[ExI] Morality

[spike]

... On Behalf Of BillK
...

>...Once the door is opened to intentionally kill one (or many) for the
greater good, then this will almost certainly be misused by those in power
to justify killing those they disapprove of. So it is safer to forbid it
from the beginning, rather than getting into endless arguments about when it
might be justified. Do we nuke Iran and kill a
100,000 to stop a war that would kill many millions?  Just say No...  BillK

BillK, if only morality were this simple, life would be free of the
maddening moral ambiguity we face every day.  

A better example is the 1993 mutual genocide between the Hutus and Tutsis of
Rwanda and Burundi.  If it had been as simple as one country vs another, we
might have known what to do: establish a buffer zone between them, Korean
style.  But this was the Hutus slaying Tutsis simultaneously in both Rwanda
and Burundi which caused a most perplexing moral situation on the part of
the UN.  That made it a simultaneous civil war in two neighboring nations;
the UN is most reluctant to get involved in a civil war.  The world watched
helplessly in appalled horror, as the Toronto Blue Jays, a Canadian team,
defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the world series.  We knew not what to
do or what to say, but knew that a moral travesty was taking place between
and among neighboring nations.  We took the time-honored approach and did
nothing.

Years later, westerners began to hear of the murderous genocide which had
taken place in Rwanda and Burundi, at which time we asked ourselves severely
introspective moral questions, such as "Where the hell is Rwanda and
Burundi?"

OK suppose we had all been internet users back then, and actually heard of
either of these events as they took place.  What would we do?  How does the
rule Just Say No apply when we are witnessing genocide?  That's what we did
when we witnessed both genocide and slavery in Europe in the early 1940s, we
just said no.  That didn't work out so well from what I hear.

spike