Yes, which is why I think "moral judgment is more a matter of habit" and not only or always a matter of habit.

Children use these to claim that there are no answers to moral questions, and pretend to be nihilists. — Banno

Hey Banno...

I know we disagree, so just want to set aside the obvious disagreement here - I'm interested in how you envision one making the 'claim' (assumably, one that isn't prima facie wrong) yet 'pretend' to be nihilist? I understand you're saying that the experience of being transgressed against, as it were, presents essentially an hypocrisy, but i guess i'm interested in the psychology of that 'pretend' part. Do you think of it as a conscious hypocrisy or just a naivety?

What?

Not this again.

i'm interested in the psychology of that 'pretend' part. Do you think of it as a conscious hypocrisy or just a naivety? — AmadeusD

This is a clear question related to something you said. Would you mind answering it? If you don't want to, that's fine too.

Just as an example, a deontologist that believes that one does not have the duty to uphold the rights of a person who is engaged in the violation of other peoples' rights, which is usually called a principle of forfeiture, will have no problem going to war with people that have forfeited those rights. — Bob Ross

Why would this not apply to young people who are conscripted (if not to voluntary soldiers)?

I would say that a draft is ethical under at least my original deontological theory because people implicitly consent to it via social contract. If a person is living completely sans a society and some random society tries to abduct them and draft them into their military, then that would be wrong. However, one is not using them as a means to an end in the sense that it is meant as a violation of a person because their participation in society is consent to defend it if need be. It also depends on why the draft is happening as well: is the society just going to war for the fun of it? Or is that society being attacked?

Right, "social contract", but if people living in the society wherein the child is tortured implicitly consent to it via the said contract, then the same principle would apply, no? Additionally, any existing law, no matter how unethical it might seem, could purportedly be justified by this argument.

No, the child cannot consent to being tortured for society's sake; but I see your point and will have to think about it: if, let's say, it was an adult then they would have implicitly consented to potentially being 'drafted' to be the one tortured. That's a fair critique.

Okay I was not thinking of the consent of the child, but of the consent of the majority who implicitly accept the social contract. I could have been conscripted when I turned 18, voting age, a few days before that it could not have been argued that I was able to consent to the social contract, now on the advent of my eighteenth birthday I suddenly can? How many people even explicitly think about the contract, and by the time they reach the age of consent, what other choice do they have but to live in a society they have become reliant on anyway?

Hello Janus,

I agree that most people don’t know what they implicitly consent to unless it relevant to their every day-to-day lives; but my thing is that conscription to the military seems fair (to me) if it is for self-defense style wars because adults in the society are benefiting from the protection and help of that society—so why wouldn’t they be obligated to defend it?

I agree that most people don’t know what they implicitly consent to unless it relevant to their every day-to-day lives; but my thing is that conscription to the military seems fair (to me) if it is for self-defense style wars because adults in the society are benefiting from the protection and help of that society—so why wouldn’t they be obligated to defend it? — Bob Ross

Defending your society if invaded is a very different matter than conscription to fight in wars that are based on political alliances. The point really is that just because some ethos is entrenched in societal law, on what we might want to refer to as " the social contract", it certainly does not seem to follow that it is therefore somehow objectively, or even inter-subjectively, validated.

Hello Janus,

Defending your society if invaded is a very different matter than conscription to fight in wars that are based on political alliances. The point really is that just because some ethos is entrenched in societal law, on what we might want to refer to as " the social contract", it certainly does not seem to follow that it is therefore somehow objectively, or even inter-subjectively, validated.

That’s fair. I was speaking more towards justified wars, and I don’t consider (necessarily) political wars to be justified.

For those who don't know, "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" depicts an almost utopian society but there's a catch...there's this child that has to live in perpetual filth, torment, and suffering in order to sustain their societal bliss: that's the price that has to be paid. — Bob Ross

In reality, many societies used sacrifice, including numerous child sacrifices, to insure their continuing prosperity. In reality, our own society owes its prosperity, to a very large degree, on creating marginal or untenable conditions for peoples far away and by actively torturing or incidentally endangering helpless animals. We don't seem to object: just buy the coffee, the latest cellphone, performance-enhancing medication, the ivory carving, cheap shoes and beauty products. If the displaced people migrate to our borders, we incarcerate or shoot them. If the animals become rare, we make a fetish of eating their flesh, wearing their skin, mounting their heads on trophies.
What's one kid, when we do 10,000 a day as a matter of routine?
Why is Business as Usual an ethical question only when framed as a thought-experiments that costs nothing to engage?

:cool: Excellent points!

This is a fair critique of modern society, but I would equally say that child (essential slave) labor in underdeveloped countries for the sake of affordable products in developed countries is also immoral. Your argument seems to be: we do something wrong that is similar, so why not just do more wrong? Two wrongs do not make a right.

Which just shows that because something is explicitly agreed to by citizens in a kind of "social contract" sense it doesn't follow that it is morally right.

Also, I saw what @Vera Mont posted as demonstrating the child's plight in "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" is not inherently different than the plight of those we oppress in order to enjoy our accustomed lifestyles; I did not take her to be claiming, or even suggesting, that any of it is morally right.

@Vera Mont

Perhaps I misread it.

Which just shows that because something is explicitly agreed to by citizens in a kind of "social contract" sense it doesn't follow that it is morally right.

True. I concede that point.

Your argument seems to be: we do something wrong that is similar, so why not just do more wrong? — Bob Ross

Not at all: it was wrong in my book when the Incas did it, and it's wrong now.
But it only ever appears as a "serious" ethical question in an environment untainted by by politics or economics, in a purely theoretical context, far from the participants' daily experience.
Never, never as a practical question posed to those with any power to alter the situation.

Afterthought: No, that's not true. It is asked in practical terms; executives and decision-makers are challenged from time to time. The standard result is an ad campaign about the company's 'ethical investments' or 'fair trade' product, but the power remains steeply tilted toward the owner/consumer nations, who continue to support whichever foreign dictators can keep their people meek and productive. Closer to home, we are aware how many are homeless, hungry and without adequate medical care; we know the conditions in which factory-farmed animals live ... but, but, but we cannot upset the The Holy Economy.
We are simply not, collectively, willing to give up our comfort and convenience.
We are a species of self-interested hypocrites,
the best example of which is Christianity, wherein 2.5 billion people currently subscribe to the idea that's it's virtuous to accept the torture and sacrifice of one innocent for all of them to be forgiven sins they had not yet committed at the time of that sacrifice

and I can't imagine that changing within the available time-frame.

Fair enough!