Proportionality of military actions

[dimreepr]

19 hours ago, swansont said:

Alternately, the moral argument could be “turn the other cheek”

Not really, "when we can clearly see who took my vision.", it would be foolish to offer the other eye, and I'd be entirely justified, even as a pacifist, in plucking one of theirs in order to profide context and consequences.

19 hours ago, swansont said:

Anyway, I think the “proportional response” is about how others view your actions. Not how your target does, so it’s not about deterrence. It’s about not being labeled a pariah by nations that might be moved to take action.

Indeed, it's always easier when we can clearly see, who the actual bully is.

14 hours ago, CharonY said:

That suggests that ethical actions are not feasible within a democratic system, if they are not intuitive. I wonder though, shouldn't governments have a duty to help folks make informed decisions? Even counterintuitive ones? Because otherwise it will perpetuate a system that chases myopic goals at the cost of long-term benefits. For sure, this is how the world seems to work right now, but I do see serious ethical perils with that approach.

It's not democracy that's the road block to ethics, it's capitalism and the accountant, they own the system.

Edited September 27 by dimreepr

[swansont]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Not really, "when we can clearly see who took my vision.",

Is the Bible a source of morals for some, or not?

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

it would be foolish to offer the other eye, and I'd be entirely justified, even as a pacifist, in plucking one of theirs in order to profide context and consequences.

Foolishness and morality are not the same thing.

[dimreepr]

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

The Bible is not a source of morals for some?

Indeed, but I'm not using it.

4 minutes ago, swansont said:

Foolishness and morality are not the same thing.

Indeed, that's the role of ethics...

[swansont]

17 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed, but I'm not using it.

And nobody else is allowed to? 

[dimreepr]

26 minutes ago, swansont said:

And nobody else is allowed to? 

Of course they can, with a reasonable argument...

[swansont]

12 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Of course they can, with a reasonable argument...

You said “turn the other cheek” was not a moral argument, though. 

And why does a moral stance require a reasonable argument? Who decides if it’s reasonable? Someone who doesn’t share that moral stance? Is the view that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind a “reasonable” argument?

[TheVat]

On 9/26/2024 at 4:42 PM, zapatos said:

Was my decision to put the safety of my child at a higher priority than yours unethical? 

That doesn't mean I should act myopically. Circumstances may tell me that I should change the evaluation if, for example, saving your child might benefit my family.

A problem with ethics is that they can only be a guideline. Not everyone will agree that THIS is the cutoff; that all things less than this are ethical and all things more are unethical. 

This is where ethicists get into thought experiments like the trolley problem.  Circumstances do shift certain moral weightings.  If my son had terminal cancer and said "toss me onto the tracks, so I will save ten other people," that could alter the moral implications.  If Israel understood that cheek-turning rather than mass bombing would save lives in the long run by preventing a long bloody war and reducing the number of future recruitable terrorists who hate Israel, then this could change the equating of reprisal with defense.  

The whole revenge concept is ethically problematic since it both fails to revive the dead and also increases their number.  If numbers matter, and there seems a prima facie case that they do, then any cycle of reprisals is to be avoided. 

On 9/26/2024 at 4:42 PM, zapatos said:

 

 

Edited September 27 by TheVat
duplicate glitch again

[dimreepr]

21 hours ago, swansont said:

And why does a moral stance require a reasonable argument? Who decides if it’s reasonable? Someone who doesn’t share that moral stance? Is the view that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind a “reasonable” argument?

Which circles back to my post, morals is an individual thing that depends on what we can see, which in 99.999...% of the time nobody actually does and so it's disconnected from objective justice, ethics is designed to interject and objectively view the scene.

Quote

You said “turn the other cheek” was not a moral argument, though. 

No, I said not really, in the context of actually seeing the scene.

 

12 hours ago, TheVat said:

If Israel understood that cheek-turning rather than mass bombing would save lives in the long run by preventing a long bloody war and reducing the number of future recruitable terrorists who hate Israel, then this could change the equating of reprisal with defense.  

It's not Israel that's likely to get the message, they are so much stronger and therefore so much less likely to look for an alternative in fighting their corner, it's Hamas that needs to learn the "rope a dope" technique. 

We can't expect people to think morally, without ethics defining the rules of the game...

[CharonY]

On 9/26/2024 at 4:42 PM, zapatos said:

as my decision to put the safety of my child at a higher priority than yours unethical? 

I think that depends a lot on the overall circumstance. In isolation, there is obviously nothing wrong with it. But as a whole it can lead to ethical dilemmas, as TheVat pointed out . Even if one considers prioritizing one's own as an universally ethical principle, it would not be feasible to translate that into universal law. For example, would it be ethical to kill someone else to obtain an organ needed to save the live of one's own child?

I think there is a difference between personal and societal ethics. The latter is essentially based on a societal contract where we trade some personal priorities against the benefits of living in a society. I.e., ethics is balanced with societal responsibility and laws are put in place for this reason. The issue with prioritizing personal ethics, is of course that there is no resolution in conflicting events. I don't think that there are universal rules that we can apply, but we can think in terms of simple tests. The trolley dilemma is on of those, and the ethical test outlined in the article in OP is another. 

If the ethical test is: "does it benefit the safety of the one closests to oneself", it would seem to justify for example Israel's action and might result in eliminating all threats (including young folks that have not joined the war yet) ethical.

On 9/26/2024 at 4:42 PM, zapatos said:

If my decision to put the safety of my child first is ethical, then I don't see why we cannot not scale those ethics up to government levels. No government decision can be made in a vacuum without looking at the broader picture, but I see nothing wrong with the first question being "is this in the best interests of my people?" Similar to the way doctors may evaluate a care plan by first asking "will this harm my patient?"

I think that this does not necessarily follow from the principles of prioritizing one's own people. The benefit is often not obvious, and may require sacrifices. 

Let me take a step back, my initial thrust of this thread is not whether different views on morals or ethics are explainable or even justified, but more in line of what principles are there that we should follow. The issue I see is, for example that if in the course of justifying prioritizing our own, we cheapen other's lives, it can ultimately lead to net negative outcomes. Again taking the COVID-19 pandemic, the everyone for their own approach has led to fairly ineffective responses, and we ultimately lost the race to contain the disease. Likewise, justifying full-on destruction could over time to lead to prolonging the conflict, which could ultimately cost more lives (including the one's one cares about). To take another example:

On 9/26/2024 at 4:42 PM, zapatos said:

Similar to the way doctors may evaluate a care plan by first asking "will this harm my patient?"

They do ask that, but they also think about societal duties in certain cases. For example, reporting certain types of infectious diseases, or putting patients into quarantine can harm the patient to some degree. But that is balanced by the need to protect others from the disease. As you mentioned, the bigger picture needs to be seem and I suspect that because of the powerful motivation of protecting those closer to oneself, it can cloud one's vision rather than guide it effectively.