Means ends and moral dilemmas

People often like to challenge each other with so called moral dilemmas. An example of it one is the following:

‘If by killing 1 person (the person is not sacrificing her/his life voluntarily), you could save the lives of millions, would you do it?’

Now let me explain why do I believe that the answer to that question is NO. I am not arguing by any means against human charity, but we do not have any obligation to help anyone (unless we have some kind of contract), so helping someone is a good dead (something more than we would normally expect), not helping them is neutral, there is no fundamental reason why we should. By not helping them we are not harming them, we are just not helping them. If we on the other hand push them to harm, then we are doing them something evil.

Lets look at a example if someone is hanging on from a cliff we can either do nothing (stay neutral), help them get up (do something good) or stamp on their fingers and make them fall (do something evil).

Further on, there is no ‘objective’ way of compensating someone who we have done something evil, by doing good to other people. I.e. stealing from someone rich and giving it to the poor does not compensate the rich person for the harm that was done to him.

So by not harming the 1 person and not helping the million we stay neutral. Our means our just and hence the ends are moral.

By harming the first person and helping the million we have still done something evil and immoral, that is not compensated by the fact that we helped the other million. By doing harm to someone pour means can not be just and hence their outcome can not be moral.

If we do not follow the above algorithm, then situations like this can be deemed moral:

1. A gangster stealing all your money  and killing, you and your family would be deemed just if he donated some of that money and saved a 1000 lives in a poor country.
2. Governments would be justified by exploiting minorities (look at the Nazi and Soviet regimes) to help their majorities.

Referencing my dear old friend The Young Monarchist, our means justify our ends. So consider wether harming some people (e.g. by taxes) to ‘help’ other people by ‘social services’ really is just (even if you think that the social services actually help).

Temptation

In life we desire many things, often we say that we are tempted by something. We can then decide whether we subdue to it or not, it might be a hard or easier to make that decision, but ultimately it is ours. Sometimes those desires hint us to do something ‘good’ e.g. when we are tempted by food, because we are hungry and subdue to the crave we do not die from starvation. Sometimes they are not so good e.g. sexual temptations. It is very interesting as if two people make a agreement to have sex, nothing immoral happens (unless they previously agreed with someone else that they will not do that). The problem occurs that temptations are often self-reinforcing, a good example being smoking, which mainly shows itself in how difficult it is to quit. So though one does not commit anything immoral, one might become obsessed with something. This means that it becomes harder for him to reject the temptation. If we look across history, especially religion, we notice that some of the greatest individual e.g. Jesus (and the saints that followed his teachings), Buddha, Tao masters, were famous not only for their gentleness, but also for a high moral code and restraint.
This hints to me that if one tries to restrain himself in everyday life, it is easier to make clear decisions in times of stress and gives him a higher degree of freedom/independence.  This can make one think about neijia martial arts, which are based on intent and preserving ones balance, doing things that benefit one and do not create a weakness.

Hence when we are deciding on something we might not only think whether it is just, but also if it is beneficial in perspective.

Priorities

I have decided to skip a couple of topics (but actually also write something). There is a reason for this - every time I discus politics with my not-so-like-minded friends there is a issue that we regularly encounter, mainly that what I propose in not nice/fair...

We would probably all agree that it would be pleasant to live in a nice happy-fluffy world, but those of us who have some realism in our guts know that this will not happen. For the start we are tainted by (whatever you want to blame) the first sin, evolutionary background or what not. Thats why such a world could not happen at the moment.

Secondly (and much more importantly) there are things more important than niceness in the world like e.g. JUSTICE and FREEDOM. Everyone who has some respect for any other person will agree that stealing is not good and immoral. Neither enslavement of individuals, just because they live in a particular place is just.

This is why I oppose taxes, money should not be taken of people to be given to others against their will. Some of my quite intelligent friends come out then with one of the most ridiculous arguments: but this is a free country and no one is stopping them from moving away. This I would call either enslavement or direct aggression towards others properties.

If people were given freedom and justice, many conflicts would have been prevented, and yes charity is great and I sincerely do support it, a free and just world would in my opinion support such a attitude in the ‘society’, but let it be from ones free will!

Justice

Justice is something that most people would find desirable, at least when its them that would be the beneficiaries; everyone can imagine that a thief would want justice on the murderer of his wife. But how do we decide what is just? Do we measure it by the laws of the state that we live in? To what extend do we follow it, wouldn't it be fine if people were just nice? Should we be only just to righteous people? Who and how should deal it out?

The main principle on which the justice system should be build is private property rights. Freedom was discussed in my previous posts and for anyone to be blamed for anything, he should have done it from his free will (at this point it has to clarified how heroic the martyrdom is of many people who opposed to follow the commands of their oppressors). I shall refer to what our Lord said to Pilate (John, Chapter 19) "You haven't a shred of authority over me except what has been given you from heaven. That's why the one who betrayed me to you has committed a far greater fault." Many people complain about people doing what they do at their job, forgetting that they have a contract with their employer. This means that if a commander of a unit tells his soldiers to bomb that place, they do it and if anyone is to be blamed it is the one with authority. So freedom already gives us a wide basis for defining what is just, but what about state law?

What if the state law tells us to e.g. discriminate the rich or abuse Christians? Obviously this goes against freedom, and those are people often at their land, for which they probably pay the state taxes. I hope most people would argue that just being rich or Christian is not a crime. But what about the state punishing people for littering? If they want to litter on their own property, then that is their business? Justice should be measured by how free we are about ourselves, as there is nothing else that can really be but as a reference.

Challenge for you - because communism ever worked...

Can someone give a example of a communist government that worked efficiently, for the good of people and not breaking any commie rules to a major degree? And I mean on a national level, not some minor communities.

Is change good?

I’ll leave this question open, but many people to whom I speak seem quite keen on it. I think that change is good in the sense of us learning more everyday, in bringing some new opportunities and challenges. On the other hand there is the nice old saying that one should not fix, what is not broken; but the question is whether it can be improved? Are there any large changes that occurred rapidly that were good (coming of the Lord)? Where there any that were bad (commies)?

Quantity and Quality

People seem to like ‘much/many’ nowadays. Everyone is running, to earn much money, have much sex (and there is always the fact of so many divorces... and other issues) or drink loads of alcohol (to be fair in most cases it is all of them). People eat loads of cheap, disgusting food and do not take proper care of themselves. It is their choice and thats fine, but I think they are loosing something from it and I think that we could all gain something if the situation would change. To reference back to the previous post, look at change that could occur if people did their jobs properly (quality), which would obviously result in less of them. There is probably a nice quality to quantity ration, which is most efficient (and most strategies tend to be about making things most efficient, not maximising a certain parameter), but with the wide range of skills different people would occupy different niches in the market. But if people want to do what they are already doing, let them, its their choice.

Alcohol is a other interesting example. Working in different venues across Scotland I noticed that people like to get pissed (apparently I do not get the wonders of not remembering the previous night, hang-overs - though I’m Polish, so I do not have much chance of experiencing them anyway; and vomiting). I prefer fine mead or vodka, enjoying the quality, the pureness, the taste, not even to mention the discussions in fine company (putting good lads aside, fine women are much more of a interesting company than as one of my friends said ‘sluts’). And the same holds true for food (joys of little things in life) and exercise (all those boys in the gym doing semi-pull-ups). The list goes on. And in the end, it will count how you lived your life, not how many days it lasted.