Indeed, Prigozhin's exquisite ironic feint is not over yet:

After long days of silence following the 'march on Moscow' on June 24, the founder of the Wagner militia Yevgeny Prigozhin reappears on social media with a vitriolic post against Russian state media, quoted by Novaya Gazeta.

"Reading the newspapers, hearing the stories on TV, makes me feel very bad, the TV bastards, who yesterday admired the Wagner boys, are now pouring all kinds of poison...

Remember TV bastards that it wasn't your children who fought in our ranks, it wasn't your children who died, but you bastards are making audiences with stories like this."

https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/mondo/2023/07/08/prigozhin-ricompare-sui-social-e-attacca-i-media-russi_f4295770-f72b-490d-ad8e-eadabc5ee6b8.html?utm_source=hootsuite&utm_medium=&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=

Again on Prigozhin's exquisite ironic feint : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/25/yevgeny-prigozhin-moscow-advance-putin-threat-wagner-family/

There's no evidence that the Russians intended to absorb or subjugate Ukraine. — Tzeentch

Here is how people focused on security concerns reason over "intentions":
During his annual review of Russia's foreign policy January 22-23 (ref B), Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that Russia had to view continued eastward expansion of NATO, particularly to Ukraine and Georgia, as a potential military threat. While Russia might believe statements from the West that NATO was not directed against Russia, when one looked at recent military activities in NATO countries (establishment of U.S. forward operating locations, etc. they had to be evaluated not by stated intentions but by potential.


Security concerns can be triggered by potential not just by "intentions" (BTW among Mearsheimer's offensive realism tenets there are "States can never be certain of the intentions of other states" and "States are rational actors, capable of coming up with sound strategies that maximize their prospects for survival" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_realism). History, ambitions, military capability, economic leverage and aggressive attitude of Russia especially under Putin inside and outside Russia were enough to trigger security concerns.
Talking about intentions (the initial march toward Kiev's intentions, Putin's intentions, Prigozhin's mutiny intentions) is not all that matters. Also the US intentions were to spread democracy in the rest of the World.

"ordered" doesn't sound unexpected from Lavrov, the rest does. Especially if one takes the Amerikans to be warmongerers and this attempted coup as something staged by the Russians.

Right. The problem my terminology addresses is that the science of morality (like all science) cannot tell us what our goals somehow ought to be or what we imperatively (prescriptively) ought to do. — Mark S

If morality is about what goals “we imperatively (prescriptively) ought to do” (e.g. when there is a conflict between individual and collective goals), and morality cannot tell us “what our goals somehow ought to be” then there is no science of morality.
If your assumptions leave moral goals to be set and chosen by individuals and not by scientific principles, in what sense we are not ending up in a form of moral relativism?

I can’t say “Prescriptively moral” in the second claim because there is no innate source of normativity in science and, here, I am only describing scientific results with no prescriptive claims based on rational thought or anything else.

Yes, universally moral here refers to what is cross-culturally moral (and even cross-species moral) but has no innate prescriptive power. This is a simple concept in the science of morality but one that does not exist in moral philosophy. — Mark S

You keep repeating that “there is no innate source of normativity in science” and yet you also maintain that “the strategies in fast moral thinking (such as reciprocity strategies and kin altruism) are encoded in the biology underlying our moral sense and in cultural moral norms which shape our moral sense” (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/816533).
So how can something be encoded in our biology and yet not be innate? What’s the difference between “innate” and “biologically encoded”?

Their normativity first comes from groups choosing to advocate these principles as moral references for refining their moral norms based on being most likely to enable achieving shared goals due to increased cooperation. Their normativity comes in the form of hypothetical imperatives in Philippa Foot’s terminology and conditional oughts in mine. — Mark S

OK my point is that there are costs in increasing cooperation that outweighs the supposed benefits of cooperation. So what I may argue against your core claims is that maybe morality is not only about boosting cooperation but also about shaping and constraining it.
Besides the same social interaction can be seen as a form of cooperation or exploitation: is the capitalist appropriation of the surplus value of wage labour a cooperative or exploitative exchange? If you hold capitalist standard views then you would more likely see it as cooperative, if you hold marxist standard views then you would more likely see it as exploitative.

Prigozhin's mutiny smells so much as a Russian feint and exquisite irony that the "US ordered Ukraine not to use mutiny in Russia to stage provocations, says Lavrov" https://tass.com/politics/1640025

It really doesn't matter if it wasn't a coup (which also some Russian nationalist commentators believe it was). Prigozhin came close to Moscow (after seizing Rostov) armed, ready to kill and with hostile demands against the establishment status quo in a already tense environment for Putin from external and internal pressure. Besides Prigozhin bitterly questioned the Patriotic War narrative promoted by Putin. The slow, weak, contradictory reactions of the Russian establishment against the "mutiny", with rumors of Putin fled from Moscow and ordinary people either indifferent or cheering with Prigozhin (again against Putin's narrative) is striking. This is a major reputational blow against Russia and Putin that Russia and Putin inflicted upon themselves before Russian and Putin's eyes on world stage.

Putin exquisite black belt in feinting speaking to the nation:
"The organizers of the rebellion, despite the loss of adequacy, could not fail to understand this. They understood everything, including that they committed crimes, that they divided and weakened the country, which is now facing a huge external threat, unprecedented pressure from outside". (1m21)

More pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine propaganda by Prigozhin the exquisite feinter.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1672195411598008324

Yes and you predicted all that, obviously. But kept silent to better enjoy the exquisite irony right? Now the explanation pls. Everything must be connected to land bridges, right?

Cool down dudes, that's obviously a feint. Wagner troops are not enough to conquer the entire Russia, even less Moscow, or 17/4567th of Kamtchatka. These are hard numbers, sorry. Even Mearshaimer said it somehow somewhere somewhen. The rest is trite Crypto-Pluto-Nazi-Sionist-LGBT-Neocapitalist-Imperialist-Amerikan propaganda. The US has lost the war between Ukraine and Russia. But feel free to believe your lies.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/23/wagner-chief-accuses-russias-military-of-attack-and-says-evil-leadership-must-be-stopped
"Russia investigates Wagner chief for ‘armed mutiny’ after call for attack on military"

Thanks for the links to the literature.

Since this is a philosophy forum and I take scrutinizing conceptual frameworks as a primary philosophical task, I'm mainly interested in the concepts you use: morality (descriptive vs normative), cooperation, exploitation, "imperative ought" (?), dilemma, and solving "cooperation/exploitation dilemma". You seem to give them mostly for granted.

Descriptively moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies.
Universally moral behaviors are parts of cooperation strategies that do not exploit others.

Human morality is composed of strategies that solve the cooperation/exploitation dilemma.

Behaviors that exploit others contradict the function of human morality and create cooperation problems.

Concluding that "Women must be submissive to men" and "Homosexuality is evil" are immoral because they exploit others and create cooperation problems and thus contradict the function of morality has nothing to do with my background, the social environment these 'moral' norms were enforced in, or any other extraneous circumstances. — Mark S

To me the meaning of "descriptively" must be contrasted to "prescriptively" (or "normatively") not to "universally". If you use "universality" as a condition for identifying rational moral norms then you are no longer descriptive but prescriptive. Alternatively, you can use "universality" to refer to cross-cultural descriptive moral norms and NOT to a condition of rationality. Conflating these two usages would be fallacious.
Then you should give a definition or clarification of "cooperation" and its opposite "exploitation" (independently from any moral descriptive/normative assumption, otherwise you are running in circle). You never did that as far as I can remember.
Besides this claim "Concluding that "Women must be submissive to men" and "Homosexuality is evil" are immoral because they exploit others and create cooperation problems and thus contradict the function of morality " is logically questionable: 1. if morality of moral norms is established wrt their universality then you are taking universality as a rational criterion, so you are talking in prescriptive/normative terms, not descriptive. 2. if certain moral norms exist and contradict a function you claim they must fulfill , then one can question the idea that such moral norms have the function you attribute to them.

More pro-Western pro-Nato pro-Ukraine pro-US pro-Neoliberal capitalism and imperialism propaganda by Prigozhin:
https://hungary.postsen.com/world/194486/Prigozhin-envisions-executions-and-revolution-and-according-to-him-victory-is-not-on-the-side-of-the-Russians.html

Besides talking about a military diversion in this case is itself a form of diversion. Indeed, the military perspective can't trump the political perspective, if war is ultimately politics by other means. The declared reason of this "special operation" was "to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine" [1], not taking land bridges. Did Russia succeed in doing this so far? Is Russia any closer to achieve this now more than ever? Hell no, as Prigozhin must acknowledge:
https://www.businessinsider.com/wagner-group-prigozhin-russia-putin-failed-demilitarize-ukraine-strongest-army-2023-5?r=US&IR=T
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1661130760978325505


[1]
"The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation".
https://www.businessinsider.com/wagner-group-prigozhin-russia-putin-failed-demilitarize-ukraine-strongest-army-2023-5?r=US&IR=T

Clearly he thought it was a possibility that the Russians only meant to threaten Kiev.

And no amount of copium is going to make those words go away. Sorry. — Tzeentch

The same goes with "he’s interested in taking Kyiv for the purpose of regime change. O.K.?"
The point is that "threaten" doesn't mean "feint" or "diversion". You are putting into Mearsheimer's mouth something he didn't say to obfuscate what he explicitly said. If you want hard numbers for the Russian troops, I want hard quotes of Mearsheimer's explicitly claiming that Kyiv battle was likely or possibly a diversion or a feint.

also "threatening to capture Kiev" can still be compatible with the idea of forcing a regime change. It doesn't obviously mean that Russia was making a diversion.

The plan was to take Kiev, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Odessa, possibly Dnipro — Jabberwock

Notice that "the entire Western narrative" that Tzeentch seems to argue against is "Russians intended to take over all of Ukraine with their initial invasion" with 190K troops.

Unless someone wants to argue the 190,000 figure is false, we can essentially dismiss the entire western narrative of the Ukraine war. I hope people realise that. — Tzeentch

There is no "entire western narrative". There are different narratives. One is yours. There are others though that still differ from the narrative you support or reject.

I am keenly interested in why you say:

The first claim doesn't make sense to me: it sounds as if you are claiming that evidences are based on an empirical theory.... — neomac


Your interpretation is, strangely, the opposite of what I am arguing.

My first claim was: “Science does provide that evidence, based mostly on the remarkable explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for cultural moral norms and our moral sense.”

Perhaps we need a review of how science, including the science of morality, proceeds to conclusions:

1. Assemble an interesting category of phenomena such as “past and present cultural moral norms and the spontaneous judgments and motivations of our moral sense” - This is the data set to be explained.
2. Look for hypotheses that explain why this entire data set of phenomena exist – perhaps cooperation strategies, or acting for the good of everyone (utilitarianism), or a means of social control imposed by the powerful, or ?
3. If one hypothesis is far better than any competing one at explaining this huge, diverse, contradictory, and strange data set, we have a potential theory.
4. If the potential theory meets other relevant criteria for scientific truth such as simplicity and integration with the rest of science, then we have a theory explaining that data set. That theory may become generally accepted as provisionally true (the normal kind of truth in science) or rejected, with rejection usually in favor a new theory that better explains the data set.

Hence:
“Science does provide that evidence, based mostly on the remarkable explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for cultural moral norms and our moral sense.” — Mark S

I might agree on the 4 points about empirical science. But your way of talking still sounds misleading based on those 4 points: “evidences” are the empirical base for the explanatory/predictive task of empirical theories (see point 1) and related comparisons (see point 3). So empirical theories are based on empirical evidences, not the other way around. If charitably understood, what you may have meant is that your empirical theory of morality is better supported by available data than other competing theories.
If that’s your claim, then let’s move on to more substantive points.

Then you say:

"confirms my suspects: taking "solving cooperation problems" as a rational condition (à la Gert) to establish what "morality" is, it's a NORMATIVE criterion,

"it's external to actual historical cultural moral norms, not descriptive of them (against what you seemed to be claiming in past posts). And it remains generic until you specify what constitutes a cooperation problem and its solutions independently from actual specific cultural moral norms. — neomac


Do you see why they don’t make any sense?

The theory is empirical, not “external” because it is based on its explanatory power for the huge, diverse, contradictory, and strange data set of “past and present cultural moral norms and the spontaneous judgments and motivations of our moral sense” (plus meeting other relevant criteria for scientific truth).

Are you arguing that “past and present cultural moral norms and the spontaneous judgments and motivations of our moral sense” is external to what morality ‘is’? — Mark S

Such comment keeps evading my actual points:
- You didn’t offer any such proof that your empirical theory of morality has greater explanatory/predictive power than other competing empirical theories. You just keep claiming that’s the case, that’s all. At least you could point at the literature where this comparison is provided.
- According to your four points, point 1 must refer to a data set that doesn’t presuppose your theory of morality otherwise there would be a selection bias. How do you build this dataset? The least prejudicial approach would be to build such dataset based on what cultural norms are pre-theoretically considered moral within the local culture that adopted them. THIS AND ONLY THIS looks to me an internal and descriptive representation of cultural moral norms. The problem is that these cultural norms may include also EXPLOITATIVE cultural norms (which are the opposite of cooperation according to you), therefore on one side claiming that morality is about solving cooperation problems is actually false if there are cultural norms deemed as moral which are exploitative, on the other side claiming that only cultural social norms that solve cooperation problems should be considered moral because more universal is no longer a descriptive claim but an external normative claim (i.e. Gert’s principle for a normative definition of morality)

What I think one can at best try to empirically prove is that cultural norms that solve cooperation problems and are deemed as “moral”, are the most cross-culturally shared. Or that cultural norms that solve cooperation problems and that are the most cross-culturally shared are deemed as “moral”. Or that cultural norms that are deemed “moral” and that are the most cross-culturally shared solve cooperation problems.
I can even try to guess their plausibility (e.g. the first hypothesis sounds to me more intuitively plausible than the other 2 hypotheses).
While claiming that cultural norms are moral because they solve cooperation problems, doesn’t sound intuitive at all (e.g. there are cultural norms that exploitative and cooperation problem solving norms which are not moral).

Finally, you say:

“And it remains generic until you specify what constitutes a cooperation problem and its solutions independently from actual specific cultural moral norms.”

I have already done this in this thread and will repeat it here for convenience and emphasis.

“In our universe, cooperation can produce many more benefits than individual effort. But cooperation exposes one to exploitation. Unfortunately, exploitation is almost always a winning short-term strategy, and sometimes is in the long term. This is bad news because exploitation discourages future cooperation, destroys those potential benefits, and eventually, everybody loses.
All life forms in the universe, from the beginning to the end of time, face this universal dilemma. This includes people and our ancestors.”

The above describes why the cooperation problems morality solves are innate to our universe. The solutions relevant to morality are primarily cooperation strategies such as indirect reciprocity. — Mark S

This comment doesn’t even address my concern. If you want to use game theory in specifying cooperation problems you have to specify strategies (payoffs, iterations, etc.) of specific games in some quantifiable way. If you want to support your claims generically, I can support my objections generically: exploitation is part of moral code maybe because the conditions to achieve long-term goals are simply more uncertain.

Or for this round of globalization that started in the 1990's... — ssu

Indeed as far as I know the expression was introduced by the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire to express more the fear for the consequences of financial extreme measures like "cutting Russia from SWIFT" to the Western economy itself than to the Russian one.

some more pro-NATO, pro-West, pro-Ukraine propaganda by Prigozhin:
https://www.businessinsider.com/wagner-group-prigozhin-russia-putin-failed-demilitarize-ukraine-strongest-army-2023-5?r=US&IR=T

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1661130760978325505

Science does provide that evidence, based mostly on the remarkable explanatory power of Morality as Cooperation Strategies for cultural moral norms and our moral sense. It is irrelevant to my arguments that there are people who will reject them for irrational reasons such as "God told them something different". — Mark S

The first claim doesn't make sense to me: it sounds as if you are claiming that evidences are based on an empirical theory (if Morality as Cooperation Strategies is an empirical theory) while it should be the other way around. Empirical theories must be based on evidences. Besides you keep lauding the success of such theory, yet providing very little to support it.
The second statement confirms my suspects: taking "solving cooperation problems" as a rational condition (à la Gert) to establish what "morality" is, it's a NORMATIVE criterion, it's external to actual historical cultural moral norms, not descriptive of them (against what you seemed to be claiming in past posts). And it remains generic until you specify what constitutes a cooperation problem and its solutions independently from actual specific cultural moral norms.

Those who could might have already migrated. But it's unlikely that people working on sensitive weapons for the military are that free to move as they please. Anyway until Putin keeps punishing military, intelligence, and weapon developers for his failures, that's good news to me.

nothing new: https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-claimed-his-hypersonic-missiles-were-invincible-then-he-jailed-the-developers

My claim is that Morality as Cooperation Strategies can contribute to rational discussions about which moral norms to enforce. Specifically, understanding the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms will provide objective evidence for resolving such disputes. — Mark S

The present chief barrier to resolving moral disputes by rational discussion is the existing murky, mysterious origins and power of cultural moral norms. Morality as Cooperation Strategies removes that barrier. — Mark S

Identifying origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms can inform a rational discussion about moral norms. I’m not sure that would be enough to overcome cultural clashes though e.g. when cultural moral norms are grounded in religious faith. Besides I’m questioning the way you conceptually frame cultural moral norms as strategies to solve cooperation problems from the start. On one side, if this is the RESULT of an empirical investigation you can’t include it in the definition of morality from the start. On the other side, cultural moral norms can be diverse and incompatible. This fact suggests that there might be limits to the possibility of cooperation which may be at the roots of cultural moral norms. In other words, there might be an ambivalence in morality similar to building walls around a limited area which can be good at keeping certain people within it but also at keeping other people out of it.

And your claim is that a culture and mind-independent understanding of the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms will NOT provide objective evidence for resolving such disputes? I can’t make any sense of that. — Mark S

My claim is simply that you didn’t provide evidence, so neither that there are not such evidences nor that there won’t be. Try to have a rational discussion with muslims while claiming that putting a head-scarf is a way for men to exploit women, so this cultural moral norm is wrong because cultural moral norms are there to solve cooperation problems.

Such discussions would be much more likely to be resolved than if the origins, function, and motivating power of cultural moral norms remained mysterious. — Mark S

That is more likely expressing your confidence (or hope?) about that, it doesn't constitute evidence that your theory can actually contribute to solve moral clashes. Wearing a heads-scarf is cultural moral norm in some societies not in others, do you have any actual evidence that your understanding of morality as solving cooperation problems would fix such difference where it is bitterly defended (like say in a Taliban society)?
The problem is that cultural moral clashes are rooted in incompatible cultural moral norms, so they can't possibly solve cooperative problems in the same sense and as you admitted they generate cultural clashes AS WELL, so they can not be claimed to have the function to solve cooperation problems, only because this might be a possible effect or that knowing this is enough to more likely start overcoming moral differences. There are other effects too: like generating conflicts. Cultural moral norms can be invoked also to justify our cooperation limits.
Maybe it's simply a rationalization trying to find one function (or a function) for moral norms. Different individuals may rely on cultural moral norms to cooperate, others to engage in rivalries, others to spiritually distance themselves from society, others only as socially inherited/imposed habits since early childhood.

Diefenbach does give credit Michels and understands that his conclusions have importance. He also makes quite astute observations. So what is the problem here? The answer is: ideology overriding rationality and logic. This ideology is shown well in Diefenbach's conclusion:

The danger of oligarchy is always there – but, luckily, it does not always materialise. I therefore think that it is more appropriate to call Michels’ theory not the iron law but the iron threat of oligarchy.


By talking about the 'danger' and 'threat' of oligarchy that "luckily will not materialize", Diefenbach clearly shows what he thinks about oligarchy. And this is the trap many fall into: they see the structures of organizations as ideological or ideologically constructed and morally good or bad, and spend little if any thought on the logical and rational grounds on just why organizations have evolved to what they are now.

Perhaps "The Iron Law of oligarchy" is the wrong way to look at this phenomenon. Perhaps it would be better to call it "The fundamental limitations of collective decision making". Collective decision making takes time, people think inherently differently, will disagree and will make different choices. The only answer to this is to try to seek some sort of consensus. Also, specialization of roles in an organization is natural in creating efficiency. Hence the outcome and the effect will be that some people will have pivotal roles in the function of an organization. And hence, you will have "the oligarchy" in some way or another. That "oligarch" might then be the secretary of the council, an employee of the firm like a CEO or an wealthy financier of various enterprises. At this general level, there isn't so much use for this law. That few people will have power over others in any organization should be obvious and insisting that you can eradicate "oligarchy" at this general level is just a thought that hasn't much to do with reality.

Hence the mistake is think about the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" from an ideological viewpoint. Or to give too much ideological value to what basically is a logical or rational outcome of a complex issue. — ssu

:up:

Cultural moral norms are diverse, contradictory, and strange mainly because of 1) different definitions of who is in favored ingroups and disfavored or exploited outgroups and 2) different markers of membership in those ingroups and outgroups.

Understanding the origins of these differences provides an objective basis for groups to resolve them. Groups may not always be able to resolve their differences (different goals for moral behavior may be intractable), but at least they can focus on the right issues. — Mark S

The irony is that you keep pointing at an issue of your definition of morality as solving cooperation problems which then you refuse to acknowledge. If cultural moral norms define "who is in favored ingroups and disfavored or exploited outgroups" and related "markers of membership in those ingroups and outgroups" which are at the origin of moral differences and clashes then cultural moral norms can solve AS MUCH AS can generate cooperation problems !

some more "provocations":
https://www.dw.com/en/common-threats-bring-japan-south-korea-closer-together/a-65562167
https://www.dw.com/en/amid-tensions-with-china-philippines-gets-bolder/a-65591689
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-wants-more-cooperation-with-aukus-allies-advanced-technologies-2023-05-08/

From a top-down perspective, we can understand that cooperation problems in our universe must be solved by all beings that form sustainably cooperative societies. Further, game theory shows that for these strategies for intelligent, independent agents to be successful, violators must be punished. Hence, just as predicted, cultural moral norms exist and can be identified as norms whose violation is commonly thought to deserve punishment. — Mark S

Also traffic rules can be explained in terms of cooperation strategies, yet they are not commonly understood as moral rules. So something more specific about morality seems to be left out in your functional analysis.

Because it is empirically true.

From a bottom-up perspective, all past and present cultural moral norms (norms whose violation is commonly thought to deserve punishment) can be explained as parts of cooperation strategies. — Mark S

If that's true, then how come that societies in the past and present do not have the same cultural moral norms? As I said there are also cultural clashes because societies do not share the same moral cultural norms, so maybe there are limits to the possibility of cooperation which morality must account for. But if cooperation is not possible, then what's left to do with societies with non-shared cultural moral norms? Exploitation?

Proposed counterexamples of moral norms that are not parts of cooperation strategies are always welcome. — Mark S

Yet you wrote: Knowing the function of cultural moral norms is to solve cooperation problems enables us to predict when those moral norms will fail, so it seems you are suggesting that there are cultural moral norms which might fail to meet the function you are attributing to them. And failing to meet a certain function may also mean that there is no such intrinsic function, the function is an external criterion.

Knowing the function of cultural moral norms is to solve cooperation problems enables us to predict when those moral norms will fail. — Mark S

How do you know that? Maybe cultural moral norms fail to solve cooperation problems indeed because they do NOT have such function.
Again, if the function of ALL cultural moral norms is defined externally or independently from such cultural moral norms, and according to such unique set of external/independent criteria you can establish if any cultural moral norms are right or wrong, then - one might argue - you are not describing what that culture moral norms are actually about. If you claimed that the function of culinary recipes is to nurture us in a healthy way, so the recipes which do not conform to such function are wrong, we may object that you have it backwards, culinary recipes may fail to make us eat healthy simply because that’s not their function. And if a description of the external function of cultural moral norms equates to establishing moral prescriptions (what ought to be done), then you can be accused of conflating what is with what ought to be, description and normativity, roughly as much as claiming that only recipes that make us eat healthy ought to be considered “legitimate” culinary recipes

We ought (conditional) not follow the Golden Rule when “tastes differ” and in certain times of war and when dealing with criminals in order to not decrease the benefits of cooperation. — Mark S

When we ought not to apply the golden rule, given that the golden rule is a cooperative heuristic strategy, what other heuristic strategy should we apply? An exploitative strategy? Criminals in jail ought to be exploited? Enemies in the battlefield ought to be exploited? If not exploited what else?

And we perhaps ought not (conditional) follow marker moral norms such as eating shrimp and masturbation are abominations once we understand their arbitrariness as markers of membership and commitment to ingroups. And understanding “women must be submissive to men” and “homosexuality is immoral” are norms about cooperating to exploit outgroups gives us reasons we ought not (conditional) follow them in order to achieve the goal of moral coherence. — Mark S

To me the relevant sense in which your “oughts” are conditional is wrt the function of morality which you defined as solving cooperation problems, not necessarily “moral coherence”. So “moral coherence” at best is an instrumental goal toward such ultimate moral end. And no matter how arbitrary “markers” norms are but if they actually preserve or boost cooperation, then they are morally legitimate.
Besides solving cooperation problems may be assessed wrt different dimensions: quantity (increasing the set of people joining the cooperation), quality (increasing the reliability of people cooperating), duration (increasing the stability of cooperation trends), resilience (increasing the recoverability of cooperation against external or internal shocks), etc. Now, if different cultural moral norms show different moral profiles wrt such dimensions, what may look as solving cooperation problems for one cultural system, it may look the opposite for another cultural system. In other words, “cooperative problems” and “solutions” would still look cultural-dependent, and not unique for all cultures, even when solving cooperation problems may be considered a likely effect (if not a function) of certain moral norms.

Many think that your proposal may fallaciously conflate normative and descriptive level of analysis, if not reduce the former to the latter. I'm not entirely sure if that's the case also because I have some doubts about how to understand "the naturalistic fallacy" per se.
Yet I doubt that your descriptive belief that moral norms are heuristics for solving cooperation problems has relevant analytic power for at least 2 reasons:
1 - if moral norms are “heuristics for solving cooperation problems”, one is capable of defining “cooperation problems” and their possible solutions INDEPENDENTLY from any specific society’s actual set of moral norms, but then morality is not about the cooperation problems that you defined independently from any specific society’s actual set of moral norms unless their moral norms perfectly match the way you formulated cooperative problems and solutions independently. On the other side if cooperative problems and solutions are defined as a function of specific societies’ actual set of moral norms, then the definition of “cooperation problems” and “solutions” varies depending on the society, so what is “cooperation problem” and “solution” to society X may not be such for society Y. In other words, X’s moral norms would not be about “cooperation problem” and “solutions” for Y.
2 - The meaningfulness of a concept is related to its semantically contrastive value. So when you claim that moral norms are “heuristics for solving cooperation problems”, since “cooperation” is the opposite of “competition”, I do wonder why morality can not be understood AS WELL in terms of “heuristics for solving competitive problems”. The previous point is indeed suggesting that different individuals and societies my compete also due to their different moral norms, if not inseparably from their different moral norms. So the moral space is contested as much as the domain of scarce resources for survival (the latter being common between humans and animals), and both can shape social competition/cooperation conditions.

It would be also useful if you clarified how you understand the notion of “heuristics”.

I'm gonna be off topic so I'll understand if you ignore my comment, but it would interesting to see if you can just draft an argument clarifying how the idea that morality is about solving cooperative problems can actually help in addressing the moral case for supporting or denying support to the Ukrainians against the Russians.

The shortest answer is that to assess such responsibility one should be able to distinguish what is feasible (by the ruler) from what is desirable (by whom? The ruler? Humanity? You?). Being the most influent and powerful ruler on an “anarchic” international system doesn’t necessarily imply that the ruler has enough power to reset the world according to what is desirable on a global scale (BTW the scientific investigations on the global environmental effects of human development, its promotion and popularisation are all integral part of the US-led world, so global environmental self-awareness are also a product of the evil American demiurge). — neomac


This does not in anyway even contradict the my statement:

Why wouldn't the party with the most influence and power in setting a policy, not be the most responsible for the results? — boethius


Everything you said doesn't comment on who's most responsible for the result of a policy. Sure, the most influent party does not control events, but they would still be most responsible. If all the nation-states together push for this policy (to do nothing about environmental catastrophe) the most influent party would still be the most responsible. — boethius

I didn’t mean to contradict your claim. I meant to question:
1 - the strength of your accusation: “the most responsible“ is wrt what the US could have done, not wrt what was desirable, they might be very much different. Since that statement doesn’t make any such discrimination, from that sentence we don’t know what more specific facts the US can be legitimately accused of.
2 - its possible implications (e.g. that we should oppose the US leadership). Maybe the US has made big mistakes, that doesn’t exclude that such big mistakes might not be enough good reason to justify opposing the US leadership by the Westerners. It depends on what the viable alternatives are, including other forms of compensation. Even at the national state level, there are no democratic regimes immune from corruption or bad policies, that doesn’t mean one is ready to give up on democracy and move to ISIS theocracy just to give it a try.

The idea that environmentalism is a US policy to begin with is truly remarkable, but we could continue that discussion in the climate change thread. — boethius

I didn’t claim it’s a “US policy” but one of the most direct and self-conscious products of the US-led world.

Who would? — neomac

The question is not who would, the question is "would you?"
You can answer no. Now, I'm pretty sure many members of the Nazi community in Ukraine would genuinely have no upper bound on the sacrifice of Ukrainians they are willing to make to fight the Russians. — boethius

What bothers me in your questions is that they are done in a void of realistic assumptions about human motivations. Given the current war, I doubt that there are Ukrainian Nazis willing to fight to death and promote this attitude among Ukrainians by mere principles or ideological indoctrination. Fighting to death to most ordinary people as well as for indoctrinated people may likely be motivated by traumatising experiences of personal loss and collective memories of oppression and abuses, so these feelings are not rooted in any specific ideology. They are very personal like personal feuds with related sunk costs. For that reason I do not have the pretentiousness of either empathising with or dismissing such feelings. They are part of the human fabric, so instead of repressing them or being judgemental about them, it might be profitable to channel them toward greater goals (for Ukrainians, independent Ukraine from Russia, for the Westerners, contained Russian imperialism).
Said that, until the one in power to take presidential decisions is Zelensky, he has to respond for Ukrainian policies in this war, not the Nazi community. Zelensky must care about the Ukrainians’ views on the war at large, not about fringe movements. At least, this is what I must assume if I believe Ukraine is a sovereign state, which I do. In any case, I have no evidence supporting the claim that Zelensky or Ukrainians “would genuinely have no upper bound on the sacrifice of Ukrainians they are willing to make to fight the Russians”.

Give the example and tell me how many losses would be worthwhile to you (if you had to choose)? — neomac

Deflection, deflection, deflection, as soon as it's "what cost is reasonable" it's somehow all of a sudden a ephemeral netherworld of philosophical speculation we can hardly even scratch the surface of. — boethius

If you talk about “reasonable cost” I would like to understand what the reasoning is, other than your/my gut feelings. If we are talking military, I guess that for a military resistance one needs to take into account really many factors among them the rate of Ukrainian vs Russian people that can be enough trained, equipped and deployed on the battlefield, and their morale. I don’t have the actual figures available to decision makers, nor the military expertise to do the math, nor an insider sense of their morale. I guess neither Russians nor Ukrainians would fight literally to the last man, but they keep their military calculations secret for obvious reasons (e.g. the rule of 1/3 defensive vs offensive doesn’t seem to support an offensive action on either side given the overall deployed manpower on the ground, but depending on given circumstances and other asymmetric advantages this ratio maybe less relevant). I can just guess that they will keep fighting until the ratio in manpower and equipment between opponents supports the idea that there are still decisive moves to be made on the weakest defensive points of the opposing side. Otherwise the war will likely stall, even if there is no declared truce or peace. There is no need to have an anti-American bias to acknowledge that the military situation for the Ukrainians is ugly and chances to regain territories manu miltari are not encouraging. There is no need to have an anti-Russian bias either to acknowledge that Ukrainians might keep fighting as the Afghans kept fighting against foreign occupation, the Palestinians keep fighting and the Kurds who never even had an acknowledged state for their own. For generations. Do you think Afghans, Palestinians, Kurds would be impressed by your “reasonable cost“ line of argument to fight their wars? It’s precisely the frightening idea that “reasonable cost“ for the Russians might be significantly higher than the Westerners could tolerate, that Russian morale is stronger than the Western morale what needs to be countered. That’s the blackmailing trap the Russians, pardon, I meant you, are “proposing” and “recommending” people to fall in. What the Ukrainians are teaching the Westerners, it’s precisely what “morale” it takes to fight for one’s freedom against genocidal authoritarian regimes like Russia.

However, if there was some credible way to just remove Russia from Ukraine and completely end the war and achieve peace (something that I don't believe is actually feasible, but if I'm assuming it is) then 30 000 killed I'd find a reasonable cost, I'd hope for less but be satisfied if spending 30 000 lives achieved this military objective and bought peace with such methods. — boethius

Why 30k ? Why not 3k? Or 300k? And why would it be relevant to anybody that you start feeling uncomfortable at 30k? If one starts feeling uncomfortable only at 60k or hundred times more, what are you going to do about it?

However, if there was some credible way to just remove Russia from Ukraine and completely end the war and achieve peace (something that I don't believe is actually feasible, but if I'm assuming it is) then 30 000 killed I'd find a reasonable cost, I'd hope for less but be satisfied if spending 30 000 lives achieved this military objective and bought peace with such methods.

In the real world, an attempt to remove Russia entirely from Ukraine by force I would expect would cost hundreds of thousands of lives and not succeed, and, even if it did, would not result in peace but the war would still be on. — boethius

Putting these 2 arguments together reinforces the Western concern that Putin is testing a military plan that can be replicated by himself and other potential emulators again: Putin will occupy territories with whatever excuse good for pro-Russian propaganda against neighbouring countries and then threat tactic nukes if there is a serious chance to suffer a decisive conventional military defeat.
That in turn may reinforce the Western motivation to support Ukraine to prevent Russia (and its possible emulators) from being encouraged to replicate the same strategy elsewhere. How? If an outright and full victory is not possible on the battlefield, nor by diplomatic means, then bogging down the Russian military involvement in Ukraine as long and as costly as possible to Russia without escalation measures may be an effective strategy. But that has its costs, obviously. Especially for the Ukrainians.

the main one being not joining NATO (which is only useful to join before the war ... not after the war) — boethius

.

But the threat of war won’t be over even after peace. For example, Russia may still want to get Odessa once it has restored its military capacity or start somewhere else encouraged by a too favourable peace deal. And find other economic and political ways to bully Ukraine, to corrupt its politicians or oligarchs.

The higher the cost paid, the more the stronger party requires compensation for the cost, not less. — "boethius

That might be true also for a weaker but indomitable party.

Your analysis made no sense and I'll ignore it, does not support your conclusion, and your conclusion is false anyways. — boethius

But I can’t ignore that all three accusations lack arguments to support them.

However, to start the analysis an idea of what amount of lives is worthwhile to spend to achieve what must be posited. — boethius

Sure, but that’s not on me to establish. Politicians and military leaders/experts are there to do the job.
At best I can reason over their arguments, and suspend/withdraw my reliance on them if I find their arguments enough questionable. I’ve read elsewhere many if not all of your arguments (like Ukraine won’t be able to regain its territories from 2014, or Russia might use tactical nukes if there is a risk it will lose territories, or the lack of the Western commitment to Ukrainian victory, the peace deal refused by the West). But again I’m more interested to discuss geopolitical and moral implications/assumptions than to discuss the actual status of the Ukrainian military and morale. For the latter I mostly limit myself to get input from more reliable sources.

I discuss policies as any avg dudes who is neither a politician nor an activist. And since I’m in a philosophy forum, I’m interested to explore assumptions and implications without feeling pressed by political/military/economic urgency, or frustrated out of lack of expertise. — neomac

Well, thanks for clarifying you have no idea what you are talking about. — boethius

Well, thanks for clarifying you have no idea what I was talking about.

However, if you're interested in assumptions, the assumption of commanding soldiers to fight in a war is that there is something that can be achieved militarily and the cost in lives is reasonable. The implication of war is people die. — boethius

The other assumption is that I’m not a commanding soldier. So I’ll let other people more credited and qualified than I am to express their competent views on military matters. The war has also geopolitical implications like the rise of the Ukrainian nation against their genocide by the Russians.

Concerning the question about Finland/Europe, you shouldn’t ask me, you should ask Russia. To your questions, I would add mine: e.g. was there any scenario in which Ukraine was invading Russia? Was there any scenario in which NATO or the US was going to invade Russia?
NATO enlargement can grow the military and reputational costs and threats against Russia’s imperialism. That’s the point. — neomac

You made the claim Finland joining NATO is some big geopolitical strategic loss to Russia, I pointed out it doesn't really change anything ... and now you say I should ask Russia about it? — boethius

Again I’m responsible for what I write not for what you understand. You asked me “Is there any scenario in which Finland / Europe is going to invade Russia?” as if invading Russia is the only strategic concern for Russia. That is questionable. The Ukrainian case is there to prove it.

The difference with Ukraine compared to Finland is that there is an important Naval base in Crimea, there are lot's of Russian speakers in Ukraine, Ukraine is a former soviet republic, and there is first and foremost an economic conflict over Ukraine (spheres of influence of the major powers).
Finland was never part of the Soviet Union, was squarely part of "the West" and never part of Russia's sphere of influence. There is no conflict between the West and Russia over Finland. — boethius

If that’s the case then invading Russia is not the most realistic security and strategic problem that Russian imperialism has to face. Notice that Putin never presented the Western security threat specifically as a threat to the naval base in Crimea (other points were e.g. denazification Ukraine, NATO neutrality, demilitarisation). Besides Russia has Russian minorities in other ex-soviet union countries and accused other neighbouring countries to have nazi regimes. So the problem is not just what Russia did, but what it might do next if the war ends the way Russia wishes. Russia is challenging the West world order so this war must be assessed in that perspective not just as some beef between Russians and Ukrainians over marginal territorial disputes.
That Finland joins NATO is a problem for Russia for at least 3 reasons:
1 - Reputation: Finland doesn’t fear to anger Russia and feels safer within NATO as other countries who joined NATO.
2 - Security: Russia is compelled to react because if NATO enlargement was a downplayed provocation prior to the war in Ukraine by the Westerners, now Finland joining NATO is an overt provocation to Russia. Since NATO border is widening and the NATO control over the Baltic Sea getting stronger Russia must deal with related security threats.
3 - Network: NATO has become more anti-Russian by having countries like Finland and maybe later Sweden within NATO (counterbalancing the weight of other US allies milder against Russia).

This conflict is the US wanting to expand it's imperial influence in Ukraine and diminish Russia's imperial influence, made the bold move of orchestrating a coup to replace a legitimate leader willing to compromise with Russia (i.e. not insane and in power because many Ukrainians did, maybe still do, support compromise with Russia over conflict and warfare).

There are two empires sorting out the question of who indeed does have more influence over what happens in Ukraine at the end of the day.

Neither empire has a moral case. — boethius

Talking about “a coup to replace a legitimate leader” is a way to dismiss a popular revolt against an illegitimate leader. If it was the case and Russia had by far the popular support of the Ukrainians, I doubt that Western coups would succeed. Besides Ukrainians have a long history of opposing the Russian rule and have suffered for that a great deal (way more than they are doing now in terms of body counts). Even the entanglement with Nazism (as it happened in Finland) was also due to historical grievances with Russia. There is nothing here that the US propaganda invented.
I don’t know what you take to be a “moral case”. And if no wars in human history are grounded in what you consider “a morale case“, then I would find your moral claim useless. As far as I can tell there are no wars that aren’t morally controversial so when we talk about the morality of war we should take into account that moral controversy management is part of the game, and as far as I am concerned, how differently is played in Western democracies vs non-Western-like authoritarian regimes. So if you prefer the former to the latter then you better ask yourself what “reasonable cost“ is worth to spend to keep it that way.

The Rest is not an economic-military-technlogical integrated block yet as much as the West. And again power must be understood in relative advantages, timing, trends. You are unnecessarily focused in the present (which is not what geopolitical agents do when engaged in power struggles). Things my look very differently over the next decades depending on how this war ends. — neomac


That's because actual evidence exists in the present and only speculation exists about the future.
To conclude one speculation is better than another, turns out requires evidence in the present to support. — boethius

You look more pressed to conclude how the West failed practically on all relevant grounds (military, economically, politically, morally) against Russia, based on a very selective view of the evidences you claim to have. So speculations (like in your hypothetical scenarios) are framed accordingly: Russian wins whatever military strategy pursues (annexed territories consolidation, more land grabbing, tactic nukes, wartime economy, alliances with the Rest), the US loses whatever military strategy pursues (with less engagement Russia wins, with greater engagement escalation to nuclear war, with peace on Russian deal-breaker terms then Russia will result victorious). But if the US is losing whatever it does, you should be glad. The primary/entirely responsible for the human suffering and global environment unimaginable devastation for decades is digging its own grave, isn’t that worth millions of Ukrainian deaths over 8 billions world population and more if one considers the well being of future generations? Why isn’t THAT a reasonable cost?

Until EU will build enough unity to support of common foreign strategy and cumulate deterrent/coercive power against competitors like Russia, China and the US.
This war suggests that the EU is not only far from that, but things may go awfully wrong if the alliance with the US will break. The void or significant weakening of American hegemony in Europe can likely boost the economic/military/ideological competition between European countries (the premises are already there, see the divergence between the UK and the EU, Eastern European countries and Western European Countries wrt the war in Ukraine, the rivalries between north Europe and South Europe about the immigrants) which can’t rely on the Western-lead international order, and between global powers (now including the US) which will bring their competition in the heart of Europe worse than in the past decades (including during the Cold War). And will more likely encourage authoritarianism even in Europe, to control ensuing social unrest (the right-wing turn in many European countries may favour this trend). — neomac

This seems accurate.

I don’t claim to be an impartial observer if that means that I do not have preferences or that I didn’t pick a side: I prefer an avg life in the West than an avg life in China, Russia or Iran. I side with a strategy that weakens Russia’s aggressiveness as much as possible. But this partiality is perfectly compatible with objectivity in understanding how the game is being played by competitors. And presenting it as honestly as possible (at least if one is not doing propaganda!). — neomac

This literally means:

“A proponent of US foreign policy” — neomac

If you are supporting the arms supply to Ukraine and the policy of not-negotiating, even frustrating any attempt to do so, but "let them fight".

If you are starting to doubt if the lives this policy costs are worthwhile to spend, then "preferring the Western avg life" does not exclude the idea that Western intervention in Ukraine is not leading the avg Ukrainian to the avg Western life, but to trauma and sadness and death. — boethius

Oh if that’s enough to call me “a proponent of US foreign policy” then you are “a proponent of the Russian foreign policy” since opposition to “supporting the arms supply to Ukraine and the policy of not-negotiating, even frustrating any attempt to do so” is what Russia propaganda does. Actually I’m tempted to say the same for all your arguments.
“Preferring the Western avg life" does not exclude either the idea that the Western LACK OF intervention in Ukraine is not leading the avg Ukrainian to the avg Western life, but to trauma and sadness and death like the Ukrainian genocide during the Soviet Union. Worse, it could lead the avg Western life close to the avg Ukrainian life more than the other way around.

You also seem to agree the US is the world's super power and global hegemon ... and not merely today but, most critically, in the 1990's after the fall of the Soviet Union and before the rise of China US was even more top dog than it is now, and it's that decade that was the most critical for setting climate and environmental policy.

Why wouldn't the party with the most influence and power in setting a policy, not be the most responsible for the results? — boethius

The shortest answer is that to assess such responsibility one should be able to distinguish what is feasible (by the ruler) from what is desirable (by whom? The ruler? Humanity? You?). Being the most influent and powerful ruler on an “anarchic” international system doesn’t necessarily imply that the ruler has enough power to reset the world according to what is desirable on a global scale (BTW the scientific investigations on the global environmental effects of human development, its promotion and popularisation are all integral part of the US-led world, so global environmental self-awareness are also a product of the evil American demiurge).

Would you be willing to sacrifice a million Ukrainians on the battlefield and still lose, a more-or-less fight to the death scenario, as the principle is more important than the result? — boethius

Who would?

Do you find it acceptable the losses since Russia's offer last spring (assuming the offer was genuine: give-up claim to Crimea, independent Donbas) in the event the lines do not change further? — boethius

Who would?

Would the losses since the Russian's offer be worth it in the event Ukraine outright loses? — boethius

Why would they?

Finally, to achieve the goal of removing Russia further from Ukraine, both including and excluding Crimea, how many losses would you (if you had to choose) be worthwhile? — boethius

Give the example and tell me how many losses would be worthwhile to you (if you had to choose)?

If you want to discuss, don't deflect further with "Ukrainians want to fight it's not my decision, the West is just supplying arms", but engage in the argument and put yourself in the position of choosing the number of lives for the given scenario. Certainly you'd be willing to sacrifice 1 Ukrainian to achieve complete removal of Russia from Ukraine if it was both possible and your decision to make (I'd make the same decision; one life for the complete end of the war? no hesitation, will obviously save many more lives than the war continuing), so just keep increasing the number from there until you either reach a zone where you start to be uncomfortable (100 000, 200 000, 500 000) or then never become uncomfortable and inform us every single Ukrainian life is worth sacrificing to remove Russia from Ukraine. — boethius

Give the example and tell me what’s the number you start feeling uncomfortable with.

And these sorts of decisions are part of NATO military training (which I've done) that the cost in lives must be justified by the worth of the objective achieved. The mere fact the other side is presumably "bad" (otherwise why are we fighting them) does not justify fighting at all cost to both your own troops as well as civilians. We are willing to sacrifice X to achieve Y is the fundamental framework of all military decision making. — "boethius

Your questions are all heavily framed to hint an obvious answer.
But I’m questioning the framing for the following reasons:
1 - Context: as the Multivac would answer, “insufficient data for meaningful answer.” (cit.). Am I the president of Ukraine or some avg non-Ukrainian dude? What does “lose” mean? Just lose a battle or the war, and what does losing the war implies? What principle are we talking about? The principle of of being free to buy a second mobile phone or the principle of keeping the nation free from subjugation, exploitation, or genocide? What does “at all cost” mean? Context is always much richer of relevant details, constraints and uncertainties that are relevant for decision making, than your framed & simplistic hypothetical scenarios may suggest. Besides many assessments can be done only a posteriori, if done in advance they may be speculations as plausible as others, even if they turned out to be the best approximation to reality, later on.
2 - “Morale” vs “moral”: to me, the two notions may be related but they do not refer to the same things. “Morale” is a psychological condition. It has to do with motivation, emotional resilience, discipline, "having the guts". It’s unreasonable to expect/require that an avg dude not directly involved in the war has the “morale” or can empathise with the “morale” of those involved in the war. It’s unreasonable to expect/require that ordinary individuals have the “morale” of trained and leading political/military/decision-maker figures (it’s not by chance that division of labor and labor specialization exist also in the political and military context).
“Moral” has to do with reasons to act in a certain way. One may have “morale” to pursue “immoral goals“ and one may not have the “morale” to pursue “moral goals“. The result of your psychological test may be good to assess “morale” or capacity of empathising with involved parties’ morale (I even doubt that because we are talking about hypothetical scenarios), but it doesn’t equate to a moral assessment of the reasons behind a war.
3 - “Military” vs “geo/political”: to me, the two notions may be related but they do not refer to the same things. A geo/political strategy doesn’t coincide with a military strategy. Military strategies are way more constrained than geopolitical strategies, and also subordinated to geopolitical strategies. "War is the continuation of policy with other means" (cit.). I’m obviously very much interested in military arguments from experts, and military analysis about how much the Ukrainians can afford to sacrifice as a function of military objectives. And I do not mean to discount them at all, but they are one aspect of a geopolitical strategy. An example is the Bakhmut battle, which is said by many military analysts to be of little strategic importance to justify the heavy losses on both sides, yet it has now gained great political importance (for its reputational costs? For the morale of all supporters within and outside Ukraine?).

Conclusion: I don’t answer your questions not because I’m emotionally uncomfortable, but because I’m intellectually uncomfortable to answer heavily framed questions for which I can't provide a meaningful answer (even if I was tempted to answer them exactly the way you would answer them). I’m interested to argue about morality and geopolitics, not about morale and military.

Then you have no place in policy discussion about warfare, because that's what it's about. — boethius

I discuss policies as any avg dudes who is neither a politician nor an activist. And since I’m in a philosophy forum, I’m interested to explore assumptions and implications without feeling pressed by political/military/economic urgency, or frustrated out of lack of expertise. As I argued in other occasions, I think all these points need to be addressed to make sense of the impact of a policy:
1. Values: saving lives may not be all that matters. Freedoms and welfare count too.
2. Present vs future: saving life or standard of life now as compared to saving future lives and standard of life.
3. Actual vs counterfactual: saving life or standard of life by actually doing X vs saving life or standard of life by counterfactually doing Y
4. Strategy: the relative risk&payoff of a strategy (relative to other players’ strategy) is more relevant than its absolute risk&payoff of that strategy.
5. Bounded rationality/morality: all relevant actors have a limited cognitive resources to process consequences of different strategies, and will to respond adequately to moral imperatives. The cumulative effects of all these limits introduce imponderable constraints in all policies.
6. Matrix of competitive/cooperative strategies: every individual and group of individuals is immersed in a multi-dimensional matrix of cooperative and competitive games which are totally a-priori uncoordinated (precisely because coordination is the more or less stable result of how these games are actually played)
7. History: historical legacies (power relations, bad habits, bad memories, historical debts) from past generations hunt current generations despite their current dispositions.
8. Decision process: how much the decision is concentrated in the hands of few and hierarchical the chain of command.

But I don’t see how all such points can neatly fit into a reliable mathematical formula that gives anybody the best moral guidance in quantifiable terms (like a body count) easily computable by anybody. To have something quantifiable one needs to give for granted lots of shared assumptions on a computable set of variables. In other words, as far as I’m concerned, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to calculate and execute an optimal strategy in practical sense, and a certain degree of fault-tolerance for mistakes and even big mistakes may be required because nobody can prove to be able to do better just “in theory”. For that reason, I’m skeptical about responsibility attributions which do not take into account such predicament, but instead look for a convenient scapegoat to blame for man-made world catastrophes.
In any case, if I do not have place in policy discussion about warfare in moral terms WITH YOU because that’s what it’s about TO YOU, why do you keep addressing my comments?

Why don’t you pick whatever historical example and show me how YOU would do the math? Here is an example: ”Civilian deaths during the war include air raid deaths, estimates of German civilians killed only by Allied strategic bombing have ranged from around 350,000 to 500,000.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II). By taking into account that the civilian deaths were estimated in the range of 350,000-500,000, do you calculate that it was morally worth bombing Nazi Germany or not? How did you calculate it?

Exactly why strategic bombing is so controversial is that it's difficult to argue it saved more lives than it cost, which is the usual framework for these sorts of calculations. — boethius

OK, give me a historical example of hundred of thousands of innocent civilians killed were morally worth the cost, because my suspect is that you are NOT doing any math. You are simply convinced that there is no historical example of wars with massive casualties also among innocent civilians that was morally worth fighting. But if that is the case, you are offering an argument against wars (defensive and offensive), not against this war, and independently from who started it or provoked it.

Certainly Russia's reputation is decreased in the West ... but is it really true world wide? Vis-a-vis China, India, most developing nations? Certainly not enough for these nations to stop trading with Russia.[/quota]

Most likely, Russia looks weaker (than prior to the war) and particularly needy to the Rest too. Indeed, they exploit Russia’s predicament to reap the benefits and blackmail the West. For that reason India and China may want the war to last as long as possible. But without too much exposure so far, indeed if India and China felt so confident to challenge the West, they would support Russia’s war more openly and directly as Iran is doing.

— boethius

- Security costs: e.g. NATO enlargement and the rearming of European countries — neomac

Is there any scenario in which Finland / Europe is going to invade Russia? Does any of that actually matter in the current geopolitical "power struggle" as you put it? — boethius

Concerning the question about Finland/Europe, you shouldn’t ask me, you should ask Russia. To your questions, I would add mine: e.g. was there any scenario in which Ukraine was invading Russia? Was there any scenario in which NATO or the US was going to invade Russia?
NATO enlargement can grow the military and reputational costs and threats against Russia’s imperialism. That’s the point.

That's how political blocks work. If you are in a geopolitical power struggle with the West, then being economically tied to the West exposes you to coercion (the whole point of the sanctions). Sure, Iran and Saudi Arabia (and obviously China and India) have more influence with Russia, but there's no evidence right now these parties are seeking to harm Russia through those economic ties and influence, whereas that's very clearly the West, and in particular the US', stated policy since decades (containment, no "peer competitors" can rise in any region etc.). — boethius

The Rest is not an economic-military-technlogical integrated block yet as much as the West. And again power must be understood in relative advantages, timing, trends. You are unnecessarily focused in the present (which is not what geopolitical agents do when engaged in power struggles). Things my look very differently over the next decades depending on how this war ends.
Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia have increased their influence in the Middle East (e.g. Syria), Central Asia (e.g. Armenia vs Azerbaijan), and Africa (e.g. Sudan) at the expense of Russia.
China looks still interested to keep relations with the EU and to protract the Ukrainian war at the expense of the US, but not to the point of escalate it and be heavily dragged into the Ukrainian war by Russia. So if the EU (more precisely France and Germany) find a way to mediate between China and the US, that too might be bad for Russia too.

The primary reason Germany and France would be fed up with the US is that the US creates this mess in Ukraine and then also blows up European infrastructure. But, otherwise, I agree that the US' main competitor in this conflict is the EU and the possibility of the Euro emerging as a "peer competitor" to the USD. — boethius

Until EU will build enough unity to support of common foreign strategy and cumulate deterrent/coercive power against competitors like Russia, China and the US.
This war suggests that the EU is not only far from that, but things may go awfully wrong if the alliance with the US will break. The void or significant weakening of American hegemony in Europe can likely boost the economic/military/ideological competition between European countries (the premises are already there, see the divergence between the UK and the EU, Eastern European countries and Western European Countries wrt the war in Ukraine, the rivalries between north Europe and South Europe about the immigrants) which can’t rely on the Western-lead international order, and between global powers (now including the US) which will bring their competition in the heart of Europe worse than in the past decades (including during the Cold War). And will more likely encourage authoritarianism even in Europe, to control ensuing social unrest (the right-wing turn in many European countries may favour this trend).

It's difficult to interpret this as something other than being a proponent of US foreign policy.

But if you really want to believe yourself to be some impartial observer, then we can discuss on that basis. If that's true you should have even less problem answering questions of what you feel is a reasonable sacrifice to achieve what, as you can be more objective in evaluating the costs and the benefits. — boethius

I don’t claim to be an impartial observer if that means that I do not have preferences or that I didn’t pick a side: I prefer an avg life in the West than an avg life in China, Russia or Iran. I side with a strategy that weakens Russia’s aggressiveness as much as possible. But this partiality is perfectly compatible with objectivity in understanding how the game is being played by competitors. And presenting it as honestly as possible (at least if one is not doing propaganda!).
“A proponent of US foreign policy” to me means being engaged in political propaganda as an activist or a politician to support the US in general or in this war. I’m neither. I’m not here to fix the world. To solicit people in this thread to press our politicians to support more the US in Ukraine or to express my moral outrage against those who oppose the US in Ukraine or to spread memes boosting “morale” for one party against the other. That’s not what I’m doing. That’s the kind of activity you and your sidekicks are doing.
I’m here just for the fun of re-ordering my beliefs and assumptions in a more rationally compelling format, while challenging other interlocutors to do the same.
Finally, to repeat it once more, I can try to answer only questions that at least make sense to me: e.g. asking what you feel is a reasonable sacrifice to achieve what doesn’t “feel reasonable” to me. And it's symptomatic that you didn't answer it either.

However, if you want to argue climate change isn't happening, species loss isn't happening for this and a bunch of other reasons as well, or this environmental destruction, to the extent you agree it's happening, won't be extremely bad, better to argue that in the climate change thread.
For this thread, I'm sure you can appreciate that someone who concludes the environment has been grossly mismanaged and the US primarily responsible, won't assign much moral superiority to US foreign policy. — boethius

I’m neither arguing that “climate change isn’t happening” nor that “won't be extremely bad”. I’m questioning your way of assigning responsibility and its implications.

Of course, the debate remains, even in your basic framework of "US good", as to whether the war in Ukraine is morally justified if it is sacrificing Ukrainians for this US "rules based order" without any benefit to Ukrainians.

As well, even assuming it's true that it's morally justified to sacrifice Ukrainians (or let them sacrifice themselves for Western purposes), if the war is actually harming Russia and benefiting the US. — boethius

I already argued against this miscaracterization of my views.
- my basic framework of "US good” as opposed to your basic framework “Russia good”, “Iran good”, “China good”, “North Korea good”?
- the war in Ukraine is morally justified if it is sacrificing Ukrainians for this US "rules based order” as opposed to “the war in Ukraine is morally justified if it is killing,raping,deporting,destroying Ukrainians for Russia anti-West order?
- "without any benefit to Ukrainians" as opposed to “without any benefit to Russians”?
I questioned the assumption that the West “is sacrificing” the Ukrainians.

As yet, no pro-US policy proponent here has answer the question of how many Ukrainian lives are worthwhile to sacrifice to accomplish what objectives. — boethius

I can’t answer such a question if I don’t know how I am supposed to do the math or if it makes sense. Why don’t you pick whatever historical example and show me how YOU would do the math? Here is an example: ”Civilian deaths during the war include air raid deaths, estimates of German civilians killed only by Allied strategic bombing have ranged from around 350,000 to 500,000.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II). By taking into account that the civilian deaths were estimated in the range of 350,000-500,000, do you calculate that it was morally worth bombing Nazi Germany or not? How did you calculate it?

Likewise, if Russia survives sanctions, as they seem to be doing, and stabilise the front, which they seem to be doing, and continue their arms manufacturing, which they seem to be doing, how exactly does this war harm Russia's geopolitical standing, compared to increasing power and influence and put them in a position to strike deals with Iran and Saudi Arabia for example? — boethius

It has already harmed Russian’s political standing:
- Reputational costs: e.g. Russian military standing didn’t impress on the battlefield
- Security costs: e.g. NATO enlargement and the rearming of European countries
- Economic costs: e.g. economic decoupling between Russia and the West
It’s Russia which increased power and influence, or it’s Iran and Saudi Arabia that increased power and influence over Russia?

Now, if Russia is gaining power and but China even moreso, for all the reasons we've discussed and you seem to agree with, ok, sure, maybe Russia's relative power vis-a-vis China is decreased, but if this China led block that includes Russia, in whatever influence you want to assign them, is on the whole increasing in power, how is this good for the US? — boethius

What might be the lesser evil for the US is to break a Western-lead globalization which was benefiting more EU, Russia and China than the US. And re-compact the West in a logic of political, economic, security blocks as in the Cold War. But this attempt may fail not necessarily because of Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia have significantly increased power and influence. But because of EU, in particular Germany and France ,are fed up with the US. Or because of a domestic internal crisis in the US.

You are obviously a proponent of US foreign policy with regard to this Ukraine war, if your justification is that it's good for US empire then that's your justification. — boethius

We discussed that already. I’m not a “proponent of US foreign policy”. One thing is to try to make sense of what the US is doing, another is to decide what do about it. As far as I am personally concerned, independently from what the US does, I can only say as much: I’m a person who prefers to enjoy standards of life, freedoms or economic opportunities of avg Western people instead of enjoying standards of life, freedoms or economic opportunities for avg people living in authoritarian regimes like Russia, China or Iran. Therefore I’m inclined to see as a threat an increase of power and aggressiveness of such authoritarian regimes at the expense of the West. If the West can and wants to do something against such threat, then I would welcome it. And since I’m aware of how messy and dirty human history is, I limit myself to reason in terms of lesser evil.