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InvisibleBlack -> RE: Misogyny and BDSM (1/5/2010 7:18:50 PM)
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Back from work so now I have time...
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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23
I thought it was obvious that not all pragmatic actions are ethical. Sometimes the pragmatic thing to do is shoot someone in cold blood and hide the body. That's pretty much never ethical. There is plenty of overlap in a Venn diagram of the ethical and the pragmatic, but there's plenty of non-overlapping space too.
You have a valid point there, but that's on the level of personal interaction. Group dynamics tend to be different than interpersonal dynamics and so it's possible that on a group or societal level an action could be taken that might be ethical when attempting to govern masses of people acting as large groups that would be unethical when performed by an individual.
If the execution of convicted murderers actually does have a deterrent effect and greatly reduces the murder rate in a country then if, as the ruler, you are aware of this and make use of it, it could be considered ethical to kill all murderers - whereas for an individual it could be viewed as unethical as your single act of vengeance or vigilantism would not produce the same result.
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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23
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I could look at the example and say that if a police officer refused to apprehend, arrest and incarcerate a felon, he would be acting unethically. It would then seem to me we're using very different definitions of ethics.
Don't you mean the suspected felon? And therein lies the problem. Invariably the police must arrest some innocent people (and technically all people are innocent until proven guilty, which occurs long after arrest). In some sense you're right, if a police officer refused to do his job he would be acting unethically, he would be violating a contract. He agreed to do the job, society agrees to pay him.
Why "suspected"? We're not discussing the law or legal matters - there doesn't need to be the presumption of innocence in an ethical scenario. What if the police officer witnesses the murder and then attempts to apprehend the criminal? While the court might have to offer the murderer the benefit of reasonable doubt, the police officer knows he is guilty because he saw the crime. In this instance, if he acted to apprehend and arrest the felon, even to the point of using violence to prevent the murderer's escape, his actions could be viewed as ethical and if he refused to catch the murderer, I could say that he was acting unethically and not just from his refusal to perform his duty as a police officer.
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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23
Imagine Jesus (i.e. an extreme pacifist) is absolute dictator of the entire world...
Actually, I view extreme pacifism as unethical, but I understand the point you're trying to make.
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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23
Crime rules the streets. Massive gangs become as powerful as nation states, subjecting billions to savage oppression. Total Mad Max nightmare. Why? Because the Jesus response to any evil act by a citizen is to turn the other cheek when struck, to give the thief twice what he tries to steal, and to always forgive so long as his authority is recognized. In other words he couldn't lift a hand to smite down evil and maintain order and the peace that comes with it.
The state by it's nature cannot be saintly, it must be godly.
My question is - why is the action the results in the optimal scenario viewed as unethical? Wouldn't refusing to perform that action if you knew it would result in the optimal scenario be unethical?
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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23
And other moral quandaries arise when doing the moral thing would appear to have a clearly undesirable consequence. The eternal conflict between right action and necessary action, between the ideal and the real, between the ethical and the pragmatic.
Again, my question is - if you know it will result in the undesirable consequence, how can it be the right action?
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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23
When a police officer puts on the badge, he is no longer a normal person. He becomes an agent of the state. So while the actions he must perform as an agent of the state are unethical, they are not his actions in the strictest sense. They are the actions of the state, he is merely the implement of the state. In a sense the ethical police officer qua man behind the badge is most ethical when he is most submissive to the role. When he places his own thoughts, needs, fears and desires aside and adopts the mindset of an agent of the state, then he is doing something ethical that he can be proud of.
I don't know what they teach aspiring police officers in the ethics classes they have to take but I do know that in both basic training and in the classes you have to take in order to be commissioned as an officer, the entire thrust of the training given in the military is the exact opposite of that. That there is both a moral and legal obligation to speak out against injustice or violations of the rules of war (basically the agreed upon "military values") and that nothing can absolve you of this responsibility.
Thanks for the response.
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