particular course of action? Is it ever acceptable to murder another person? Is it ever acceptable to execute another person? I could continue but I think those are a few fairly relevant contemporary moral dilemmas in which passions run extremely high on both sides of the debate. I hope that my questions will stimulate members to post their own thoughts on these knotty problems. Dearest Mike! You can't make comparisons between Al Qaida's use of REAL TORTURE: gouging out eyes, amputations, etc. with this so called "enhanced interrogation": waterboarding, etc.! The Amish believe that any act of lethal force towards another person, even in self defense is murder. The world would be at the mercy of those who believe in lethal force, if all good people agreed with the Amish! Harsh punishments shouldn't be seen as a form of expressing disapproval, but rather as sending a deterring message to anyone else capable of committing a crime that "crosses the line"..e.g. torturing children, hobby killings, etc.. I wish i could remember the name of that little girl, with the cute nickname, on one of those hijacked 911 flights.. She was with her aunt or grandmother hoping to visit Disney World! Stalin was right, sadly to say, when he said "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths a statistic ( or here over 3,000 )!" Anyone who could fully fathom the horror and suffering that these demonic terrorists caused would have had absolutely no problem using lethal force to stop them..
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2009 22:26:44 GMT
That's an interesting one. "Exemplary" punishments can be handed out for crimes that are hard to detect. So if the risk of being caught is small, the offender needs to weigh that against the consequences should he be unlucky enough to have his collar felt. But making an example of someone for political expediency is wrong and unfair.
The important thing is to have equality of punishment within crime. In other words, it is okay to send all secret nose-pickers to jail (yes, I know, but it is late and I couldn't think of a better example) but not single out one secret nose picker for public exposure just because the Daily Mail happened to run a full page revelation of the true human cost of this vile habit the previous week, sending Britain into panic.
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Post by mouse on Jun 24, 2009 18:32:03 GMT
yes some times the ends justfy the means just as some times the greater good overides the rights of the individual where you draw that line and who decides is a sticky one
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Post by Liberator on Jun 24, 2009 22:25:47 GMT
There's a nice quote but I don't know where from (could be Mark Twain) The end never justifies the meanness. The danger is that the meanness and importance of the end tend to creep up with time. Then there is mistaken thinking. By understanding of the day, torturing heretics and witches and telling them what to confess to was all as logical as catching spies because they were agents for the greatest threat of all.
All intelligence personnel interviewed on it say that torture is unreliable because you get what they think you want. On the other hand, as a punishment in a system that doesn't really have a common morality, then it may function as a deterrent. The Orient has always been notoriously expert in torture but their moral code was more one of what you you could get away with, and the West had a deterrent torture threat that most people believed in reserved for the afterlife that they mostly do not.
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