What's getting to me about the Foley thing

[nancylebov]

As bad things go, what Foley did was only fair-to-middling bad. As a result of it, political careers will be ended and elections will probably be affected. There might be criminal charges.

At the same time, the US government has been torturing people, sometimes to death. It's quite plausible that this is still going on, what with all those prisoners being held in secret. A law has been passed making it legal to hold prisoners indefinitely in secret. This has not had nearly as much political effect as the Foley scandal, and the legitimizing of torture doesn't seem to be a big issue in the upcoming election.

I begin to suspect that I am surrounded by crazy people.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It's not a religious position: it's an ethical and moral position.

Now, my morals and my ethics are influenced by my religion and my philosophy. But one MUST consider morals and ethics in considering one's actions -- on an individual level and on a societal level. One must have things that create and support one's morals and ethics -- and religion is one of those things.

There's nothing wrong with having a religous position that says that torture is wrong. It seems that, if we have no ability to say that things are wrong, then we also have no ability to say that other things are right. Without morals, without ethics, there is no reason to do much. Without morals, without ethics, there's no reason to care what happens to anyone else. If you are not working from a moral and ethical basis, what do you care whether people are being tortured, and, for that matter, whether it's particularly effective? The odds that you will be personally affected by terrorism are vanishingly small.

If you're not taking a moral position on these matters, what possible position are you taking? Why do you care?

Utilitarianism is a . . . simplistic philosophy. I don't like it. Doing the most expedient thing at all times seems like a barren way to live.

Nonetheless, in this case, the utilitarian position and the moral position are in conjunction.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of sympathy with the "torture is wrong, it's just plain wrong, I tell you, AND it's evil" position, but the problem is that it's unconvincing to people who don't already believe it.

Utilitarianism isn't just doing the most expedient thing--you can take the long range into account, and torture has all sorts of nasty side effects in addition to not reliably accomplishing its stated purpose of getting information.

[shagbark.livejournal.com]

To me, moral thought means thought on how to make the world better according to your values. If your values say that suffering is bad, then morality requires that you think about how to reduce suffering.

Religion is, I would say by definition, a system of beliefs that forbids you from engaging in moral thought, as you must accept a set of values, and ways of acting, handed to you by a (usually unquestionable) authority. Religion suppresses morality.

Would you rather be dunked in water for half an hour, or be held in prison for 20 years? If torture is preferable to the individual, and causes less suffering than long-term incarceration, then a utilitarian approach suggests that incarceration is worse than torture, and that our policy of locking people up for long terms without budgeting much money toward preventing crime or reducing recidivism is worse than torturing people. A religious approach does not even ask these questions; it already has a set of criteria - a checklist of "things that are wrong" - and anything that doesn't get flagged by something on that checklist (like putting people in prison for 20 years) gets passed on without thought.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I think you've never really studied religion.

Or ethical systems, for that matter.

Religions do not, universally, discourage questioning of assumptions -- talk to a Talmudist or a Jesuit or a Buddhist or a Taoist or a modern Orthodox Jew or a leftist Catholic or really most religious people, and you'll see that your assumption is faulty.

Similarly, not all moral and ethical systems encourage questioning of their assumptions.

So, in effect, you're begging the question. You're defining a "religion" as "that which does what you disaprove" and an "ethical system" as "that which does not."

[shagbark.livejournal.com]

Most of the people you just mentioned are not what I would call very religious. In fact, studying with the Jesuits was a major factor in my becoming non-religious. Buddhism comes in two varieties, a folk religion, and a philosophy, and the two have almost nothing to do with each other. Orthodox Jews, and the entire Talmudic tradition, are a tradition of overcoming religion, and thinking independently of and in contradiction to the "holy" books.

As to my never having studied religion, or ethical systems, you are off by a very wide margin.

I am using the term "religion" to refer to systems that involve divine revelation, faith (which appears to mean the suspension of reason), and looking for non-material causes for events.