morality and ethics and economics

[Gary Childress]

Having never been part of some murderous death cult, I can't answer that. I don't have the experience. But I do know that there are lines a person crosses that they know they've crossed. Taking a life...any life, above that of a mosquito or black fly...is one of those. Taking a human life? Well, I can't even imagine.

I don't have that experience either but it seems to happen in some cases and we're all human so I wonder if any of us are immune from moral error. I suppose it takes a degree of vigilance on our part to avoid such things.

I think that boat has sailed, for all of us. Our first moral error is probably something that happens when we're barely cogent, and we make a bunch of them after that.

When you say, "that boat has sailed", what do you mean?

EDIT: Unless I'm mistaken, the idiom, "that boat has sailed" usually implies it being too late for something. If that is the meaning here, then what is it being said it is too late for?

[Alexis Jacobi]

One wonders, though, if some vestige of universal conscience didn't still bother them. You can't kill people without knowing you've done it, and having a deep sense of having crossed a line, even when you use rationales to justify it.

The way to test this would be to involve the victims, and the victimizers, in a rational examination of the processes. What I mean is that if they were prompted to undertake that examination through processes of inquiry, it seems highly likely that — the victims certainly — would formulate a new opinion: “we definitely object”.

There must be a universal consciousness in the sense of natural consciousness. I.e. part of a natural order, accessible to all.

What I wonder about is the supernatural order and those ethical and moral conceptions which are less obvious (from materialistic and natural viewpoints).

Similar to Platonic concepts, it seems one has to be reminded (made to remember) something that may be innate — but at a submerged or occulted level.

One question (for those Aztec warlords) is Was there ever a moral twang by those that comprised their own ruling class, rounded up the victims, and sacrificed them?

[Immanuel Can]

I don't have that experience either but it seems to happen in some cases and we're all human so I wonder if any of us are immune from moral error. I suppose it takes a degree of vigilance on our part to avoid such things.

I think that boat has sailed, for all of us. Our first moral error is probably something that happens when we're barely cogent, and we make a bunch of them after that.

When you say, "that boat has sailed", what do you mean?

EDIT: Unless I'm mistaken, the idiom, "that boat has sailed" usually implies it being too late for something. If that is the meaning here, then what is it being said it is too late for?

Unfortunately for us, it's too late for the "vigilance" strategy to be adequate. You and I made moral errors long ago, and will yet make some, despite our best vigilance. That's what makes having forgiveness so necessary: it can't just be about those moral errors you and I have the vigilance to attend to; we've got errors of the past, inadvertent or incautious errors now, and errors we'll probably still make. All of that needs to be dealt with. Only a comprehensive forgiveness can deal with all of that. And that, only God can give.

[Gary Childress]

One wonders, though, if some vestige of universal conscience didn't still bother them. You can't kill people without knowing you've done it, and having a deep sense of having crossed a line, even when you use rationales to justify it.

The way to test this would be to involve the victims, and the victimizers, in a rational examination of the processes. What I mean is that if they were prompted to undertake that examination through processes of inquiry, it seems highly likely that — the victims certainly — would formulate a new opinion: “we definitely object”.

There must be a universal consciousness in the sense of natural consciousness. I.e. part of a natural order, accessible to all.

What I wonder about is the supernatural order and those ethical and moral conceptions which are less obvious (from materialistic and natural viewpoints).

Similar to Platonic concepts, it seems one has to be reminded (made to remember) something that may be innate — but at a submerged or occulted level.

One question (for those Aztec warlords) is Was there ever a moral twang by those that comprised their own ruling class, rounded up the victims, and sacrificed them?

It could have happened similar to how atrocities are administered even today. I remember working for a corporation where the CEO would make guidelines and expect people to adhere to them and then give them impossible requirements in order to keep their jobs that usually gave incentive for them to bend the guidelines.

Basically, the CEO, could feel good about himself because he was requiring people to behave ethically and when they didn't in order to achieve the unrealistic goals he was setting, he could fire them for being unethical while at the same time keeping the profits that they made for his company through their desperation to keep their jobs. In a sense, everyone below the CEO was miserable and the clients were ripped off and the CEO lived in a fantasy of innocence.

I'm sure something like that was probably in place for the "Aztec warlords" as well.

[Alexis Jacobi]

For example, some slave owners may have rationalized their behavior believing they were improving the lives of people who would otherwise be living in tribal societies in remote regions where survival was more brutal or precarious.

Unquestionably this was the case. And it was also true: the primitive African, robbed from his own context, was forced to become a participant in Occidental civilization. In a real sense, even when the slavery condition was abolished, the demands on this “primitive people” did not let up.

They were ripped out of one context and forced to labor in another context which can be understood to be “not their own”. This is one of the reasons why Black identity within post-slavery and post-colonialism is so knotty.

And it is simultaneously interesting to realize that Northern Europeans were also conquered, very brutally, and “civilized”by a powerful Mediterranean culture. A foreign will acted upon them, enslaved them in a sense. But in the case of Europe it happened over 1,000 years ago.

[Gary Childress]

I think that boat has sailed, for all of us. Our first moral error is probably something that happens when we're barely cogent, and we make a bunch of them after that.

When you say, "that boat has sailed", what do you mean?

EDIT: Unless I'm mistaken, the idiom, "that boat has sailed" usually implies it being too late for something. If that is the meaning here, then what is it being said it is too late for?

Unfortunately for us, it's too late for the "vigilance" strategy to be adequate. You and I made moral errors long ago, and will yet make some, despite our best vigilance. That's what makes having forgiveness so necessary: it can't just be about those moral errors you and I have the vigilance to attend to; we've got errors of the past, inadvertent or incautious errors now, and errors we'll probably still make. All of that needs to be dealt with. Only a comprehensive forgiveness can deal with all of that. And that, only God can give.

I hear you, but another way of perhaps looking at it is that God is not the one who is the victim of our moral failings. God is not the one who feels the knife thrust into his chest or the pangs of hunger of a poor person we might screw over.

I royally screwed one customer over at work through my own careless stupidity and, to this day, I wish I could go back and undo the damage. I don't know that God's forgiveness is what I need. I feel like I would rather have the forgiveness of the guy I screwed over or wish I had some way to make it up to him now.

[Immanuel Can]

When you say, "that boat has sailed", what do you mean?

EDIT: Unless I'm mistaken, the idiom, "that boat has sailed" usually implies it being too late for something. If that is the meaning here, then what is it being said it is too late for?

Unfortunately for us, it's too late for the "vigilance" strategy to be adequate. You and I made moral errors long ago, and will yet make some, despite our best vigilance. That's what makes having forgiveness so necessary: it can't just be about those moral errors you and I have the vigilance to attend to; we've got errors of the past, inadvertent or incautious errors now, and errors we'll probably still make. All of that needs to be dealt with. Only a comprehensive forgiveness can deal with all of that. And that, only God can give.

I hear you, but another way of perhaps looking at it is that God is not the one who is the victim of our moral failings.

Yes, we do sin against each other. And yet, all sins are ultimately against God. For it is he who made the man; and it is we who have made him the poor man, the slave, the victim. In short, our every act of mistreatment of a man made in the image of God is an offense against his rightful Lord, God Himself.

Did you ever wonder why Jesus said the two greatest commandments were, "Love the Lord your God," and the second was "Love your neighbour"? And then he added, "The second is like the first." In what way? It's like the first, because abusing one's neighbour expresses a disregard for him, but also for his Creator.

I royally screwed one customer over at work through my own careless stupidity and, to this day, I wish I could go back and undo the damage.[/ I don't know that God's forgiveness is what I need. I feel like I would rather have the forgiveness of the guy I screwed over or wish I had some way to make it up to him now.

Have you noticed, though, that sometimes you can't? I mean, sure, if you can, that's exactly what you should do; go back, ask his forgiveness, and make it right. But so often, the past has slipped away from us, and the contact with the person we've hurt has been lost, and there's no way to rewind the tape. If what you are saying is the whole story, then there's no possibility of making that right that's even left to you. Forgiveness is now forever impossible.

But God says it's not. Not only can He make it right with you, He can also make it right with the person you've offended against. But either way, it's the deficiency of gratitude to the Creator for having made such another person that is behind our willingness to despise or ill-use him.

[Alexis Jacobi]

In my opinion, you're over reaching with your guess of the details of inner workings of Mayan thought processes.

You could not be else but right. But we do have histories where, at least to some degree, the thought, conceptions and ideas of the conquered have been recorded.

Years ago, I stayed for a time in a quite remote Indian village the Sierra Mazateca called Chiquihuitlan (Southern Mexico somewhat close to Tehuacan). These were the descendants of Indians pushed out of their holdings in the lowlands by Aztecs centuries earlier and forced to retreat into the mountains to eke out their living.

I don’t know how else to put it: “people are people”.

[Gary Childress]

Unfortunately for us, it's too late for the "vigilance" strategy to be adequate. You and I made moral errors long ago, and will yet make some, despite our best vigilance. That's what makes having forgiveness so necessary: it can't just be about those moral errors you and I have the vigilance to attend to; we've got errors of the past, inadvertent or incautious errors now, and errors we'll probably still make. All of that needs to be dealt with. Only a comprehensive forgiveness can deal with all of that. And that, only God can give.

I hear you, but another way of perhaps looking at it is that God is not the one who is the victim of our moral failings.

Yes, we do sin against each other. And yet, all sins are ultimately against God. For it is he who made the man; and it is we who have made him the poor man, the slave, the victim. In short, our every act of mistreatment of a man made in the image of God is an offense against his rightful Lord, God Himself.

Did you ever wonder why Jesus said the two greatest commandments were, "Love the Lord your God," and the second was "Love your neighbour"? And then he added, "The second is like the first." In what way? It's like the first, because abusing one's neighbour expresses a disregard for him, but also for his Creator.

I royally screwed one customer over at work through my own careless stupidity and, to this day, I wish I could go back and undo the damage.[/ I don't know that God's forgiveness is what I need. I feel like I would rather have the forgiveness of the guy I screwed over or wish I had some way to make it up to him now.

Have you noticed, though, that sometimes you can't? I mean, sure, if you can, that's exactly what you should do; go back, ask his forgiveness, and make it right. But so often, the past has slipped away from us, and the contact with the person we've hurt has been lost, and there's no way to rewind the tape. If what you are saying is the whole story, then there's no possibility of making that right that's even left to you. Forgiveness is now forever impossible.

But God says it's not. Not only can He make it right with you, He can also make it right with the person you've offended against. But either way, it's the deficiency of gratitude to the Creator for having made such another person that is behind our willingness to despise or ill-use him.

It's a nice sentiment to be forgiven by God, however, I just don't know if it's truly the way things work or ought to work.

I can't remember the guy's name. I don't know where he is. And on top of that, I don't have the means to set things right with him as far as I can tell. I vaguely remember a scene in Conrad's Lord Jim where the protagonist accidentally screws over an aboriginal native chief he was formerly trying to help and he basically takes a bullet from the guy shooting him as the only compensation he was able to give the chief he screwed over.

Anyway, I'm agonizing myself now and it's going to drive me crazy unless I stop thinking about it. \_(*_*)_/

[Immanuel Can]

I hear you, but another way of perhaps looking at it is that God is not the one who is the victim of our moral failings.

Yes, we do sin against each other. And yet, all sins are ultimately against God. For it is he who made the man; and it is we who have made him the poor man, the slave, the victim. In short, our every act of mistreatment of a man made in the image of God is an offense against his rightful Lord, God Himself.

Did you ever wonder why Jesus said the two greatest commandments were, "Love the Lord your God," and the second was "Love your neighbour"? And then he added, "The second is like the first." In what way? It's like the first, because abusing one's neighbour expresses a disregard for him, but also for his Creator.

I royally screwed one customer over at work through my own careless stupidity and, to this day, I wish I could go back and undo the damage.[/ I don't know that God's forgiveness is what I need. I feel like I would rather have the forgiveness of the guy I screwed over or wish I had some way to make it up to him now.

Have you noticed, though, that sometimes you can't? I mean, sure, if you can, that's exactly what you should do; go back, ask his forgiveness, and make it right. But so often, the past has slipped away from us, and the contact with the person we've hurt has been lost, and there's no way to rewind the tape. If what you are saying is the whole story, then there's no possibility of making that right that's even left to you. Forgiveness is now forever impossible.

But God says it's not. Not only can He make it right with you, He can also make it right with the person you've offended against. But either way, it's the deficiency of gratitude to the Creator for having made such another person that is behind our willingness to despise or ill-use him.

It's a nice sentiment to be forgiven by God, however, I just don't know if it's truly the way things work or ought to work.

Well, if they don't work that way, there's no forgiveness for the past, and none for things we did callously or half aware, and none for the future errors of moral judgment we'll have...so we're all in a bit of a problem, then.

Don't agonize. Just make it right. Do what you can for restitution to the victim, and commit the rest to God and to His mercy.

[Peter Kropotkin]

Yes, we do sin against each other. And yet, all sins are ultimately against God. For it is he who made the man; and it is we who have made him the poor man, the slave, the victim. In short, our every act of mistreatment of a man made in the image of God is an offense against his rightful Lord, God Himself.

Did you ever wonder why Jesus said the two greatest commandments were, "Love the Lord your God," and the second was "Love your neighbour"? And then he added, "The second is like the first." In what way? It's like the first, because abusing one's neighbour expresses a disregard for him, but also for his Creator.


Have you noticed, though, that sometimes you can't? I mean, sure, if you can, that's exactly what you should do; go back, ask his forgiveness, and make it right. But so often, the past has slipped away from us, and the contact with the person we've hurt has been lost, and there's no way to rewind the tape. If what you are saying is the whole story, then there's no possibility of making that right that's even left to you. Forgiveness is now forever impossible.

But God says it's not. Not only can He make it right with you, He can also make it right with the person you've offended against. But either way, it's the deficiency of gratitude to the Creator for having made such another person that is behind our willingness to despise or ill-use him.

It's a nice sentiment to be forgiven by God, however, I just don't know if it's truly the way things work or ought to work.

Well, if they don't work that way, there's no forgiveness for the past, and none for things we did callously or half aware, and none for the future errors of moral judgment we'll have...so we're all in a bit of a problem, then.

Don't agonize. Just make it right. Do what you can for restitution to the victim, and commit the rest to God and to His mercy.

K: and given there is no god, and thus no divine mercy, now what?

and what exactly does god's mercy look like? Like children getting
brain tumors? or cancer or the evil's of the world...
you want to understand god... then understand that god
created evil.... if he created everything else, then he must
take the blame for evil? I would rather believe that god has nothing
to do with evil... because if he did create evil, we cannot, ever trust
in god.... evil refutes god....

Kropotkin

[Gary Childress]

Yes, we do sin against each other. And yet, all sins are ultimately against God. For it is he who made the man; and it is we who have made him the poor man, the slave, the victim. In short, our every act of mistreatment of a man made in the image of God is an offense against his rightful Lord, God Himself.

Did you ever wonder why Jesus said the two greatest commandments were, "Love the Lord your God," and the second was "Love your neighbour"? And then he added, "The second is like the first." In what way? It's like the first, because abusing one's neighbour expresses a disregard for him, but also for his Creator.


Have you noticed, though, that sometimes you can't? I mean, sure, if you can, that's exactly what you should do; go back, ask his forgiveness, and make it right. But so often, the past has slipped away from us, and the contact with the person we've hurt has been lost, and there's no way to rewind the tape. If what you are saying is the whole story, then there's no possibility of making that right that's even left to you. Forgiveness is now forever impossible.

But God says it's not. Not only can He make it right with you, He can also make it right with the person you've offended against. But either way, it's the deficiency of gratitude to the Creator for having made such another person that is behind our willingness to despise or ill-use him.

It's a nice sentiment to be forgiven by God, however, I just don't know if it's truly the way things work or ought to work.

Well, if they don't work that way, there's no forgiveness for the past, and none for things we did callously or half aware, and none for the future errors of moral judgment we'll have...so we're all in a bit of a problem, then.

Don't agonize. Just make it right. Do what you can for restitution to the victim, and commit the rest to God and to His mercy.

I don't know if that's true. A person can be forgiven by a victim in good faith that he (the perpetrator) has reformed or learned from an honest mistake. And perhaps the victim him or herself has made similar mistakes and therefore feels unable to judge his or her perpetrator harshly (if it's forgivable). That's also a possibility, I think. But I think we shouldn't automatically expect forgiveness from a person if we wrong them, we ought to work toward making things right somehow. And if that's not possible, then we should use the wrong as a learning experience to never do it again.

I just think that looking up to God and asking for forgiveness for something we did to another living being doesn't make much sense. it seems misdirected. We have done no harm to God. God is invincible and omni-everything. If there's a God, then we might ask of God to do some favor to the person we've wronged in lieu of not being able to do it ourselves. But otherwise, to me, it's almost like wronging someone and then apologizing to someone else for it.

\_(*_*)_/

[Alexis Jacobi]

It's a nice sentiment to be forgiven by God, however, I just don't know if it's truly the way things work or ought to work.

I have learned a great deal through reading the Baltimore Catechism. It thoroughly lays out the Catholic-Christian practical ethics. Mostly that is what I take away from it: the authoritative demand that the practicing Catholic put all his social and ethical affairs in order as part of his religious and spiritual practices.

It is amazing to me how demanding the religious and social practice is. It is in no sense easy to live an exemplary Catholic life since the imperatives of moral demands are extended to all categories.

The “rules” as it were about the restoration you refer to fall under the ethical teaching pertaining to the 7th commandment. The notion of not stealing, and refusing the benefit for what was stolen, not only implies but demands that restoration be achieved before genuine of full “forgiveness” (by the Divine Authority) is given. No restoration, no forgiveness. It is not enough to feel remorse and to ask to be forgiven (by the Divine Authority), actual restoration must be made.

When one considers really large-scale “theft” (as for example, and it does fall under the category of the 7th commandment, at least largely) such as the destruction wrought against an entire country and people — like what the US did to Vietnam — the demand of restoration is nearly inconceivable in scope. How could it ever be adequately made up?

Taken to an extreme, Christian philosophy demands a total renunciation of those acts and activities that actually define culture and civilization. As I said previously about the Roman conquest of the primitive northern European tribal people — our ancestors: we were conquered, we were “forced to labor in the empire of the Roman will” and through that process became civilized.

The notion of Christian missionary work (in Africa and among primitives) is more or less non-different. Something (“crude savagery” “barbarism” “pagan believe” conceived of as thralldom to lower orders or to evil) is fought against, destroyed or modified, and a new order is introduced: civilized life.

It is really very curious: In one light the African people in the New World could be said to owe a debt to European culture though their introduction to it involved their enslavement. Even when concrete, legal enslavement ended, the process of being molded, transformed and “civilized” continued. There would have been no way back to the former, primitive (“savage”) state. (I use the terms primitive and savage in their former anthropological senses: pre-civilization).

The strange reality — when one thinks of imperialist or Christian conquest — is that it cannot ever be purified of its essential nature: both exploitative and beneficent. It all depend on how one chooses to look at it, to adjudicate it.

We could never really come to embrace the raw, Nietzschean ethics by which imperialist enterprises are not apologized for and instead presented as reasons to be proud. Thus, Nietzschean ethics are in a real sense a sort of pipe-dream. And yet the entire world, taken at the level of nature and natural laws of energy flow, does not in any sense demonstrate “moral principals”.

The world is absolutely amoral.

Christian ethics in this obvious sense places man in a straight-jacket. You cannot assert yourself on any plane or in any dimension. But then you actually do, and you must, and then are stuck in the moral conundrum of having to make compensation for your activities, or to convince your “victims” that Providence is compensating them.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I realize these are “terrible” and “forbidden” thoughts — real thoughtcrime in our present, but consider for a moment the attainments of social justice in South Africa.

We — the righteous, the good — advocated for restoration and inclusion. We believed the God Himself desired this and did not and could not “support” that horrible South African European invader who set up a civil order deemed to be not partly but absolutely wrong.

I am not completely sure what has really occurred in South Africa (there is a branch of my family on my father’s side that immigrated to S. Africa in the mid-1800s but I have no idea how they have fared there and only once was I in communication with a brother and sister there (distant cousins) of my approximate age).

But here’s the thing (or the apparent thing): it is being driven into the ground. (I only know this from what I’ve read and YouTube videos: my “window on the world”). And people — mostly Whites — desire to escape (were they able to). The “good and the right thing”, that which is demanded by ethical and moral imperatives, does not always turn out to be actually “good”. (Or maybe it all depends on whose perspective one adopts).

These are all issues related the the Thrasymachus power-dilemma, are they not?

In Republic I, Thrasymachus violently disagreed with the outcome of Socrates' discussion with Polemarchus about justice. Demanding payment before speaking, he claims that "justice is the advantage of the stronger" (338c) and that "injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice'"

[Gary Childress]

It is really very curious: In one light the African people in the New World could be said to owe a debt to European culture though their introduction to it involved their enslavement. Even when concrete, legal enslavement ended, the process of being molded, transformed and “civilized” continued. There would have been no way back to the former, primitive (“savage”) state. (I use the terms primitive and savage in their former anthropological senses: pre-civilization).

I suppose it could have been seen that way originally, however, it seems to me that the world is long past the stage of "civilizing savages" (our own ancestors were presumably among those "savages"--just more technologically advanced ones). That has been played out and now, generations later, it's a matter of everyone figuring out how to get along as moral equals. I'm not sure that seeing them as owing us anything is realistic or helpful in that process. I sort of take things as square one right now. We're all roughly moral equals more or less, however, we're equals with different pasts. And some give and take is required during the process of reconciliation of that past.