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Mr. Pessimistic 
Assistant Professor
Silver Contributor
Joined: 16 Jun 2004
Posts: 3449
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Location: NJ - www.myspace.com/mrpessimistic
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 Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:54 pm Post subject:
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| MadArchitect wrote: |
| misterpessimistic wrote: |
| ... and then when I rephrased the question to not benefit the individual, but a group, you even admitted it changed the dynamic. Why? |
Because so long as you're only talking about your own suffering or benefit, your choice is still a voluntary matter. But once you start making decisions for other people, then you draw in a slew of complications to the basic dynamic of whether or not it's better to suffer. For one thing, if you're deciding something on their behalf, their moral culpability is questionable, to say the least.
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Just to make sure we are on the same page...I did not mean to imply that one person would make a decision for another to sacrifice. I meant that I a person, me for instance, would do something immoral to protect the group. That would seem to be more noble, since I would be the only one to suffer and others would benefit without breaking any moral code themselves. So is it better to let a group suffer, rather than to do a wrong.
Say I had a chance to murder Hitler and this would have prevented millions from being annihilated. Would people say that I should not have done that because it was immoral or wrong to kill another human being?
Mr. P. |
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MadArchitect
Joined: 14 Nov 2004
Posts: 2609
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| Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 2:04 am Post subject:
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| misterpessimistic wrote: |
| I meant that I a person, me for instance, would do something immoral to protect the group. |
Even that would involve taking moral responsibility for others. Which, in itself, changes the dynamic. Before we get around to the question of whether or not it is moral to deprive others of the opportunity to act immorally, I think we should deal with the much simpler questions that arise from a personal responsibility divorced from the question of how our behavior effects the morality of others.
| Quote: |
| Say I had a chance to murder Hitler and this would have prevented millions from being annihilated. |
I'm not sure how that situation would differ from the first Talmudic situation. Hitler, in that instance, would be the scapegoat. But the Talmud, according to Arendt, would advise against sacrificing Hitler in order to preserve the community. Or am I interpreting that passage incorrectly?
Either way, the rest of the essay makes me think that making a scapegoat of Hitler would not necessarily save the millions killed during the holocaust. Hitler bears a certain amount of guilt, yes, but there's no way he could have annihilated millions on his own. He required the complicity of an entire nation to carry out the Final Solution, and as Arendt argues, the citizens of that nation still carry the guilt for having enacted plans laid down by the law of the land.
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| Would people say that I should not have done that because it was immoral or wrong to kill another human being? |
Would it matter what people said? Would majority opinion make it any less moral or immoral? If you participated in the annihilation of an entire people, and no one said anything about it, would that effect the morality of your action? |
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jales4
Intern
Joined: 10 Oct 2007
Posts: 162
Gender: 
Location: Northern Canada
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| Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:24 am Post subject:
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MadArchitect wrote:
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| What does everyone think of that? It seems like a principle that a lot of people would object to. If you could avoid some likely threat to everyone in your neighborhood by offering up one unwilling victim as a scapegoat, would you do it? Better yet: Would you feel morally justified in having done so? |
The only way I could morally justify giving up one to save all is if I were offering to be the one being sacrificed - otherwise, I would not be making a moral decision, but a self-serving one.
However, would I jump up and say 'yeah, take me'? In all honesty, I think I'd be quivering at the back of the pack! |
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Dissident Heart
Embodiment of Reason
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Joined: 29 Aug 2003
Posts: 1436
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| Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 5:01 pm Post subject:
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| H. Arendt: I had somehow taken it for granted that we all still believe with Socrates that it is better to suffer than to do wrong. This belief turned out to be a mistake. |
I find it hard to believe that Arendt, after witnessing two world wars, the NAZI holocaust, and atomic devastation in Japan...would take anything for granted. It seems such depravity could diminish any sense of for granted in the human arena...save the possibility, probability, of further and worse depravity. It seems the granted course of events is: it's better to dominate than be dominated; not, its better to suffer than do wrong. Better be the hammer than the anvil. Being wrong would involve...well, what would it involve? In the world of might equals right, where does wrong fit in?
This Socratic alternative, as well as the Talmudic (see above), is similar to the Gospel notion of turning the other cheek, handing over one's cloak, going the extra mile, loving one's enemies and praying for them, as well as risking your found 99 sheep in order to return the one sheep that is lost. All of this is radically opposed to the world of power and dominance where suffering is rarely freely accepted and often brutally administered. This notion that a principle or value or vision or hope or (?) carries more legitimacy and demands more allegience than practical systems of greed and punishment...is peculiar beyond meaning. It's absurd.
Unless to do wrong here will be met with a greater suffering there , in the world where the Socratic/Talmudic/Gospel alternative operates? In other words, accepting suffering in this world only really makes sense if there is another world that threatens even greater suffering- as well as promising even greater reward- by avoiding what is wrong in this world.
Last edited by Dissident Heart on Wed Nov 14, 2007 5:03 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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MadArchitect
Joined: 14 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 6:39 pm Post subject:
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| DH wrote: |
| In other words, accepting suffering in this world only really makes sense if there is another world that threatens even greater suffering- as well as promising even greater reward- by avoiding what is wrong in this world. |
I don't think that's so. There is, at least, the alternative offered by Boethius, to the effect that moral action is justiable in terms of what it makes of you as a person. Suffering, in that sense, may not be a goal to strive for, but if the options presented force a choice between suffering or being an immoral person, suffering would still be a viable choice for the sheer fact that, in doing do, you would avoid having made something worse of yourself. |
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Dissident Heart
Embodiment of Reason
Bronze Contributor
Joined: 29 Aug 2003
Posts: 1436
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| Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:37 pm Post subject:
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| MA: There is, at least, the alternative offered by Boethius, to the effect that moral action is justiable in terms of what it makes of you as a person. Suffering, in that sense, may not be a goal to strive for, but if the options presented force a choice between suffering or being an immoral person, suffering would still be a viable choice for the sheer fact that, in doing do, you would avoid having made something worse of yourself. |
The world of might equals right would argue that being dead is worse still: better break a few rules than be completely broken because of a few rules.
I think there is some similarity in how you describe Boethius' response with Gandhi's notion of Satyagraha, and in Dr. King's notion of non-violent resistance. Responding violently to the violent attack of another may help you survive another day, but you will be a lesser person as a result. The wrong thing may protect your life, but it will debilitate who you are: working against your nature, contrary to how you are meant to live and thrive as a human being. Avoiding suffering by doing wrong actually increases suffering: both your own and the suffering of others. In actuality, it extends energy towards an enslaving "spiral of hate" as Dr. King called retaliation to violence with violence. |
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MadArchitect
Joined: 14 Nov 2004
Posts: 2609
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| Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:54 pm Post subject:
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| Dissident Heart wrote: |
| Avoiding suffering by doing wrong actually increases suffering: both your own and the suffering of others. |
Looking for this sort of loophole weakens the force of what Boethius argues. Maybe doing wrong, even to avoid suffering, does increase suffering -- maybe it doesn't. It's immaterial when the real issue is that of what worth you make of your own life. |
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Dissident Heart
Embodiment of Reason
Bronze Contributor
Joined: 29 Aug 2003
Posts: 1436
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| Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:41 pm Post subject:
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ME: Avoiding suffering by doing wrong actually increases suffering: both your own and the suffering of others.
MA: Looking for this sort of loophole weakens the force of what Boethius argues. Maybe doing wrong, even to avoid suffering, does increase suffering -- maybe it doesn't. It's immaterial when the real issue is that of what worth you make of your own life. |
I think this is a good point. Suffering is irrelevant in the calculation between what is right and what is wrong. I think another way to put this is: Suffering is inescapable, whether you do the right or the wrong thing. Therefore, you are deluding yourself if you think you can avoid suffering by avoiding what is right. Likewise, doing what is right will not protect you from suffering either.
The beautiful, good, noble, true, affirming, authentic (choose your term) Self cannot avoid suffering, but can choose between right and wrong behavior: and by choosing will determine her quality of Self.
Still, saying suffering is irrelevant in choosing between right and wrong seems to fly directly in the face of, well, human fragility: pain hurts and it does wonders in shaping choices...perhaps far more than ideals and values or notions of human nature. |
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Robert Tulip 2
Eligible to vote!
Joined: 19 Nov 2007
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:30 am Post subject:
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| Hello again. I hope to join you in this discussion of Arendt if I find time, as I enjoyed reading her books during my MA on ethics in Heidegger's ontology. Eichmann in Jerusalem carries echoes of Christ in Jerusalem, except that "Hitler as messiah" was a perverse inversion. The legitimacy of the suffering of Christ came from his connection to the whole, understood as representation of God. Jesus had a vision of truth as love, which was worth dying for in order to transform our planet. DH is therefore quite wrong to imply that legitimacy is conferred by 'practical systems'. (Dissident Heart: "This notion that a principle or value or vision or hope or (?) carries more legitimacy and demands more allegience than practical systems of greed and punishment...is peculiar beyond meaning. It's absurd.") On that basis, Eichmann was 'legitimate' against the 'practical system' of Nazi law. Real legitimacy is something deeper, grounded in sustainable human values based in evidence. Suffering for a truly noble cause is honorable. However, today we see another perversion of this doctrine in the terrorist ideal of martyrdom. The problem is that the terrorist vision is not honorable or based in evidence. |
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Dissident Heart
Embodiment of Reason
Bronze Contributor
Joined: 29 Aug 2003
Posts: 1436
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| Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 11:59 am Post subject:
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| Quote: |
| R. Tulip2: DH is therefore quite wrong to imply that legitimacy is conferred by 'practical systems'. (Dissident Heart: "This notion that a principle or value or vision or hope or (?) carries more legitimacy and demands more allegience than practical systems of greed and punishment...is peculiar beyond meaning. It's absurd.") On that basis, Eichmann was 'legitimate' against the 'practical system' of Nazi law. |
Welcome back Robert Tulip 2. To clarify, my point was to describe how might equals right understands suffering: which is always, in that context, better to give than to receive. Against that framework (which seems to be the norm in world and interpersonal affairs), willingly accepting suffering for something that cannot be expressed as force or dominance, is ridiculous: i.e., why suffer for another (or a principle and ideal) if suffering won't lend itself to greater power and more dominance? If might equals right, then what equals wrong?
In the context of sheer power, its increase and expansion, legitimacy is determined by what best increases and expands power. Furthermore, this legitimacy is hardly a topic for Socratic discussion or seminar debate: it is imposed and forced. Counter-points and objections are sometimes entertained, but only as tools to highlight weaknesses and faultlines in the greater press for dominance. But there is little room for objections that play upon moral sensitivities or deeper, sustainable human values: these stings of conscience are simply ploys by the weaker to strike back and demoralize the stronger with guilt and shame. And upon closer inspection, these deeper, sustainable human values are actually yet another attempt to force behavior and dominate persons into submission. There simply is no pure moral ground from which one is above the fray of dominance and submission: in reality, morality is the rules one imposes upon oneself to maintain a little self-respect and dignity along the way.
But choosing the suffer, as though suffering is a solution in itself, a kind of magic or medicine: is ludicrous. Suffering is inavoidable and omnipresent.
Eichmann was hardly the first and certainly not the last spoke in the wheel of power that has smashed its way through history since (to utilize a mythic phrase) the expulsion from Eden. Those who offer an alternative to this wheel are pushing against enormous evidence and odds. Those who push hardest get crushed. Actually, all get crushed. |
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