Originally posted by FetchmyjunkBecause you haven't set up a specific scenario like I asked. Remember I think you are a troll and you are taking the piss, even about a serious matter like rape. You said your rape scenario was "the exact same scenario" as my lying scenario. Here is my lying scenario:
So why won't you post your answer?
House-invading thieves and rapists come into my house and ransack the ground floor. My wife and daughters are hiding upstairs. The head thug asks me where my wife and daughters are, and lie to him ~ I swear on their lives that they are away in the next town visiting relatives. The house-invaders leave with their loot.
What is your scenario? Describe it in some detail and tell me how I am presented with the dilemma and describe how the 'bargain' offered is framed so that it's credible or realistic.
Then, I'll take a look at what your scenario is exactly, and then change what I have written accordingly, and post it.
Do you have real life dilemma encapsulated in a scenario for me to address or are you trolling?
Meanwhile:
To Fetchmyjunk,
I think morality is the product of human conscience and social interaction, and, arguably, it is the ultimate and most complex manifestation of human culture. It comes from within us and is also developed and perpetuated by our collectivist existence and activities.
When people talk of 'the wonder of life' etc., some of the first things I think of are the capacity of human conscience, the existence of moral sensibilities, the capacity to comprehend, decide and act, and the collective construction of ideas like justice, and their application.
Bless your cotton socks, and bless the internet for empowering us all and facilitating our freedom of speech, but your insistence on superimposing onto this amazingly complex set of faculties and realities [that I believe morality regulates and defines], your essentially autistic approach, rooted in your belief in supernatural phenomena and supernatural creatures, is only interesting up to a point. For instance, I find the impact it has on your intellectual behaviour interesting. But as a model, I do not find it interesting.
Because, for all your declarations that your own opinions and interpretations of situations constitute or coincide with "universal truths", and for all your declarations that the moral sensibilities of people who disagree with you "don't matter", are "meaningless", "incoherent" and "make no logical sense", I have discovered from your pontifications about morality that I could not, for example, trust you to look after my children in my absence. This is a hypothetical scenario, so don't deflect by pretending it's a specific personal attack on you; it's a reaction to your zealotry and dogmatism.
I could not trust you to look after my children for me. Why not? Well, you might cite some supposedly "objective truth" to justify not defending them from harm. You might argue that to carry out such an obvious [to me] moral obligation ~ protecting them from danger or threats ~ might be morally unsound according to your unilateral, and affectedly inflexible definition of "universal truth". Your moral sense could paralyze you and prevent you from standing up to "evil".
In this hypothetical, how could I trust you to look after my children when you have demonstrated that your human conscience and moral compass is so distorted and convoluted by your ideology? This I have gleened from discussing morality with you, even if your side of the discussion has verged on parody at times.
So you should perhaps reflect on the signals you are giving off about moral issues and you might be wise to contemplate whether or not people would want to emulate you and the declarations and interpretations your superstitions and personal preferences have resulted in you making.
Apologies to everyone else, but I fear this is another slab of my half of the conversation that Fetchmyjunk is planning to simply blank out and ignore.
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkFMF: House-invading thieves and rapists come into my house and ransack the ground floor. My wife and daughters are hiding upstairs. The head thug asks me where my wife and daughters are, and lie to him ~ I swear on their lives that they are away in the next town visiting relatives. The house-invaders leave with their loot.
I used the same scenario you used to justify lying.
I don't think my actions in this situation would have been morally unsound.
BUMP for Fetchmyjunk
Do you agree?
Originally posted by FetchmyjunkTell me what the circumstances of the scenario are, what the dilemma is exactly, how it is presented to me, and by whom. If you do, I undertake to give you my analysis of the predicament from a personal, moral standpoint.
I used the same scenario you used to justify lying. I am asking you whether the same scenario would justify rape?
Originally posted by FMFWould you kill my kids if that was the only way to save your own kids, for example. I've been struggling with this type of scenario recently. Don't worry about the details.
Tell me what the circumstances of the scenario are, what the dilemma is exactly, how it is presented to me, and by whom. If you do, I undertake to give you my analysis of the predicament from a personal, moral standpoint.
Neesam's character in 'taken' repulses me. Good at his job, but morally nearly bankrupt.
Originally posted by apathistIf the scenario you're talking about is something along the lines of the trolley problem then yes, I would imagine I would instinctively choose my children over yours. Otherwise, the only scenario I can think of where I would kill your kids to save my own kids would be if your kids were about to murder mine, and the if only way to stop them was to use physical force (that might in fact end up being lethal force) against yours to prevent it from happening. That's off the top of my head. What about you in these two scenarios?
Would you kill my kids if that was the only way to save your own kids, for example.
Originally posted by FMFSo, you're not a pacifist. Have you ever killed in self defense? Know anyone who has?
If the scenario you're talking about is something along the lines of the trolley problem then yes, I would imagine I would instinctively choose my children over yours. Otherwise, the only scenario I can think of where I would kill your kids to save my own kids would be if your kids were about to murder mine, and the if only way to stop them was to use physical f ...[text shortened]... prevent it from happening. That's off the top of my head. What about you in these two scenarios?
".., the only scenario I can think of where I would kill your kids to save my own kids..."
That's girly talk.