Thread: Raymond Davis, finally free!

And morality gets lost in the objectives when morality should be the objective. Put it another way, the end is used to justify the means, when in reality the end is far from certain and never final.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

And morality gets lost in the objectives when morality should be the objective. Put it another way, the end is used to justify the means, when in reality the end is far from certain and never final.

What if you were to pick a point when something important happenz, then sort of turn around and justify your latest means, then turn back around and continue on until something else important happenz, then stop, turn around and justify your latest means again, then turn back around and continue on...

Would that work?

Originally Posted by Blood

What if you were to pick a point when something important happenz, then sort of turn around and justify your latest means, then turn back around and continue on until something else important happenz, then stop, turn around and justify your latest means again, then turn back around and continue on...

Would that work?

No, because the justification is not retrospective but predictive, for example "One should not kill, but by fighting this war we shall prevent terrible things". Well actually, no, you can not know that, it is never more than a good guess and in the long term you may cause far worse things to happen. At best most violent 'revolutions' do not change the system, only the person in charge of it. A non violent revolution requires considerably more mental effort and determination, but can lead to a sea change in the thinking of the culture.

Even if you do say that the end can justify the means, but the end must really be worth the means. Its like an anime, I hate it when the hero dies half way through but the ending must be worth the hero dying or it gets pretty low on 'The List'. War only results in more war unless something is done to help them. The perfect example here are the world wars, First world war the nations that lost were treated cruely. Result, the second world war, now the nations were treated with kindness. Result, the longest lasting peace between the European nations.

now the nations were treateds with kindness. Result, the longest lasting peace between the European nations.

This is debatable, and relative, people were still starving to death in Germany and Austria two years after the war ended, my first wife, who was born in Japan soon after the second world war, remembers real hardship and what amounted to a military dictatorship over an 'inferior' people. Some would argue that it was the development of nuclear weapons and naked fear that led to that period of peace.

Yes it is quite debatable but these are typical after effects of war, but the point is how long these effects last for. Rather look at Veitnam now ( not pointing any finger here ), its still suffering from the effects of the war but wouldn't it have turned out better if they had been treated better? The case that no one can argue with is that the developement of nuclear weapons led to a greater peace. But we must remember that these alone never prevent war and they don't.