The Death of Free Speech: Uber PC'ism-A further look

[michigancat]

Yes, and my eating a whole pizza is a sacrifice to the religion of hedonism.

You're using the term in a way that makes it completely meaningless.

Well, that's not killing a human, but OK. If something like deomcracy isn't "religion" as you would like it defined, is killing in the name of a government morally acceptable, but killing in the name of religion (as you define it) morally unacceptable?

Is it the ritual aspect that makes the religious killing morally unacceptable?

Well the problem is you’re now taking human sacrifice as meaning the same as killing, and then just adding ridiculous things at the end to make it sound more sacrifice-y.

Pretty much everyone today agrees that ritual sacrifice serves no purpose, which makes it clearly immoral given the cost (human life).

I'm thinking less of the morality of a soldier killing another and more of the leaders ordering the killing/sacrifice of their own people. Look at it this way:

General tells soldiers: "go charge that hill. you will die but you will have glory in the afterlife and your ancestors will be better because of it."
Montezuma tells subjects: "let us take out your still beating heart. you will die but you will have glory in the afterlife and your ancestors will be better because of it."

As far as the general knows, the hill is important to his country and will help his people. As far as Montezuma knows, he's making the gods happy and helping his people. They are both following their own truth and sacrificing humans to achieve it. In reality, the hill could be meaningless to the general's people, and we know there have been many useless sacrifices of human life in pretty much every war. I mean, the end result is someone in a position of power ordering people to die for nothing. Is it the ritualistic aspect that makes one killing less moral?

[sys]

General tells soldiers: "go charge that hill. you will die but you will have glory in the afterlife and your ancestors will be better because of it."
Montezuma tells subjects: "let us take out your still beating heart. you will die but you will have glory in the afterlife and your ancestors will be better because of it."

As far as the general knows, the hill is important to his country and will help his people. As far as Montezuma knows, he's making the gods happy and helping his people. They are both following their own truth and sacrificing humans to achieve it. In reality, the hill could be meaningless to the general's people, and we know there have been many useless sacrifices of human life in pretty much every war. I mean, the end result is someone in a position of power ordering people to die for nothing. Is it the ritualistic aspect that makes one killing less moral?

these are good questions.  i think the answer is something along the lines of: we think that sometimes it is important that soldiers be willing to kill or die to take a hill and that generals be willing to order soldiers to kill or die to take a hill and we think it can be difficult if not impossible for soldiers and generals to discriminate between when it is important and when it is not and thus we absolve them of any moral guilt for killing and ordering soldiers to kill or die when it was not needed.

[michigancat]

General tells soldiers: "go charge that hill. you will die but you will have glory in the afterlife and your ancestors will be better because of it."
Montezuma tells subjects: "let us take out your still beating heart. you will die but you will have glory in the afterlife and your ancestors will be better because of it."

As far as the general knows, the hill is important to his country and will help his people. As far as Montezuma knows, he's making the gods happy and helping his people. They are both following their own truth and sacrificing humans to achieve it. In reality, the hill could be meaningless to the general's people, and we know there have been many useless sacrifices of human life in pretty much every war. I mean, the end result is someone in a position of power ordering people to die for nothing. Is it the ritualistic aspect that makes one killing less moral?

these are good questions.  i think the answer is something along the lines of: we think that sometimes it is important that soldiers be willing to kill or die to take a hill and that generals be willing to order soldiers to kill or die to take a hill and we think it can be difficult if not impossible for soldiers and generals to discriminate between when it is important and when it is not and thus we absolve them of any moral guilt for killing and ordering soldiers to kill or die when it was not needed.

What if you replace "general" with "king" or "emperor" or "president"? Does anyone deserve to own moral guilt for ordering useless slaughter in the name of a country?

[catastrophe]

If you are killing on the battlefield in order to obtain glory in the afterlife, then yes it is morally the same as a ritualistic sacrifice. I don’t see them as equal, but I also don’t think anyone these days sees war as the same as a Roman does in 200 BC.

[sys]

i think as you go up the ladder, you run have less impunity from judgement, but i think that even at the highest level, we absolve good faith errors (with a lot of latitude for what constitutes good faith).

[michigancat]

i think as you go up the ladder, you run have less impunity from judgement, but i think that even at the highest level, we absolve good faith errors (with a lot of latitude for what constitutes good faith).

Agreed, I'm sure many Aztecs did the same for their leaders ordering ritualistic human sacrifice

[sys]

i think we agree that, as far as we know, human sacrifice was not looked upon as immoral by the practitioners.

[michigancat]

i think we agree that, as far as we know, human sacrifice was not looked upon as immoral by the practitioners.

Ah, I thought you were implying that our society forgiving good faith errors that result in unnecessary deaths made our society less evil than Aztecs.

[sys]

yes, i am implying that.  i ascribe to my own sense of morality not to some long-dead mesoamerican's sense of morality.  i thought we established all this at the start of the discussion.

[michigancat]

yes, i am implying that.  i ascribe to my own sense of morality not to some long-dead mesoamerican's sense of morality.  i thought we established all this at the start of the discussion.

So it seems your stance boils down to, "modern society is less evil because I say it's less evil". Which is fine, but it makes it difficult to take your dismissal of opposing modern viewpoints seriously.

[DQ12]

yes, i am implying that.  i ascribe to my own sense of morality not to some long-dead mesoamerican's sense of morality.  i thought we established all this at the start of the discussion.

So it seems your stance boils down to, "modern society is less evil because I say it's less evil". Which is fine, but it makes it difficult to take your dismissal of opposing modern viewpoints seriously.

If you don't feel comfortable basing your opinions of rightness or wrongness on your own idea of moral rules (whatever they may be) then I'm not sure how you could ever comment on whether anything is ever right or wrong.  I suppose you could say that something is really only "right" or "wrong" if it aligns with the actor's view of "right" or "wrong."

But giving that position half a second of thought reveals that it would have you reserving judgment on all sorts of things that sane and honest people readily identify as "wrong."

[sys]

So it seems your stance boils down to, "modern society is less evil because I say it's less evil". Which is fine, but it makes it difficult to take your dismissal of opposing modern viewpoints seriously.

i mean, you'd have to outline an opposing modern viewpoint and try to explain why it's better.  i would think that it would almost go without saying that one's own moral framework is the framework one considers most moral.  what possible justification could a person have for adhering to a moral framework that they themselves consider less moral than an opposing one?

[sys]

michigan, but serious.

https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312

[michigancat]

So it seems your stance boils down to, "modern society is less evil because I say it's less evil". Which is fine, but it makes it difficult to take your dismissal of opposing modern viewpoints seriously.

i mean, you'd have to outline an opposing modern viewpoint and try to explain why it's better.  i would think that it would almost go without saying that one's own moral framework is the framework one considers most moral.  what possible justification could a person have for adhering to a moral framework that they themselves consider less moral than an opposing one?

I've been outlining a moral framework that implies modern society is similarly evil with the discussion on government leaders sacrificing soldiers for meaningless reasons.

Both sacrifices in war and sacrifices in rituals and are done in the name of an abstract entity, both are well meaning, both promise glory and an afterlife, both end up with humans dead, and in both cases mistakes made by the leaders are absolved by their constituents.

Assuming all of the above are agreed upon, the logical differences that have been presented are

A) The ritual aspect and
B) We say modern morals are better so needless deaths in war are better than needless deaths in a ceremony

And you went with b, but I think you could do better.

[sys]

that's great, you have a more restrictive sense of morality than do i when it comes to killing humans in war.  but, like all good humans, we agree that it was wrong for mesoamericans to practice human sacrifice.  they mumped that one up, i'm sad to say.

[michigancat]

but, like all good humans, we agree that it was wrong for mesoamericans to practice human sacrifice.  they mumped that one up, i'm sad to say.

Yep and we all agree that we mumped up the Iraq war and Vietnam war and....

[sys]

we all agree that we mumped up the Iraq war and Vietnam war and....

for sure.

[Rage Against the McKee]

There are some instances where war killings are immoral, and others where they are not, IMO. I see nothing wrong with dropping a bomb on an ISIS base, for instance, as ISIS is somewhat similar in their brutality to the Mesoamericans.

[8manpick]

There are some instances where war killings are immoral, and others where they are not, IMO. I see nothing wrong with dropping a bomb on an ISIS base, for instance, as ISIS is somewhat similar in their brutality to the Mesoamericans.

Also clear that sending soldiers to their likely or certain deaths for the greater good can be morally good

[michigancat]

There are some instances where war killings are immoral, and others where they are not, IMO. I see nothing wrong with dropping a bomb on an ISIS base, for instance, as ISIS is somewhat similar in their brutality to the Mesoamericans.

Also clear that sending soldiers to their likely or certain deaths for the greater good can be morally good

for sure, killing enemy soldiers in a religious ceremony could have also improved the greater good of Aztec society

[Rage Against the McKee]

There are some instances where war killings are immoral, and others where they are not, IMO. I see nothing wrong with dropping a bomb on an ISIS base, for instance, as ISIS is somewhat similar in their brutality to the Mesoamericans.

Also clear that sending soldiers to their likely or certain deaths for the greater good can be morally good

for sure, killing enemy soldiers in a religious ceremony could have also improved the greater good of Aztec society

It really couldn't have.

[sys]

i like the mcwhorter-peterson exchange.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/the-jordan-peterson-tour-comes-to-aspen/563813/

[sys]

https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1012371608667746305

[Spracne]

That's an unconstitutional law. However, it would not run afoul of the Grundgesetz.

[michigancat]

There are some instances where war killings are immoral, and others where they are not, IMO. I see nothing wrong with dropping a bomb on an ISIS base, for instance, as ISIS is somewhat similar in their brutality to the Mesoamericans.

Also clear that sending soldiers to their likely or certain deaths for the greater good can be morally good

for sure, killing enemy soldiers in a religious ceremony could have also improved the greater good of Aztec society

It really couldn't have.

if your enemies are trying to kill your constituents, killing them could greatly improve the lives of your constituents, regardless of method used.