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You're still missing my point. Let's consider murder. Of course "murdering a murderer" is less morally culpable than "murdering an innocent person", but it is s

You're still missing my point. Let's consider murder. Of course "murdering a murderer" is less morally culpable than "murdering an innocent person", but it is still murder! We're not comparing the cost of one to the other, we're suggesting that there is no morally clean way of fixing the issue! Either we allow the murderer to go free (bad!) or we murder the murderer (also bad, but possibly less bad? Objectively, we've increased the murder rate!). You keep suggesting that I am saying we should take no actions. All I am saying is that one cannot engineer society without committing at least a few sins. Society cannot be rightly compared to a sports game. There is no referee in society. You may assume that is the state, but you would be incorrect. There are only players in this game.

majormajor 3y ago
> You keep suggesting that I am saying we should take no actions. All I am saying is that one cannot engineer society without committing at least a few sins. I would characterize my position more like: I'm rejecting your definition of sin.
- erulabs 3y ago
  That is fair enough for me! This is sometimes called "The Exceptional Man". The one who can murder murderers without committing a crime. I strongly recommend "Crime and Punishment" - the investigation of the exceptional man who is morally strong enough to "set society in order" is the entire subject of the book. I have lived long enough to know that I am not the exceptional man. I suspect that he does not exist, or at least, has not yet existed.
  - majormajor 3y ago
    I would replace Raskolnikov with a state-sanctioned executioner, and ask what sin their religion or society would ascribe to them? Often the answer has been "none". There's a certain "turtles all the way down" weakness there, of course - how legitimate is the government, how aligned morality-wise is the society, do we hit absolutes at some point instead? When is the revolutionary actually justified? etc. But I feel that generally a democratic state has a wide latitude to take action without needing to feel guilt over sin. EDIT: And that a tendency towards excess guilt-feeling causes other problems of its own (which itself can be seen in some of the more extreme current liberal-white-person responses to the racial situation in the US). That's the particular point that originally got me on this thread.
    - erulabs 3y ago
      One assumes that this line of reasoning might easily lead one to, say, storm a capital? I mean, if you thought you could side-step moral problems in the name of the greater good - wouldn't it just be a matter of convincing yourself? If you were 100% convinced society was a great evil, and you also were told that exceptional men do not concern themselves with small evils, and to not feel "excess guilt", could you not imagine committing horrendous evil? I guess my question is: do you think the Nazis justified their actions differently than how you've explained one can justify small immoralities? I hate to invoke the Nazis or Stalin, but it seems totally justified to me. I assume plenty of Nazis thought their government was legitimate, which in turn made their job as executioner legitimate. They were only following orders in the name of the greater good after all! Raskolnikov, you have to remember, was a member of a terribly corrupt society. There were no state executioners and the justice system was terribly rigged. No one was coming to punish Alyona Ivanovna - it was up to our "exceptional" hero.
      - majormajor 3y ago
        > and you also were told that exceptional men do not concern themselves with small evils I personally find some immorality in whoever is telling people this. This is that gray area, why is "going along" preferable to not; and when is that line actually crossed? But Rothbard's position, to me, has it's own mountains of gray area that could often lead one to taking no action and allowing evil instead of acting against it through ones own "sin". The Nazi populace, here, rather than the Nazi soldiers and officials. Perhaps that's what I missed: is there a blame in Rothbard's math that accrues to inaction? I know you aren't advocating as doing nothing, but to me that seems like it would be a common individual decision from the "these actions are all one sin or another" calculus. What's your take on this flip of that war/"just following orders" scenario: would it be a smaller evil for an external country to assassinate Putin with the goal of trying to end the war in Ukraine with less overall death, than the evil of supporting Ukraine in what then becomes a longer, bloodier war? (Or would supporting Ukraine not be seen as evil despite leading to deaths?) EDIT: for the "storm the capital" example - does that action come from failed moral reasoning, or from beliefs that differ from those of those who wouldn't storm the capital? Couldn't they arrive at "this is a sin, but it is still the least bad option" even in that Rothbardian sense?

majormajor 3y ago

> You keep suggesting that I am saying we should take no actions. All I am saying is that one cannot engineer society without committing at least a few sins. I would characterize my position more like: I'm rejecting your definition of sin.

erulabs 3y ago
That is fair enough for me! This is sometimes called "The Exceptional Man". The one who can murder murderers without committing a crime. I strongly recommend "Crime and Punishment" - the investigation of the exceptional man who is morally strong enough to "set society in order" is the entire subject of the book. I have lived long enough to know that I am not the exceptional man. I suspect that he does not exist, or at least, has not yet existed.
- majormajor 3y ago
  I would replace Raskolnikov with a state-sanctioned executioner, and ask what sin their religion or society would ascribe to them? Often the answer has been "none". There's a certain "turtles all the way down" weakness there, of course - how legitimate is the government, how aligned morality-wise is the society, do we hit absolutes at some point instead? When is the revolutionary actually justified? etc. But I feel that generally a democratic state has a wide latitude to take action without needing to feel guilt over sin. EDIT: And that a tendency towards excess guilt-feeling causes other problems of its own (which itself can be seen in some of the more extreme current liberal-white-person responses to the racial situation in the US). That's the particular point that originally got me on this thread.
  - erulabs 3y ago
    One assumes that this line of reasoning might easily lead one to, say, storm a capital? I mean, if you thought you could side-step moral problems in the name of the greater good - wouldn't it just be a matter of convincing yourself? If you were 100% convinced society was a great evil, and you also were told that exceptional men do not concern themselves with small evils, and to not feel "excess guilt", could you not imagine committing horrendous evil? I guess my question is: do you think the Nazis justified their actions differently than how you've explained one can justify small immoralities? I hate to invoke the Nazis or Stalin, but it seems totally justified to me. I assume plenty of Nazis thought their government was legitimate, which in turn made their job as executioner legitimate. They were only following orders in the name of the greater good after all! Raskolnikov, you have to remember, was a member of a terribly corrupt society. There were no state executioners and the justice system was terribly rigged. No one was coming to punish Alyona Ivanovna - it was up to our "exceptional" hero.
    - majormajor 3y ago
      > and you also were told that exceptional men do not concern themselves with small evils I personally find some immorality in whoever is telling people this. This is that gray area, why is "going along" preferable to not; and when is that line actually crossed? But Rothbard's position, to me, has it's own mountains of gray area that could often lead one to taking no action and allowing evil instead of acting against it through ones own "sin". The Nazi populace, here, rather than the Nazi soldiers and officials. Perhaps that's what I missed: is there a blame in Rothbard's math that accrues to inaction? I know you aren't advocating as doing nothing, but to me that seems like it would be a common individual decision from the "these actions are all one sin or another" calculus. What's your take on this flip of that war/"just following orders" scenario: would it be a smaller evil for an external country to assassinate Putin with the goal of trying to end the war in Ukraine with less overall death, than the evil of supporting Ukraine in what then becomes a longer, bloodier war? (Or would supporting Ukraine not be seen as evil despite leading to deaths?) EDIT: for the "storm the capital" example - does that action come from failed moral reasoning, or from beliefs that differ from those of those who wouldn't storm the capital? Couldn't they arrive at "this is a sin, but it is still the least bad option" even in that Rothbardian sense?