General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Noam Chomsky blasts Obama: He has no moral center [View all]patrice
(47,992 posts)do need to understand how it works relative to certain probabilities and the office of the presidency.
Probabilities such as:
Even if we didn't do one more bad thing in the world for the rest of our time as a nation on Earth, there are various possibilities for successful and significant violence against us, are there not? Neither you nor I and hardly anyone else has enough of the right information to calculate those probabilities, but just for the sake of this hypothetical, let's say that they are 50 : 50. The chances of successful significant violence against this land/people are as likely as they are un-likely.
So, let's say something significant happens, many innocent people are harmed and killed, and you, as president could have done x, y, and z to reduce the probability of, or even prevent, that successful strike, but didn't because you "have a moral center". If such harms were to happen, what are the consequences to a person with "a moral center" who could have prevented them?
Regarding what is called "rationalization" and please note the root word there, rational: If the principle is that you must not DO things that hurt innocent people, given some likelihood (either more or less probable) of harms that one can DO things to reduce or prevent those harms, why aren't the rights of those victims of harm as equal in value as the rights of a person or persons reasonably suspected of connection to the probabilities of those harms? Especially if you can DO something about those probabilities?
This is an honest question. Not a trap. I just don't understand how a "moral center" works unless it works this way. You DO what you rationally can, in terms of the situation at hand, to sustain the principle. NONE of that means that you give wholesale approval to torture or coercion, only approval limited in specific ways by the terms of specific situations. One doesn't say, TTE, "Cutting people is evil" and then refuse to do surgery, in specific ways, when it will help or save someone's life.
My line of reasoning is not as corrupt as it is often portrayed. It is the essence of what eventually became Zen Buddhism, as it is found in its cultural roots in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna does not provide Arjuna with a handy-dandy get-out-of-jail-free card. He doesn't even tell the great warrior what to do to fight the imminent evil. Krishna just simply reminds Arjuna that his life brought him to the present moment; all that had happened and Arjuna's part in it, was what made the situation what it was and NOT some other, different, less challenging situation. It's as though Krishna is telling Arjuna that he and the imminent events are the SAME thing. He doesn't absolve him, nor does he castigate him for the coming fratricide. Krishna says, in effect, "Own it," so we might conclude that whatever Arjuna does, whether he goes into the war and kills thousands, or whether he does not do battle and thousands are killed because of that, Arjuna should identify with either of his "choices", because the reality and he are not dichotomous. What is happening is who he is, however it turns out, so whatever he decides his course should be, he should DO his best to do that thing.
I'm honestly not trying to convince you of anything here. I'm just trying to explain how something works. That's how I understand it from my own life. The Bhagavad Gita gave voice to that understanding and Buddhism sustains something very similar in the value that it places on "non-attachment". I don't understand a perspective that claims another person has "no moral center" (not relative to most people that is); I don't see how that's anyone's to claim but one's own.
I respect you Bonobo, so I am asking you if you can explain what you mean to me, so I can understand better and agree to whatever extent possible.
Thanks for reading this.
p