A question inspired by another post:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

If we presume that a social good and a social evil can be defined enough that violence v. non-violence is a valid question, I'd like to propose a simple question:

Who is the arbiter of good and evil? Is it religion, ethics, utilitarianism, ideology, might makes right or what?

Effectively....given the amount of diversity in opinion in this community, which includes paranoid conspiracy theorists like Sophia_Sadek and Hunterkirk, communists like Gillen, ultra-reactionaries like yours truly, and a bevy of more "regular" political Left-Right viewpoints, who among Men is best-qualified to judge all? Or is Hobbes right?

How can one be objective enough to decide this on the scale of a modern-day state, even the anarchistic messes that are most of Africa, let alone the Second or First Worlds?

Post referenced linked here: http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/182264.html

Comments

[merig00.livejournal.com]

Well there's such things as tradition and common law.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except who gets to define tradition?

Suppose my tradition states I must sacrifice a virgin to Huitzilopochtli every night so that the Sun must rise the next morning. Your tradition sees women in general as the root source of all that's holy. Thus mine is utter anathema to yours Who wins in that case?

And common law itself is a good vantage point....but Jews have their own court systems in England to rule according to Halacha. And there are other traditional law systems like Shariah and Indian tribal laws (because I like self-parody as much as the next fellow). Whose law system is superior?

[merig00.livejournal.com]

The law system that traditionally is used in that particular country.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Which implies that might makes right, not right makes might....

[merig00.livejournal.com]

well it is the "chicken or the egg" question :D We all live in a constructive reality. Each nation has its own core founding believes and traditions which make it a nation.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And each nation tended to expand by violence until it was content enough to erase that part of its history. He who gets there first with the most guns appears to make the rules.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

winners to be judged and winners get to write history.

Look at nation/government/organization/corporation etc as a living organism - expansion means life.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It can also mean ruin, see the Roman Republic and the western part of the Roman Empire....

[ihatepeoplealot.livejournal.com]

I've asked myself that question many times, and eventually I decided to become a moral/ethical nihilist.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

I just say that there is no ultimate truth. Everything is relative.

[ihatepeoplealot.livejournal.com]

yeah, but that sort of a belief has some widespread implications, but not policy implications.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

meaning?

[ihatepeoplealot.livejournal.com]

if nothing has a "true" or "ultimate" meaning, then one can't say that any policy recommendation they may have has any justification other than "because I like it"
but that's never what anyone says, they always claim there's some rationale.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

well it is their ratinale hence it is "because I like it" there's nothing wrong with that.

[ihatepeoplealot.livejournal.com]

"because I like it" is definitely not a rationale.

let's not get too bogged down in semantics. Rationales have some kind of logical underpinning, regardless of whether the logic is flawed or not.
Personal opinions don't need any logic. Perhaps you were raped as a child and just hate gingers because a ginger raped you.
that's not a rationale for advocating anti-ginger legislation

Just like sympathy for the poor is not a rationale for advocating giving health care to them.

And as such, no one says, "we need to pass health care legislation because I feel sorry for the poor!"
They always drown it in doublespeak.
"If we don't...then...will happen! and it must not happen!"

and they refer to "human rights" and "moral imperatives" and such

[merig00.livejournal.com]

Well I was talking more about the underlining founding and binding morals for a nation. But overall I agree with you.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Well, those are rationales, they just aren't good ones from your perspective.

[ihatepeoplealot.livejournal.com]

The point of my original comment was that there are no good rationales, so no.

[ihatepeoplealot.livejournal.com]

no.
I certainly don't prefer the implications of nihilism, by all the standards I've been raised with it's a very scary and unsatisfying conclusion.
But it's the most reasonable, which has nothing to do with my personal preferences.

[reflaxion.livejournal.com]

Who is the arbiter of good and evil?

Me.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

conciseness is the sister of talent :D

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

First let me state that this is way above my pay grade, but that won't stop me from offering an opinion.

"Who is the arbiter of good and evil? Is it religion, ethics, utilitarianism, ideology, might makes right or what?"

All of the above.....altho *reflaxion*'s answer may be the most the most accurate. However, that is too simplistic, as to even define good and evil there must be an 'absolute arbiter' and there is not a consensus on what that is; so in the end every man doeth what is in his own heart....generally hooking up with like minded people. Then when there are enough of them, they can impose upon others.......While that does not answer the question, it is the way it works, and bottom line, the question is unanswerable.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I believe that Reflaxion's is the most honest answer, but yeah.....

It may be above your pay grade, but it is well-thought out and reasoned...

A future of (non) violence

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

I think a generally sound arbiter would be violence itself. Anyone who seeks to impose their will upon another through violence — is (acting as if) evil. In other words, except in self-defence, might makes wrong.

How can one be objective enough to decide this on the scale of a modern-day state, even the anarchistic messes that are most of Africa, let alone the Second or First Worlds?

That's not really the question. Since there is no power (country, corporation, gang of scantily-clad superheroes, whatever) that I would trust to actually solve those problems without first making them worse, let's take the option off the table.

Let he or she who does not initiate violence cast the second stone.

Re: A future of (non) violence

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except there's not a country in the world didn't get where it is today by violence. The USA is one example, but even if we take states like China into account, the modern Chinese states were born of war. There really is no state that has risen to power in the absence of violence, which in my view does appear to state that in this treacherous world 'tis might with a right all its own.

Re: A future of (non) violence

[dwer.livejournal.com]

what about that group of artists with the commune on that Island that one guy keeps telling us about, even though we told him to take a hike? :P

Re: A future of (non) violence

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So long as no squid appears in New York, those islanders won't matter...;P

Re: A future of (non) violence

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Nice.

Re: A future of (non) violence

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Essentially you're saying, "If it was good enough for my daddy, and it was good enough for his daddy before him, it's good enough for me!"

Arguments like that have also been used to defend such traditional ways of life as slavery, the subjugation of women and the denial of the right to vote to any but property-holding white males — to name only a very few traditions we've decided are (a) wrong and (b) don't make sense any more.

Re: A future of (non) violence

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, I'm saying no such thing. That violence is an effective way does not make it the best way, even at its best violence scars the world in ways other ways do more insidiously. Half the world adheres to two mutations of the tribal religion of the Israelites because the two mutations, Christianity and Islam, were very efficient at spreading by the sword. We live in an Abrahamic world because the sons of Abraham chose to ape his wars with Chedorlaomer and not his pleas for the Sodomites.

A world where might makes right does not offer comfort, but it is the world of human beings of history. Non-violence would be preferable, but look at the chimpanzees. They are different from us by one of our chromosomes being formed from two of theirs....and they are among the most cruel and violent of all the animals. If the chimps of Africa cannot create non-violence when all they have is spears of wood and fangs and hands and feet, how are we to erase 6,000 years of memetic cultural evolution shaped by the aftereffects of conquest and violence overnight?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Religion.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Which is fine....until you take into account which religion decides what and what happens to the irreligious, who don't feel obligated to care what a bhikkhu says any more than a priest or rabbi....

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Depends on what your goal or scope is.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

A standard that works in the temporal world. Christianity is how I personally see absolute truth as defined, but temporally it's honored its promises more in the breach than the observance.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Define "works". Define "good" and "evil". You can't arbitrate what isn't defined. And how do you pick who decides what good and evil is? So, the short answer is, there isn't an arbiter. The temporal world doesn't really care about good and evil, it cares about results. You have to control whether you do good or evil yourself, that's it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

People throw these terms around in the modern political world. Sean Hannity's books could have a drinking game to judge how many times and ways he spins that concept to refer to people whose only sin is to disagree with his brand of politics.

Works is here defined as causing a consistency in society bereft of reactionary stagnation or Soviet-style massive upheaval.

Good and evil are terms that have even more subjective definitions than what works for society.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Works is here defined as causing a consistency in society bereft of reactionary stagnation or Soviet-style massive upheaval.

Ah, so utopia. Never gonna happen.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Right. Which is why good and evil need to be quietly shut up in a tomb alive and their distant relatives pragmatism and realpolitik resurrected in Shiny New BodiesTM.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

paranoid conspiracy theorists like Sophia_Sadek and Hunterkirk

http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/179845.html?thread=10478725#t10478725

Please read the first sentence.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Other than this,

Who is the arbiter of good and evil? Is it religion, ethics, utilitarianism, ideology, might makes right or what?

All of the above, in varying order of significance through the times. However, i'm with you on this. Good & evil are just fragile and highly relativistic constructs designed to make us feel cosy in this inhospitable world.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

reflaxion apparently.