Rhea

I am interested in people's thoughts on this. I'm going to use the war as an example because it is the opposite of my position, and I think that will keep me more "honest" with myself. It's actually about something completely different - just analogous. The question - would I do a thing again, why or why not? A learning discussion.


Take the War on Iraq. Suppose, for the sake of this argument, that it is over, the Iraqi people are glad to be liberated and Iraq is rebuilt into a community that they embrace and in which they have freedom and security.

(For the sake of full discussion, keep in mind another analogy. Your teen daughter suddenly starts hanging with a rough crowd, missing school, dropping friends, dropping weight - do you search her drawers and read her diary to find out what's wrong and how you can help?)

So back to Iraq.

We had no "proof" of chemical weapons, massive insurrection or any other "proof" that we should go and overthrow Saddam. Just a feeling that something was wrong. Hints pointed at something being wrong.

My position so far has been, we should not have gone in. Yet, in the actual dilemna about which I am contemplating, my position was the opposite.


Now what.

What are the ethical and moral considerations for doing something wrong based on the hunch that something is not right? Use either example or come up with one of your own. I don't know what to think.

Oxymoron

Three words:

cost/benefit analysis.

(It's too simplistic to talk about "wrong" things - there are degrees of wrongness, and it's all very subjective anyway.)

In deciding on any course of action, we do our best to foresee the consequences of that course. We are not very good at doing this, but there are degrees of thoroughness, and to do it is always better than not to do it. What do we stand to gain? What do we stand to lose? Does the benefit outweigh the cost? If so, let's do it. If not, what other courses are there (including doing nothing), and how do they meaure up?

Thus our actions become judgement calls based on limited information, some dodgy extrapolation and an attempt to foresee as many ends and consequences as we can. We get better at it as we get older but there is a limit as to how good we can be.

With regards to Iraq: Saddam HAS chemical weapons; the West sold them to him back in the '70s when Rumsfeld was putting him in power. He was close several time to getting nukes (thanks to our Russian and French chums). He - and his brothers - were a blight on the Middle East and there were real security implications for US civilians as a result of their destabilising presence. It was George and Tony's judgement call that he had to be taken out now. In their analysis, the benefits outweighed the cost.

Moral: there is no foolproof way to decide on courses of action. You make your best guesses, make a call, act on it, and live with the consequences. Such is life.

Alonzo Fyfe

You go to your neighbor's house, ring the doorbell, and nobody answers. You look through the window on the door and see somebody laying in the middle of the floor. Personally, I would break the door down and offer assistance.

Now, let's say that the evidence is a bit less certain. You get no answer. You know that your neighbor does not walk very well and that her car is in the driveway. Also, she was expecting you and knew that you would be right over. You had just got done talking to her on the phone.

This scenario can keep changing. Make the evidence a bit less certain. Also, make the problem a bit less certain. Instead of discovering that your neighbor may be hurt, you discover that your neighbor is allowing her children to stay up past their bedtime.

There is no sharp line that distinguishes when one may enter the neighbor's house or where one is obligated to stay out. As evidence accumulates that something is seriously wrong, the justification for forced entry increases.

Reasonable people can reasonably disagree on when that line has been crossed.

Psychic

well alonzo, I'd rathar first comment on you over simplifying approach to such interact situation with infinite factors and forces involoved.

First of all I'd like to question the point that unlike your comatozed neighbor, the majority of Iraqi people are actually yeilling at you not to break the door, and they took it to the verge of sacrificing their lifes against your invasion. and that's the majority of the poeple. I do acknowledge that there are also Iraqi People who would like to rid of Saddam's regimen. seeing how many Iraqi people fought against the coaliation forces I take it the it's very clear that the pro-Saddam people are the majority. and If we argue about my claim then it would be because the US didn't take the effort to at least pull an even fabricated survey.

besides if America is to play "the globe policeman" or "the defender of liberty" then I think has to too many duties around the globe, starting from the dictatorship in China, going through the WMD in North Korea, visiting Africa defending their human rights and ridding them of the dictatorships there. and maybe they should actually start a invasion on america to help some of those are against the war in Iraq?!!!

I think the whole world (including the USA) has agreed that the globe policeman is the UN.

If the police were there standing next to your neighbor's house, then you have no right what-so-ever to take action and break into the house on your own.

Alonzo Fyfe

Actually, the original poster asked that the discussion be on general principles, not a discussion on the merits of the war in Iraq (which is more appropriately discussed in the Political Discussions forum).

In your counter-argument, you effectively continued the same form of analogy that I was using. Therefore, I do not see anything in your response that says that the methodology is in any way flawed. Rather, your response seems more situated on the specifics -- what would the methodology say about this particular situation.

That, at least as I understood it, was not the question.

Psychic

Sorry for not being clear enough. my counter arguement is not about the specifics of the Iraqi issue.

all that I wanted to say that the question in the original post suggests two examples for the sake of discussion:
the first about the Iraqi case: the USA is interfering for the good of the people in Iraq. (not the UN who I claim the agency to be responsible)
In the second about a parent and a daughter: the Parent intervenes for the good of the daughter. (a parent is rightfully responsible for the protection of his daughter).

So basiclly you are over-simplyfing because you are talking about you being a neighbor, so I pointed out the presence of a police officer here. just to make it clear that we should not ingnore the "Person" making the intervention. A parent is responsible ethically and legally to take care of a daughter, so is a policeman, but a neighbor should be careful about the morality of the action. to rephrase "to be free to act is to be responsible" and "to be responsible is to be free to act"
A doctor is obliged by the law to help a patient in emergencies. If anyone else other than a doctor tried in good intention to help the patient and the patient died, that person is going to be dealt with real hard, conversly if the patient died within the hands of a doctor it will be a complication of tracheostomy or something.

so the same action is morally different when being acted by different people with different levels of responsiblity.

My second point is: the people of Iraq are not comatozed! there are yielling for you not to do it. so what I (Vaguely )meant by that was to consider the person in question.
has the parent tried to talk to the daughter about it? has the daughter explicitly asked for no interference? or has the daughter acted so elusively to avoid the subject giving the parents more reasons to suspect that there is something not right going on?

sorry to be so vague, It was a weird thing to expect you guys to get these points from a seemingly political discussion.
the political specifics about china and africa was there to stress that fact that the USA is NOT responsible for the freedom of people around the globe.

Rhea

Aaaaah. SOme good points.

Good point. Good question. In this case it is not the correct authority acting. To make it reflect the action behind my question, we have to change the analogy to a teen starts changing habits and her former friend notices something wrong, snoops and tells the parents.

Thank you, this is exactly the kind of discussion that I wanted for my own thorough inspection of this situation. Opening up the mind to all angles.

So here, the patient lives - but is scarred, perhaps. Or rather, the teen is stopped from the destructive behavior, but loses relationship with her parents and other friends. And the snitch who broke a trust to stop the behavior is trying to figure out what moral questions surround her actions. What things she needs to decide on before moving on - is she the person she wants to be, or does she need to make a change that would make her decide differently next time.

So you stopped the destructive behavior, but you had to break a privacy to do it. And you had nothing concrete to act on, just the behavior changes - until you snooped and then you knew. And while the behavior was stopped, you ruined her relationship with others.

I appreciate your help in thinking this through, so that I can decide I have considered as many angles as possible and built something to help me decide what I _want_ to do next time - if ever.