341–350 of 464 posts
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Morality is set around cultural norms not animal behavior.
But cultural norms -- indeed, culture itself -- is grounded in evolution. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation
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Such as?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes Or just a top 5: - Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Battle of Okinawa (and just the habit of American soldiers on Okinawa to rape and kill the locals in general) - No Gun Ri massacre, Korea - The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam - My Lai massacre, Vietnam (really, most of the Vietnam War and Korea. Americans really do like killing Asians in the most viol…
Outside of strictly defined "war crimes", we have a very long history of interventionism, imperialism, support of coups, installation and support of dictators, overthrow of governments, military actions with foreign nations to install our own form of government / economy / morality. We've destabilized whole regions and nations, birthed massive terrorist organizations, overthrown countries, annexed territories and sovereign nations, and we continue to invade any nation that doesn't have nukes with our special forces (or to support foreign special forces) to attack targets of value.
Stalin was a mass-murdering fuckhead, for sure. But the USSR's actions look a whole lot like the New Imperialism every other major nation has been practicing since the 19th century. Putin is a new Stalin, for sure. But in the time between Stalin and now, we, the USA, have pulled wayyyyy more heinous shit on the world than Russia has.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_United_States_for... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponso... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_killing#Use_by_the_Un... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_U... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
I find it troublesome to listen to the person who claims that Russia is fighting in Ukraine in a more humane way than the US in their wars [ https://civilek.info/en/2023/04/30/noam-chomsky-russia-fight... ]
Come on, Choamsky is the ultimate "america bad" man. He practically invented it. "America bad" people are also "Russia not so bad" people. These are highly valuable people for Russia propaganda, of course. They're literal useful idiots.
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He's very dismissive and disrespectful to anyone who isn't fawning over him. If you interview him and interlace praise and admiration for him, yes he's gonna be congenial.
Dismissive and disrespectful to people who are dismissive and disrespectful of him... what a monster.
I think that the thing that most people don't realize about ethics is the meta-ethical problem that axioms are by definition arbitrary. When we really think about the fact that all of our ethical theories are based on arbitrary axioms, suddenly the teeth to ethics have a deep, serious problem. The only argument we have at that point is that the axioms "feel" correct, and I have no problem with this basis, I consider…
Far from being completely impossible, subjective ethics are entirely more consistent than the alternative. The important thing about analyzing ethical systems is to find axioms that you actually believe . An unanalyzed moral system tends to have false axioms: things that the speaker says are fundamental tenets, but on further analysis simply don't stand muster. For example, the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is an…
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Kant's categorical imperative is a decent attempt at one. Also (closely related)- "do unto others as you would have others do unto you." They both have holes and edge cases though.
> "do unto others as you would have others do unto you. This one doesn't just have edge cases, it has a hole large enough to float an aircraft carrier through it. My grandparents (all deceased at this point) did not want to be treated in the same way I want(ed) to be treated. The much less absurd version is: "treat other people the way they would like to be treated ". Still edge cases, but the holes are much smaller.
I think that the thing that most people don't realize about ethics is the meta-ethical problem that axioms are by definition arbitrary. When we really think about the fact that all of our ethical theories are based on arbitrary axioms, suddenly the teeth to ethics have a deep, serious problem. The only argument we have at that point is that the axioms "feel" correct, and I have no problem with this basis, I consider…
I half-see your point here, and there are many other points to be made about ethics (which I still think Nietzsche does best) but I feel like you're brushing away Chomsky's argument. He looks at morality like language. It's just that normal does indeed have an apparently wide range, which according to his theory is actually quite limited. I like this idea. Similar to the limits of reason itself; from one perspective the human condition limits us to a frustratingly small territory of what is thinkable at all. Morality is narrow because humans are alike. This is a claim about the human condition itself, not about the moral majority.
The only real exception i can think of is psychopaths, but I think that they do live up to their name.
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Far from being completely impossible, subjective ethics are entirely more consistent than the alternative. The important thing about analyzing ethical systems is to find axioms that you actually believe . An unanalyzed moral system tends to have false axioms: things that the speaker says are fundamental tenets, but on further analysis simply don't stand muster. For example, the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is an…
It’s actually better translated ‘though shall not murder’ for the modern reader.
Which cleverly punts the problem to the language centre of the brain, which gets to decide whether a particular killing was a good kill (execution, enemy combatant) or bad (murder).
I think that the thing that most people don't realize about ethics is the meta-ethical problem that axioms are by definition arbitrary. When we really think about the fact that all of our ethical theories are based on arbitrary axioms, suddenly the teeth to ethics have a deep, serious problem. The only argument we have at that point is that the axioms "feel" correct, and I have no problem with this basis, I consider…
Far from being completely impossible, subjective ethics are entirely more consistent than the alternative. The important thing about analyzing ethical systems is to find axioms that you actually believe . An unanalyzed moral system tends to have false axioms: things that the speaker says are fundamental tenets, but on further analysis simply don't stand muster. For example, the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is an…
The commandment is "Thou shalt not murder".
I think that the thing that most people don't realize about ethics is the meta-ethical problem that axioms are by definition arbitrary. When we really think about the fact that all of our ethical theories are based on arbitrary axioms, suddenly the teeth to ethics have a deep, serious problem. The only argument we have at that point is that the axioms "feel" correct, and I have no problem with this basis, I consider…
(I mention how it's possible to define a notion of universality of ethics, and why!)