By KARIN LAUB (AP) Israeli police explosives experts inspect the site of a suicide bomb attack near a fast food…Full Image JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel said Tuesday that it holds the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority responsible for the deadliest suicide bombing in nearly two years and debated whether to target it directly as an “enemy entity” – even though the attack was carried out by a different militant group.Monday’s blast outside a packed Tel Aviv fast-food restaurant killed nine civilians and wounded dozens during the Jewish Passover holiday, and troop reinforcements were deployed across Israel for fear of more attacks. The 21-year-old bomber, a West Bank university dropout, was sent by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group.Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman, warned that the Hamas government’s verbal support for the bombing, as well as recent statements by Iran and Syria, “are clear declarations of war, and I urge each and every one of you to listen carefully and take them at face value.” Gillerman said a new “axis of terror” – Iran, Syria and the Hamas government – was sowing the seeds of the first world war of the 21st century.
I remember being hopeful about the Middle East. I remember thinking they were heading in the right direction. I remember hope. Now all I have is dread as we head to a war (which WILL involve the US, of course). Is there any way to stop this from happening?
Right. That started out as an illustration, but I couldn’t quite come to terms with Karen’s moral equivalency. Didn’t mean for it to morph into a false alternative fallacy.
wdo:
Of course, Dahmer repented, and became an xtian.
Bumping into HIM up there would be…interesting, to say the least.
“What the hell are YOU doing up here?”
I think anyone would have a tough time reconciling that.
RA – I said that!
Man, people keep attributing my quotes with the other guy lately. Weirdness.
Anyway, I have heard more than one christian acquaintance of mine assert that Dahmer is in heaven because he repented. One guy even admitted that this tenet is the hardest one for people to accept – that, in his words, ’salvation is completely free.’ No moral action is required, just repentance in the form of a simple prayer.
I suppose the victims would be spinning in their graves, if there were anything left of the victims to bury.
r4d:
I know you did. I was re-directing it at wdo. Sowwy, my bad. Shoulda qualified it a little better.
Can’t beat the price, ey?
My experience has always been – ain’t nuttin’ free, no siree.
But since salvation’s an imaginary thing..I guess it is free, after all.
wdo
Since I am not a gay man, I doubt Jeffrey Dahmer would either want to spend the evening alone with me or kill me. Though he might kill me in the interests of furthering his experimentation on zombieism.
But I would be much more interested in spending the evening talking to him than to Mother Teresa.
You probably think I’m being disengenuous, but I am not. I think Dahmer is more intriguing.
There is an answer that is more widely accepted. That doesn’t mean it is right (or Good). When the situation, knowledge, times, people change, the answer can change.
Karen said it perfectly.
There is no definitive “Right” and “Good” answer to everything; the exact same answer, depending on the situation and circumstances, could be “evil” in one case and “good” in another.
There’s a reason the video game Fable sucked. It split the entire world into two answers in every conversation: “Yes” and “No”
If it didn’t work in a horrible, overly simplistic video game, what makes you think it will work in a complex, ever-changing world?
To split everything into two camps is both destructive and ultimately futile.
No, I don’t think you’re disingenuous, but I think you may be missing the point, which is that the behaviors of Mother Teresa and Jeffrey Dahmer are not, in reality, morally equivalent. Most people intuitively understand that committing one’s life to helping the poorest among us is objectively morally “better” than murdering, dismembering, and cannabilizing unsuspecting people. BTW, having treated a number of budding sociopaths, I can assure you that, while fascinating, they’re generally very scary people.
Yes, it can. But is such change “good”?
What if the folks in power decided that registered Democrats were undesirables who are responsible for all of our social and economic ills? What if they convinced a majority of their constituents that this was true? What if those folks simply changed the rules, rewrote the Constitution and the various criminal laws to allow the internment and systematic exterminatation of Democrats? Based on the moral code that you posit, such a scenario wouldn’t be wrong, because it’s just a matter of redefining what is good and right (and legal) based on changing times and changing circumstances.
Of course, in one time and place we can honor and protect the rights of Jews, and in another, we can round them up, redefine their personhood, and kill them. It’s all good.
Auschwitz.
I’m kinda siding with wdo on this, because I do think there are fundamental rights and wrongs. The key is that the concept of right and wrong is entirely dependent on the human condition. I mean, from the universe’s perspective, it wouldn’t matter if we all rounded our selves up and threw ourselves into ovens – the universe isn’t conscious of our condition. But most humans want to live a free, comfortable, and happy life, with perhaps a little bit of strife to keep things interesting. We all have one life to live, and we are all, whether we like or not, dependent on each other for the realization of a happy and productive life. And without a basic sense of meta-ethics motivating us to cooperate, it would simply be impossible for us to carry on as a species.
Too bad these meta-ethics evolved while we were living in small, familial groups.
That’s the key right there. It is impossible for average individuals to commit such acts without first being convinced that their victims are less than human and a threat to the social group. The instinct of self defense abused and manipulated to the point where it overrides the instinct for empathy.
r4d:
Strangely, for a moral relativist, so am I.
I’m starting to lean more towards moral naturalism, or moral realism.
Film at 11.
wdo
Sorry for the delay.
Having trouble focusing.
So, it’s OK to kill people, as long as your intentions are “good”?
Mother T is not morally responsible for the deaths she helped cause even though she was enlightened enough to know that refusing birth control would contribute to unwanted pregnancies, STDs, and famine? All for the sake of her ill-informed religious purposes?
She believed ’suffering is good” after all.
Jeffrey D’s elevator may not have run all the way to the top. When I asked if he was a sociopath, I should have said, psychopath. There is a difference, as you are probably aware if you’ve worked with sociopaths. It’s a pity that Dahmer’s father wouldn’t allow his brain to be studied. I know the court overturned his insanity plea, but if he was psychopathic, he was as morally responsible for his actions as a rabid animal would be.
His conversion to christianity before he died may have been remorse, or a last-ditch effort to grab at some straw to save himself in some way, or another manipulation. Who knows?
It depends on the perspective of those viewing it. But basically, change is neither good, nor bad, it just is.
First two questions…you mean they’re not already doing that?
3rd question…and working on that?;)
There isn’t any “simply” changing of rules. The more knowledgable and empathetic we grow to be- and the more numerous,- the more complex and numerous the rules become. As much as we have evolved, we are still MANimals, and I think, born atheistic and amoral. Good and bad behaviors have to be taught, and the concepts for those opposites are comprised of what we’ve sifted through since our beginning; they are subjective.
So, if your scenario were to take place- if it were able to be accomplished in our society, effectively dismantling a great number of legal and moral rules we have for so long lived by, then no, it would not be wrong. It would not be right. It would be change. It might be a change that is uncomfortable but necessary for further and even more dramatic change…that would in turn be perceived as good.
Remember, Mother Teresa said “Suffering is good.”
I AM still trying to figure this morals stuff out. I appreciate the dialogue.
r4d
RA,
I like the term ‘moral naturalism.’ That sounds about right.
I’m a moral naturalist.
Short answer: Yes.
Karen:
Using that logic, we all kill people; we?re all culpable. Our failure to volunteer at the local domestic abuse shelter or local crisis hotline represents a lost opportunity to intervene in situations where real lives are at stake. Are you a dairy farmer? A cattle farmer? Your products are slowly killing people. Are you wearing Nikes? The company keeps factory workers in Indonesia, China, and Vietnam well below poverty level, which contributes to malnutrition, disease and, of course, high mortality rates. Do you support US isolationism? People are dying in vast numbers in the Sudan. Do you live in the US? Our country consumes more natural resources and manufactured commodities per capita, by far, than any other in the world. What are the consequences for the rest of the world? Intentionality IS important, as is personal action and personal accountability.
Ironically, the Christian position is that we?re all responsible for the suffering and death we cause, either directly or indirectly.
Sounds like you?re sitting in judgment of her. Does she have the same right to her values that you do? Are your values ?better? than hers?
Suffering has, in some instances, a redeeming attribute. G.K Chesterton wrote that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain, but meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. Would life be meaningful without suffering? This is difficult territory, philosophically, but please don?t read into this that I believe it?s good that people hurt, suffer, and die. I don?t, but I think Chesterton had a point.
Actually, psychopathy and sociopathy are treated synonymously among clinicians. The diagnostic distinction is between psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder. The APA doesn?t formally recognize psychopathy as a disorder, so in a clinical setting, the two are lumped together under ASPD, which IS defined in the DSM-IV TR. Ironically, the psychopathy model is a better predictor of predisposal to violence and, if I remember, likelihood of prison. I think it?s a scaffolding of features on a continuum, so it?s really a matter of severity, but there is research that may suggest otherwise.
Not sure what you mean by ?morally responsible? in an atheistic sense. But I think he?s responsible, both morally and legally, either way. Psychopaths may lack a true sense of guilt, but they DO know the rules. They simply believe that rules are for other people and shouldn?t apply to them. Why? Because they generally think they?re smarter (which is often true) and ?special?.
Yeah, I dunno if he even had the capacity for remorse.
I really hate to drag out the Nazis, but convenience dictates?You don?t think that the Nazi Party in Germany didn?t change the rules in 1939? Certainly, pre-existing prejudices against the Jews were leveraged to enable a formalized shift in national policy, but the rules were nevertheless changed there, and pretty quickly.
Also, I?m one of those antiquated people who believe that we?re actually getting worse, not better, as a civilization. I don?t see more empathy, but I do see people making demands for more empathy (and the concomitant rights and privileges that follow). I also see more compartmentalization that is (imo) consequent to strong beliefs in political, religious, social, economic, and cultural entitlements. But I?d be interested to hear your views on this.
But change always begs the question: ?Is it better or worse??, so I think that perspective fails to account for the consequences of change.
I couldn’t find any references to real research that posits an “empathy gene”. Do you have any? (references, not empathy genes).
wdo
If we will only volunteer at the hotline, etc., if those we help will submit to our beliefs about how they should live their lives what does that say about intentionality? If we help one person and in turn hurt many more, what does that do for personal action? If my personal accountability is ultimately left for me to lay at the feet of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, how comfortable are you with that?
Not only that, but all sin back to Adam and Eve. But it’s entirely acceptable to not take responsibility for it in THIS lifetime. Death-bed conversions. See my last question above.
Ahhh….caught me. I have sent myself to the corner to wer the dunce cap. Yes, she has the same right to her values. No, mine aren’t “better” than hers. Neither do I make it a requisite that mine be accepted in order for others to receive help from me.
Sorry, will have to address the rest later.
wdo
Very difficult territory. What defines suffering? Is it quantifiable? Isn’t it subjective? Doctors ask us about our pain on a scale of 1-10. Your 10 might be a 5 for me, and vice-versa. Do we have to personally experience a type of suffering to have an appreciation for not experiencing it? Is a person we perceive to be suffering more than us having the more meaningful life?
I have never met anyone who was faced with meaninglessness as a result of weariness of pleasure. Seems to be a description of what the christian heaven would be like. I know, we wouldn’t experience time in heaven. But then what is the point of eternity?
Anyway, there is always something to balance out pleasure, “always something, Roseanne-Rosannadanna.” If my life were running smoothly, I wouldn’t see the need for self-flagellation to appreciate it.
I was reading about some type of psychopath that is “born,” not “made”. Seems nothing can be done about it. If someone is born that way, it seems unfair to hold them morally accountable for their actions. If they are harmful, lock them up to keep them from doing further harm, but don’t impose the death penalty, for example. I defer to your knowledge in this area, however.
Leveraging the pre-existing prejudices enabled the Nazis to reestablish an old moral code of “if I’m stronger than you, I can kill you”. Or, “It is justifiable to kill what is not human.” That one is always around. There will probably always be people who are convinced that some others are not really human.
Did the Nazis change the rules of their society at the time? Yes. And it does seem relatively quick in relation to time. But it was hardly simple. And neither was the changing back.
Actually, I agree with you on this.
Sometimes, I think we’d be better off to bomb ourselves back to the stone age and start over.
I’m sorry, was I supposed to account for the consequences of change?
“Better or worse” in whose estimation? For whom or what?
Well no, not really. I am unaware of any discovery of a specific gene, though I wouldn’t rule it out. But everything I’ve read on the subject points to a combination of genetic and social evolution. I think we talked about this before. Empathy comes from a need to understand the feelings and hence the intentions of others. I have a couple of bookmarks on the subject if you’re interested:
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050427_mind_readers.html
http://www.stnews.org/altruism-2544.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3690763.stm
http://www.lcmedia.com/mind417.htm
NUKE ISRAEL NOW! That’s the quickest way to avoid WW3 and bring peace to the middle east.