Welcome to a graduate class in political ethics

[DavisParticipant]

Unseen political philosophy IS dealing with problems in practical terms. What gave you the idea it was anything other than that?

[DavisParticipant]

Again, you have to measure the risk against how obsessed you are over the single issue. Participating in a revolution is extremely dangerous. The revolution could come and despite promises to change things so your single issue is addressed never comes (you are expendable once the revolution is a success). Your single issue could be addressed but everything else is so unpleasant it doesn’t seem worth it all of a sudden. There are too many variables to make it an easy answer. I would say far too many people are over optimistic about the odds of a revolution succeeding and their issues being addressed if it does. How much you stand by democratic ideals depends on how obsessed you are over not getting your way with a single issue and the extreme risk you are willing to take to achieve it. I would never say myself that I would NEVER EVER consider it. I’m not obsessed enough with a single issue to consider it. That could always change. A responsible democratic government should always be aware of this (that there can be groups willing to revolt) and govern accordingly.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks ago by  Davis.

[UnseenParticipant]

Davis wrote:

Unseen political philosophy IS dealing with problems in practical terms. What gave you the idea it was anything other than that?

That’s nonsense. In that case, there’s little difference between philosophy or sociology or administration. I see all philosophical studies as abstract. You don’t solve a philosophical issue in any philosophical field in a laboratory or a CAD machine or committee. We don’t salve the problem of the existence of God or free will by going into a lab to perform an experiment, or firing up a CAD machine to create a design, or handing it over to a committee to take a vote. What makes political philosophy unique?

[UnseenParticipant]

Davis wrote:

Again, you have to measure the risk against how obsessed you are over the single issue. Participating in a revolution is extremely dangerous. The revolution could come and despite promises to change things so your single issue is addressed never comes (you are expendable once the revolution is a success). Your single issue could be addressed but everything else is so unpleasant it doesn’t seem worth it all of a sudden. There are too many variables to make it an easy answer. I would say far too many people are over optimistic about the odds of a revolution succeeding and their issues being addressed if it does. How much you stand by democratic ideals depends on how obsessed you are over not getting your way with a single issue and the extreme risk you are willing to take to achieve it. I would never say myself that I would NEVER EVER consider it. I’m not obsessed enough with a single issue to consider it. That could always change. A responsible democratic government should always be aware of this (that there can be groups willing to revolt) and govern accordingly.

This is not about you, Davis.

The militia attack that was thwarted days ago was undertaken by men obsessed with imposing their interpretation of the Constitution and Christian values and, yes, they have declared that they would die for their cause if needed, and I don’t doubt them.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

I see all philosophical studies as abstract. You don’t solve a philosophical issue in any philosophical field in a laboratory or a CAD machine or committee.

I think that philosophical studies bridge the gap between “data” and “abstraction”.  So, sometimes we are looking at data, and sometimes abstracting out principles obtained from looking at the data.

[DavisParticipant]

Unseen the difference is in the kind of questions that they ask and their methods of answering them. To say that philosophy avoids the practical is absurd. I’ve never taken a single course or read a single book that avoided practicals except for, and only sometimes, metaphysics.

[UnseenParticipant]

Davis wrote:

Unseen the difference is in the kind of questions that they ask and their methods of answering them. To say that philosophy avoids the practical is absurd. I’ve never taken a single course or read a single book that avoided practicals except for, and only sometimes, metaphysics.

Ethics, Davis, ethics. Ethics is all about values, not facts, research, developing protocols. This topic is an ethics topic. The same limitations apply to aesthetics, free will, the existence of God.

Is democracy an unassailable ideal? or is it sometimes justifiable to choose an authoritarian alternative. It’s a simple question that’s answered with arguments, not trips to the lab, firing upo software, or getting a committee to vote on it, It’s a personal decision.

I’m not the one being absurd.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen, you indite i spake a tautology in asserting that only ideologues are singular issue voters. If so then by extension your question is both rhetorical and tautological. I could not assume you would be asking a nonquestion so i interpreted your question.

Of course a feckin hatchet-job loony bird will overthrow a gov to have their pie. For that matter all of us would consider it under dire/existential crises.

[UnseenParticipant]

How is my question tautological? or rhetorical, for that matter?

My question invites a decision after a period of consideration. Pick an issue you think is of overriding importance either in the real world you are in now or if there is no issue like that, imagine a different world with such an issue. If you don’t think saving the planet or assuring equal rights for blacks or gays, what issue WOULD rise to that level if it was before you. Then weigh it against democracy.

“Rhetorical” means directed toward or arguing for a certain conclusion or point of view. I assure you, if you find this question difficult to wrestle with, so do I!

[jakelafortParticipant]

Alright Unseen…genocide is more n enuff to disband the ties that ties us. Climate change so smashing it smashes us and buries Florida and Louisiana.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Our democracy is mucous laden, fetid, disintegrating, irremediable, and utterly for sale. Thus it is chimerical to elevate this democracy as some platonic ideal, sacrosanct and inviolable.

[UnseenParticipant]

So, Jake, there can come times and situations where we can’t risk a democratic solution(?). If democracy is going to countenance a genocide or if the majority is unable or unwilling to see the need to take drastic action, it’s OK to overrule the majority and impose what’s right on them and be thanked later.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 5 days ago by  Unseen.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Damn Skippy, Unseen!

Lets suppose Trump arrogates the presidency. He is constructing a wall that is part concrete and part bodies of the ILLEGALS WHO ARE MEXICANS, RAPISTS AND MURDERERS (some of em are okay i guess..) and those bodies are removed from detention center concentration camps. Political enemies of the Orange state (not the house of Orange) are also in the concentration camps. OH, and there is a mandate to reinstitute slavery-another bonus from the Orange Emperor!

Under those circumstances or similar nightmares, damn the torpedoes full steam ahead.

[UnseenParticipant]

If it becomes clear to science that the world will quite literally die to all life larger than bacteria in 20 years, and that saving it needs the United States to be all in with the rest of the world, and if The Green Party (which has by this time become a gigantic armed militia) might force America to do the right thing by overthrowing the Trumpist Federal Government, shouldn’t they do so in the interest of presuming a future for us all, knowing that someday their revolution will be vindicated?

[jakelafortParticipant]

Yes, Unseeen, if the consensus of scientists is convinced our future is that limited then it is a no-brainer. No issue either with showing right wing nuts that climate science is not aligned with the rapture.

[Author]

Posts