President Obama: Do you really love America?

[DeistPaladin]

It is implausible that in cases where a country waging war nominally attacked many military targets and incurred many civilian causalties, it could have continuously failed to predict the civilian casualties had resulted. It is not an accident when civilian casualties can be predicted.

The question then becomes can you disinterestedly believe the country's stated intention that it did not seek to benefit in any way from civilian casualties which it had incurred and which must have been predicted, when such civilians casualties can plausibly advance the country's war aims as much as, or more than, destruction of the military targets in question.

Intent is still key in this discussion.

Decisions to go to war must always be considered with caution, done only when all other options have been exhausted and where the alternative to war is unacceptable. Irresponsible, reckless and impulsive decisions to go to war, such as ours during the latest Gulf War, to say nothing of questionable motives on the profits of certain corporations tied to the previous administration, are morally reprehensible. The reason they are morally reprehensible is because of the intentions.

W Bush's war in Iraq was like a man who gets drunk and decides to drive a huge semi truck and plows through a crowd of people. He's responsible morally for all those killed in his reckless and irresponsible act. Actually, worse than that because there may have been a clear headed intent by some to profit from the war they were pushing.

Even still, the drunk driver is not morally equivalent to the serial murderer.

[Anomalocaris]

It is implausible that in cases where a country waging war nominally attacked many military targets and incurred many civilian causalties, it could have continuously failed to predict the civilian casualties had resulted. It is not an accident when civilian casualties can be predicted.

The question then becomes can you disinterestedly believe the country's stated intention that it did not seek to benefit in any way from civilian casualties which it had incurred and which must have been predicted, when such civilians casualties can plausibly advance the country's war aims as much as, or more than, destruction of the military targets in question.

Intent is still key in this discussion.

Decisions to go to war must always be considered with caution, done only when all other options have been exhausted and where the alternative to war is unacceptable. Irresponsible, reckless and impulsive decisions to go to war, such as ours during the latest Gulf War, to say nothing of questionable motives on the profits of certain corporations tied to the previous administration, are morally reprehensible. The reason they are morally reprehensible is because of the intentions.

W Bush's war in Iraq was like a man who gets drunk and decides to drive a huge semi truck and plows through a crowd of people. He's responsible morally for all those killed in his reckless and irresponsible act. Actually, worse than that because there may have been a clear headed intent by some to profit from the war they were pushing.

Even still, the drunk driver is not morally equivalent to the serial murderer.

The drunk driver would be if he benefits from killing someone while driving drunk, knows he benefits, and could very plausibly have gotten drunk repeatedly in order to avail himself of that benefit, even if he claims he gets drunk purely out of the joy of mere inebriation.

[abaris]

Intent is still key in this discussion.

Intent is as useful for this discussion as a used toilet paper is to clean your hands.

You can sit in your ivory tower all day long and go on about one intent being morally superior to the other. It doesn't change the fact that innocent people die, thereby creating more potential enemies in the process. Everyone being honest with themselves and having enough empathy to walk in the shoes of others for a mile will understand the need for revenge. Especially if there is no court to bring the case to.

Here's another example. I'm coming to your house and shoot your wife. Oh, oops, sorry. I meant to hit the burglar in the garden. Will you pat my shoulder and say it's all right because my intent was to protect your belongings?

Too close to home? That's how fundamentally stupid this discussion about intent actually is.

[A Theist]

Isn't it interesting how we make semantic demarcations between types of killing. Terrorism morally wrong, collateral damage, morally acceptable.

Intent is key to an analysis of morality. Unintended casualties in war is deeply unfortunate. Deliberately setting out to kill civilians just for the sake of stoking fear is evil.

To all you atheists and agnostics who have long awaited proof that God exists. A miracle has just happened. I actually agree with DP on this one. Unintentional consequences do not equate to a thought out deliberate act.

[Anomalocaris]

How DP has fallen.

[A Theist]

How DP has fallen.

He's seen the light, aside from having a stronger argument than the rest of you.

[DeistPaladin]

Intent is as useful for this discussion as a used toilet paper is to clean your hands.

Sorry you don't agree with something so basic, it's a legal no-brainer.

Premeditated murder is NOT morally equivalent to manslaughter, even in cases where the unintended death happened by the most reckless of negligence.

You obviously feel differently. I think we're at "agree to disagree" time.

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The drunk driver would be if he benefits from killing someone while driving drunk, knows he benefits, and could very plausibly have gotten drunk repeatedly in order to avail himself of that benefit, even if he claims he gets drunk purely out of the joy of mere inebriation.

Agreed and intent is still key in our analysis of the morality of the behavior. My analogy was a bad one, I'll admit.

Let me put it another way. My point is NOT that "hey, it's war" automatically morally absolves anyone. That's why we have a thing called "war crimes."

At the same time, the automatic, "gee whiz, it's all the same: one man's soldier is another man's terrorist and who can really say..." is also something I strongly disagree with.

At best, I find this false equivalency to be sloppy, intellectually lazy and fallacious. At worst, it smacks of moral relativism.

Setting out to deliberately murder civilians is not the same as unintended civilian casualties any more than a serial killer is morally the same as someone who causes a death through negligence.

Besides, are you being oppressed? Use passive resistance. It works better than terrorism anyway.

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To all you atheists and agnostics who have long awaited proof that God exists. A miracle has just happened. I actually agree with DP on this one. Unintentional consequences do not equate to a thought out deliberate act.

I got a chuckle out of that. Thanks.

I'm tempted to make a comment about broken clocks but I'll be nice.

[Jacob(smooth)]

At best, I find this false equivalency to be sloppy, intellectually lazy and fallacious. At worst, it smacks of moral relativism.

Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others.

Yep. I'd consider that moral relativism makes a lot more sense than moral absolutism, the alternative position. The idea that morality exists as a binary state, or exists independently of context and environment makes little sense to me. Just because morality is relative does not mean that all acts are morally equal, by definition. But I'm available to be persuaded on that one if you can offer a few universally applicable moral absolutes and provide the basis for them.

[DeistPaladin]

Yep. I'd consider that moral relativism makes a lot more sense than moral absolutism. The idea that morality exists as a binary state, or exists independently of context and environment makes little sense to me. But I'm available to be persuaded on that one if you can offer a few universally applicable moral absolutes and provide the basis for them.

Two words:

"Social Contract"

Allow me to pick one example to illustrate my point: female genital mutilation.

Sane societies consider pinning a screaming four year old girl to a table while someone else takes out a knife and hacks away at her genitals, maiming her for life and rendering her unable to ever enjoy sex and possibly killing her if she bleeds to death, to be a horrid, barbaric and immoral practice.

Moral relativists will say that it's only "our cultural perspective" that causes us to be sickened by this act and that some societies consider the act to be one of "sexual purification" and a good thing. So gee whiz, when one society deems it wrong and another society deems it right, who can say...

Who can say?

How about the screaming four year old girl?

I'm sure she's have an opinion worth considering.

At best, moral relativism is sloppy and lazy thinking. At worst, it's morally bankrupt, at its heart asserting that morality doesn't really exist and any assertions about right and wrong are merely opinions enforced by whoever has the might and numbers to enforce them.

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, once you've asserted "moral relativism", you've abandoned any right to be morally indignant about anything. If you really believe in moral relativism, then pretty much anything goes. So at that point, you've have no cause to judge anyone's drone strikes. "They consider it good. You consider it bad. Who can say..."

[Jacob(smooth)]

Yep. I'd consider that moral relativism makes a lot more sense than moral absolutism. The idea that morality exists as a binary state, or exists independently of context and environment makes little sense to me. But I'm available to be persuaded on that one if you can offer a few universally applicable moral absolutes and provide the basis for them.

Two words:

"Social Contract"

Allow me to pick one example to illustrate my point: female genital mutilation.

Sane societies consider pinning a screaming four year old girl to a table while someone else takes out a knife and hacks away at her genitals, maiming her for life and rendering her unable to ever enjoy sex and possibly killing her if she bleeds to death, to be a horrid, barbaric and immoral practice.

Moral relativists will say that it's only "our cultural perspective" that causes us to be sickened by this act and that some societies consider the act to be one of "sexual purification" and a good thing. So gee whiz, when one society deems it wrong and another society deems it right, who can say...

Who can say?

How about the screaming four year old girl?

I'm sure she's have an opinion worth considering.

At best, moral relativism is sloppy and lazy thinking. At worst, it's morally bankrupt, at its heart asserting that morality doesn't really exist and any assertions about right and wrong are merely opinions enforced by whoever has the might and numbers to enforce them.

Just so. Sane societies consider that to be barbaric and immoral that's certainly an indictment of the insane societies but not a refutation of moral relativism. Actually, it's a confirmation of it, as you say, some people find it moral, others don't. By the by, by your definitely whether fgm is immoral or not depends on the intention of the mutilator doesn't it? So if they do it with good intentions...

How about circumcision. Is it immoral to hold down a screaming newborn and lop off a part of his little chap

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Oh, and by the way, once you've asserted "moral relativism", you've abandoned any right to be morally indignant about anything. If you really believe in moral relativism, then pretty much anything goes. 

Nope. That would be amorality. That's like saying "if you compare student grades to each other, all grades are equal.