Let the Right be Done

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Let the Right be Done

America politicians are the best experts available for evaluating the judgmental ability of American citizens. Watching election campaigns offer us an opportunity to quickly gauge the level of intellectual sophistication of US citizens as judged by politicians; the politicians' expertise in all such matters determines their success or failure as a politician.

The father looking over the shoulder of his daughter working on her homework says. "Perhaps I can help". She says "I'm looking for the lowest common denominator". He, looking rather shocked, replied "Whoo! Are they still looking for that?"

Is democracy merely the process of seeking the lowest common denominator?

The two primary concepts of ethics are right and good. In the United States we give priority to right by ensconcing detailed rights in the Constitution. Good can be freely determined by each individual as long as our good does not trounce another's rights.

Our government, like Lincoln's government in the Civil War and FDR's government in WWII, has decided to reprioritize our Constitutional rights in favor of the good that our government has determined to be in synchronization with the will of the majority.

The majority seems to, in periods of great stress, give priority to the good instead of the right that was determined in ?'cold blood'. I consider such action to be a weakness of democracy. What do you think about it?

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I think . . . nay, i know . . . that your comments about Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt are horse ****. Given that your contentions are based upon flawed accounts of what these Presidents did in those wars, i consider your thesis not to be worth the candle.

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Re: Let the Right be Done

coberst wrote:

America politicians are the best experts available for evaluating the judgmental ability of American citizens.

I have never seen any evidence to support this.

"judgmental ability"??? What the heck is that anyway?

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Politicians are the necessary brokers for the constant negotiation of the social contract as between essentially self-interested and therefore from mildly to accutely, mutually hostile individuals and groups. Quite consonant with that, politicians are themselves self-interested, which explains why they perform the function. Blaming them or praising them are equally futile enterprises--like common day laborers, there will always be another one available tomorrow morning if you don't like the one you've got today.

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Re: Let the Right be Done

coberst wrote:

The majority seems to, in periods of great stress, give priority to the good instead of the right that was determined in ?'cold blood'.

How one distinguishes one from the other is a debate in itself. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about the Lincoln and FDR administrations, and what "good" they favored at the expense of what "right."

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Re: Let the Right be Done

Shapeless wrote:

coberst wrote:
The majority seems to, in periods of great stress, give priority to the good instead of the right that was determined in ?'cold blood'.

How one distinguishes one from the other is a debate in itself. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about the Lincoln and FDR administrations, and what "good" they favored at the expense of what "right."

"During his terms as president, Lincoln suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, and upheld the Declaration of Independence above the Constitution." http://216.110.172.115/pulito.htm

FDR forced the internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans during WWII.

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Lincoln's original suspension of writs was overturned by Chief Justic Roger B. Taney of the Supreme Court, the man who sent Dred Scott into slavery. He died on the same day in 1864 that his home state of Maryland abolished slavery. Lincoln issued a second proclamation suspending writs in 1862, specifying the suspension only in districts under military control--Taney had overturned the first proclamation by taking the case of Maryland man who had been held without habeas corpus, by acting in his other capacity as a Federal Circuit Judge. He was powerless to do anything about the second proclamation, unless and until a suit wended its way to the Supreme Court. There was such a suit, but Taney was dead, and the Chief Justice, Salmon Chase, upheld the proclamation. For those interested in the comparison, Jefferson Davis also suspended writs of habeas corpus in the Confederate States--one of many reasons he was unpopular in the South, and with the Confederate States Congress--many members of which considered him a military dictator.

Article One, Section 9, the second paragraph, of the United States Constitution reads, in full:

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.[/b] (emphasis added).

It was upon that basis that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, and after the extraordinary action on the part of the pro-slavery Chief Justice Taney, he issued his 1862 proclamation restricting the suspension of writs to areas under military control. You have no argument.

I consider the internment of Japanese Americans to have been reprehensible--nevertheless, the Supreme Court found in 1944 that the action was warranted when there is "pressing public necessity." For the opinion, written by Mr. Justice Hugo Black, see Koramatsu versus the United States.

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You really have no basis for your claims, but quite apart from that, you haven't provided any reason to take your comments about politicians and their role in society seriously.

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He never does Settie. Don't you know a simple thing like that yet?

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These are complex issues and cannot be easily framed. The following is a post I hade sometime ago that might better frame the issue.

Captain Dave will under no circumstance torture a prisoner (open morality). Captain Jim will torture a prisoner when he considers such action will save the lives of his platoon (closed morality).

"The two main concepts of ethics are those of the right and the good; the concept of a morally worthy person is, I believe, derived from them." This quote and any others are from "A Theory of Justice" by John Rawls.

In teleological (explaining phenomena by final causes) theories of ethics the good is defined independently from the right.

The attitude of the individual is to seek the satisfaction of desire, more appropriately it is "the satisfaction of rational desire". Many people find that society should be just an extension of this attitude. The good, for society, is the satisfaction of rational desire. The right is that which maximizes the good.

Others in society reject this utilitarian view and find that the right comes before the good and embodies a boundary for the good. The right becomes a principle that has priority over the good. In the United States the right is placed in the Constitution and each individual determines the good.

Captain Dave rejects the utilitarian view of morality (open morality). Captain Jim embraces the utilitarian view of morality (closed morality).

Morality/ethics is a matter pertaining only to the relationship between subjects and thus there is nothing objective about it. All such matters are subjective and thus relative. Religion interjects God into the matter and thus makes it a matter of absolutes for believers.

Many individuals think of the individual as constituted by the community to which s/he belongs?-their value is dependent to a large extent upon the community. It is this interdependence upon the community that makes ideology so very potent. For the individual who embraces closed morality the ideological association is more important than to the person with an open morality.

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Setanta wrote:

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You really have no basis for your claims, but quite apart from that, you haven't provided any reason to take your comments about politicians and their role in society seriously.

Perhaps you missed the first paragraph of my post.

"America politicians are the best experts available for evaluating the judgmental ability of American citizens. Watching election campaigns offer us an opportunity to quickly gauge the level of intellectual sophistication of US citizens as judged by politicians; the politicians' expertise in all such matters determines their success or failure as a politician. "

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coberst wrote:

Setanta wrote:
You really have no basis for your claims, but quite apart from that, you haven't provided any reason to take your comments about politicians and their role in society seriously.

Perhaps you missed the first paragraph of my post.

"America politicians are the best experts available for evaluating the judgmental ability of American citizens. Watching election campaigns offer us an opportunity to quickly gauge the level of intellectual sophistication of US citizens as judged by politicians; the politicians' expertise in all such matters determines their success or failure as a politician. "

Yes, that is exactly the passage to which i refer--i didn't miss a thing. You have done nothing but spew a series of statements from authority, an authority for which we have no reason to assume you are entitled to claim. You have not provided any reason to take this statement seriously.

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Setanta wrote:

coberst wrote:
Setanta wrote:
You really have no basis for your claims, but quite apart from that, you haven't provided any reason to take your comments about politicians and their role in society seriously.

Perhaps you missed the first paragraph of my post.

"America politicians are the best experts available for evaluating the judgmental ability of American citizens. Watching election campaigns offer us an opportunity to quickly gauge the level of intellectual sophistication of US citizens as judged by politicians; the politicians' expertise in all such matters determines their success or failure as a politician. "

Yes, that is exactly the passage to which i refer--i didn't miss a thing. You have done nothing but spew a series of statements from authority, an authority for which we have no reason to assume you are entitled to claim. You have not provided any reason to take this statement seriously.

We all must depend upon our observation and judgment constantly. Even if we have others who judge one way or the other we must judge the value of their statement.

Accept or reject are not the only options one has. The most important and generally overlooked, especially by the young, is the option to ?'hold'.

When a person takes a public position affirming or denying the truth of ?'Y' they are often locking themselves into a difficult position. If their original position was based on opinion rather than judgment their ego will not easily allow them to change position once they have studied and analyzed ?'Y'.

The moral of this story is that having a default position of ?'reject or accept', when we are ignorant, is not smart because our ego will fight any attempt to modify the opinion with a later judgment. Silence, or questions directed at comprehending the matter under consideration, is the smart decision for everyone's default position.

Our options are reject, accept, and hold. I think that ?'hold' is the most important and should be the most often used because everyone is ignorant of almost everything.

In this situation if you do not know much about the matter your best decision is to hold judgment until you can comprehend the matter more completely.

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Let the Right be Done

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