Is war wrong?

[duroflex]

Originally posted by Colin


Chimps will kill each other. One might even say "murder". They even battle in groups.

Well, chimps aren't that far away from humans, in terms of evolution, at least.

Just goes to show that the more sentient a species becomes, the more self destructive it is.

[Unfed]

no it isn't...

[duroflex]

This thread is getting pretty gay.

"Yada yada....Bla bla bla....Hmmm Har har, interesting point of view, mr. Wankerton. Hmm...Yess, yes."

Lets stop this intellectual bullshit and go fucking crazy instead.


WOO HOOO! WAR IS FANTASTIC. SHOOT'N PEOPLE IS FUURN! YEEHAAWW.

I'm gonna go get my rifle and blast some o' them desert people away. Yessireebob!

Hill billie trailor park red necks of the world, unite!

[ADL Colin]

duroflex, funny.

We already have 28 threads in the past 4 days for that though.

[OneHungLo]

Originally posted by Joe Sixpack


I say we kill ten million Americans and talk about it some more...

What do you think?

Ahhh yes now its all comming together

[Libertine]

Originally posted by Colin
Punkworld,

As far as empathy, isn't it important how wide your circle of empathy is? Some people are empathetic towards their neighbors, some towards their countrymen, some towards all of humanity, some to all mammals and some extend it to everything that is alive. Why should one choose all humans rather than any of the other choices? Arbitrary or not?

A related note on the social contract. Isn't it important who one considers to be "in society" and who one considers to be outside? Can't one just define "Westerners" as "in society" and others as not? Again, arbitrary or not?

To quite an extent, Isn't this what someone that believes war should never be an option does, they extend their circle of empathy to include all people? Are they justified?

As promised, my reply.

Those are indeed valid points. It seems obvious that empathy indeed is, at least for a large part, based on distance, not just geographical but also in thought. For example, it is an empirical fact that people feel more empathy for their pets than they do for human beings in different cultures on the other side of the world. The factor of distance in thought becomes clear when one considers how most non-American Westerners seem to care more about terrorist attacks in America than about murders or starvation in Africa. The reason for this seems to lie primarily in culture - Westerners consider other Westerners to be part of "their" group.
However, one could say this stance is not justified since it is largely based on ignorance - when people get to know people from other cultures or in other places, they seem to accept them into their own group.
An example can be seen here in Holland. People over here tend to complain a lot about immigrants, and almost never want them to settle in their own towns or neighbourhoods. However, on several occassions when the government wanted to return immigrants that had already settled in a certain area to their countries of origin, the people in those areas protested loudly against it, saying they wanted "their" people to be able to stay.
Apparently, the lack of empathy felt for groups other than people's own groups is based on ignorance of those groups, and can be seen as "potential empathy" rather than "lack of empathy".
Because of this, one could say that one of the main characteristics of humans is that they can potentially feel empathy for all other humans.

More to come later tonight (including a rational argument against war in general), since I have to go again

[theking]

Originally posted by Colin
Is war necessarily wrong? If so, why?

Why is the suffering and killing of people for personal gain necessarily wrong?

Since right and wrong are subjective terms, to answer the question, "Is war necessarily wrong?", without a fixed definition base of what you, or whoever, is subjectively defining what is right and what is wrong, it is not really possible to answer the question.

Without a base definition of what is considered to be "personal gain" it is not really possible to answer the question "Why is the suffering and killing of people for personal gain necessarily wrong?". To use an extreme illustration of the necessity to define "personal gain" is the following scenario. Someone is physically trying to kill you and you kill that person, have you not killed that person for personal gain? Your personal gain in this scenario would be your life.

[Gman.357]

Originally posted by OneHungLo


Ahhh yes now its all comming together

HEHEHEHEHE.

[theking]

Care to respond to my post Colin?

[MetaMan]

i will be the first to populate mars,

who needs war?

[Rick Latona]

[kevinl]

Going back to your original question is war wrong? No

A human being's strongest instinct is self-preservation. If it is threatened you will instinctually try to destroy that threat.

Is it wrong to hold people without due process? Certainly. In America before 9-11 it would have caused an outrage. Not with the threat of terrorism, it is now commonplace.

Do I have a problem with the seeming contradiction in this now?No, my life and country is threatened. That makes it a totally logical decision.

Is it practicing situational ethics?Yes, because I dont want other nations doing that to me or my countrymen.


If your enemy is one that cannot be reasoned with and is willing to fight to the death I dont think you have a choice but to kill him. If he runs a country then by neccesity you have to go to war in order to kill him.

[ADL Colin]

Originally posted by theking
Care to respond to my post Colin?

Yeah, I think your answer is perfect. The question, as you point out, IS too vague. So I guess when people say "War is wrong" they just mean "War is wrong for my value system". Many, many people have the value system that war and murder are always wrong and many other people think war is sometimes justifiable.

Is there anyone that believes someday there will be NO people that believe that there can be justification for War? How would we do that?

Some people have a value system wherein war is justifiable but terrorism is not. Some people have a value system wherein killing soldiers is justifiable and civilians not. Is this "logical"?

And Punkworld ...

I wish you'd take a day off from your girl and hang out for a full discussion some day soon. ;-)