If a life was saved by telling a lie (Anne Frank? Never heard of her. And she's DEFINITELY (pointing up) NOT HIDING IN THE ATTIC (wink)) is that immoral?
This is the subject of Kant's On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns. Kant didn't know Anne Frank, of course, but argued that it would be immoral to lie to a murderer at your door pursuing your friend to kill him. It's been a while since I've read it, but Kant believed that rules of morality had reason giving force, and that do disobey them was not only, obviously, immoral, but irrational. You should consider your actions in this light: Imagine if everyone were to act in such a way. If everyone lied, then we would have no ability to make promises. Essentially, communication would be useless.
(Kant also believed that every individual is an end in himself, never a means. So, no, you can't torture the terrorist's wife, or even the terrorist, to get him to defuse the bomb he set to blow up the hospital full of children.)
Very few people (apparently not Jack Bauer) buy his philosophy hook, line and sinker, I think. Most people would be horrified at the thought of revealing the location of a friend to his enemy knowing that your friend will be murdered. I've heard that even contemporary Kantians have to dance around certain issues. It seems hard to swallow that it is always irrational to be immoral.
I don't believe that you are a moral relativist, Arkabee, at least not a hard-line moral relativist. A moral relativist would argue that all systems of morality are equal, and you don't seem to be doing this. For example, you seem to think that the Nazi's value system is wrong. A moral relativist couldn't really argue this. A lot of people would argue that moral relativism is self-defeating, because if moral relativism really is a value system, they might not be able to defend their position, because no value system is better than another.
My understanding of the neoconservatism/traditional conservatism distinction is that neocons believe in nation building and a pretty aggresive foreign policy, while traditional conservatives believe in a much more restrained foreign policy (protect the borders--Pat Buchannan is an example of this). Neocons are influenced heavily by FDR, much more so than by traditional conservatives or libertarians. I think Irving Kristol is one of the more prominent neocons, and self-proclaimed founder.
Below quote from
here.(the whole article gives more background)
"Neoconservatives differed with traditional conservatives on a number of issues, of which the three most important, in my view, were the New Deal, civil rights, and the nature of the Communist threat. On the New Deal, neoconservatives wanted not to dismantle the welfare/regulatory state, as did most traditionalists, but simply to prevent its infinite expansion, as in the programs of the Great Society. On civil rights, all neocons were enthusiastic supporters of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, while the National Review was suspicious of King and opposed to federal legislation forbidding racial discrimination.
As to communism, traditionalists and neocons were both ardent anti- Communists; but where neocons focused on the danger of external aggression, traditionalists worried more about the threat of internal subversion-and, as Podhoretz notes, "They were not, to put it gently, always scrupulous in distinguishing among the various factions on the left." The National Review conservatives were, in most cases, zealous defenders of Senator Joe McCarthy; the neoconservatives considered him a political thug whose demagoguery had severely damaged the anti-Communist cause."
Neocon is a word tossed around today with the same kind of anger that liberal is. I think that most people who use it just use it, not really understanding its history, just like liberal (we are a nation today because of the classical liberal movement).
also see:
here and
here.
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Topic: bbc- the power of nightmares (Read 3395 times)