another vision of morals/ethics..

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

If as I have suggested, that the greatest philosophical
and social problem of the “Modern” era is an understanding
of what is ethical/moral. the modern era philosophers
have engaged in such ethical/moral philosophy…
an example of this is in the fact that both Heidegger and
Wittgenstein, thought of themselves as being engaged in
an ethical/moral pursuit…religious concerns were front
and center in both of their philosophies…

given the modern misunderstandings of the ethical/moral,
I offer up this thought… that the single worse ethical/moral
failure in the last 100 years was the Holocaust… and yet,
we can defend the use of the Holocaust as an event…

Kropotkin, there is no defense of the Holocaust…
and yet in fact, there is…and that defense is within
the right-wing conspiracy theories…

the TFH (Tin foil hat) party holds to various conspiracies…
that the Jews, hold the world in their money pockets,
that the Jews, lead by Soros, have a laser that is used
to caused wildfires in California… and other Jewish conspiracies…
it is under the guise of the of these conspiracy theories that we
can hold that the HOLOCAUST was not only a valued event, but
that it was GOOD…if we hold to the right-wing conspiracy theories,
we can even defend the worse moral event in the last two centuries…
and that is why the right-wing hold to such conspiracy theories…
to justify such events as the Holocaust and future possible events
that may require another Holocaust…

the right holds to the supposed ‘‘evil’’ of the left/communist as a
justification for the violence and hate that the right holds toward
the left…in other words, as UR will happily explain, that Rittenhouse
was justified in shooting ‘‘protestors’’ because they were liberals…
Their crime (the protestors) wasn’t in protesting in Wisc,
but that it was ‘‘evil’’ according to the right…if we assume, as the
right does, in the inherent evil of the left/communist, it justifies, allows
violence, hate and even a Holocaust against the left… we have seen
UR and Observe claim the right to engage in violence and hate, to the
left based on the belief that if they don’t hold to my (UR-Observe) beliefs,
they (the left) are inherently evil… my values are the only values worth holding
claim UR-Observe (and others)

the problem is an epistemological one… how do those like UR-Observe justify
their ‘‘knowledge’’ that the left is ''evil?" How valid is their knowledge/
assumptions of the left?

on what rock can we build our knowledge of existence or of values,
if we can only appeal to our own personal values/knowledge?

if we remove the insane conspiracy theories that the TFH party holds to,
then how might we justify the Holocaust? We can’t…

modern morals/ethics begin with ‘‘I believe that’’
and thus we can justify something like the Holocaust…

so the question become, how do we justify our moral/ethical beliefs?

On which rock do we use to justify our beliefs? perhaps hedonism or
the pursuit of happiness, maybe the pursuit of money/profits?
perhaps we might use justice or love to justify our moral beliefs?

what ethical standard are we to use to justify our beliefs and our actions?

one might use god as a standard, but then the question becomes, which god?
the Hindu god, the Buddhist god, the Christian god, the Jewish god?

many questions and few if any answers…

if you want a true philosophical question to ponder,
then ponder the basis of our ethical/moral standards,
both personally and collectively…

Kropotkin

2

this question vexes me, on which rock are we going to build
our “new” ethics, our new morality?

is that rock to be Newton, or Einstein, Freud, or Marx or perhaps
on the old rock, Jesus?

or perhaps we need to build our rock of ethics upon concepts like
justice…and how would that work? or perhaps we use parental
concepts to work out our concept of ethics/morality?

I am a parent… and as such, one held to certain rules of “engagement”
and one of the concepts you learn as a parent is proportional justice /ethics…

what that means is the punishment must fit the crime… in this country,
we no longer have proportional justice…there is no sense of the punishment
must fit the crime… Rittenhouse kills two and goes free, a man admits
to raping women goes free, another man steals a loaf of bread
and gets 10 years in jail or a woman is sent to jail for years for
voting twice in an election…horrible crimes are downgraded into
minor crimes and minor crimes are upgraded into punishable actions…

so the first step to a new ethics/morality is proportional justice…
the time must fit the crime…

the next step comes into understanding that justice and equality
are the exact same thing…to be just is to be equal…

equal treatment under the law requires exactly that… equal treatment…

a crime committed by one in the society must be treated equally
to all… in other words, stealing is treated equally in every case…
a policemen who steals is treated equally with any one on the street who steals…
we no longer judge those who commit crimes by other standards, like
wealth, job, titles, power, or fame…the only consideration of a crime
is the crime itself…no other aspect of a person life is considered when
dealing with justice…in other words, nether the jury or judge can see the
the defendant…the defendant sits behind a barrier to prevent the jury
or judge from seeing the defendant… justice becomes truly blind…even when
testifying, the defendant stays behind a barrier…and one might even consider
putting the witnesses behind barriers to hold to the concept that justice is blind…

for there to be ethics/morals, we must make them independent of
such things as money/titles/ fame/power…

but what is another way to think about ethics/morals?

how are we to treat each other… with equality or with an eye to
their job/wealth/title/power?

for there to be ethics/morals, we must engage with justice/equality…

let us begin there…

Kropotkin

3

the next aspect of morals/ethics is this idea of reward and punishment…

if we are good, we are rewarded and if we are bad, we are punished…

one of several problems here is this idea, mostly religious,
that our reward and punishment come in our afterlife…
which of course assumes that there is some sort of mechanism
that dispenses that sort of “justice”… in a no-god world,
we cannot make that assumption…

if there is no god to dispense justice/equality, then how exactly
is justice/equality dispensed?

if we remove the metaphysical possibility of delayed justice/reward/
punishment, then what is the actual mechanism for metering out
rewards/punishments?

the “modern” problem is that too often, we see that there is no
punishment for those who are “bad” “evil”… in fact, we see that those
who engage in “bad” “evil” behavior are rewarded… when we see "bad
behavior rewarded or at least not punished, then what is our incentive to
have an engagement with “good” or “bad” actions or behavior?

perhaps one possible solution is to remove behavior from
from the reward or punishment standard…

we no longer punish “good” or “bad” behavior… we simply take it to another
ground…does that behavior help or hinder society? Murder clearly
hinders society, so it is punished… and those who steal are really stealing from
the society, which is really them… and so, we punish them…

another words, we no longer accept man/human beings as a discrete,
individual atoms… and we connect ourselves into one collective…
that means that stealing from one is stealing from all…
and an act against one individual person is an act against all
of society…

that means that there are no more private acts of crime…
all crime becomes public crime…

thus if you steal from a private grocery store, you are stealing from
everyone…this is an attempt to connect us, everyone to
everyone else…we are no longer solely accountable to just ourselves,
we are accountable to all society… recall that justice is equality…
and equality isn’t a private understanding of the universe…
equality requires a society to be engaged with…

another possibility is simple removing from murder cases, the
claim of self-defense… we no longer allow any type of claim of
self-defense and we no longer allow any claim of “I was afraid for my
life”, as also we remove any law that allows one to “stand your ground”…
and we remove these claims from all parts of society including
the police and private citizens…

murder is murder regardless of the circumstances… we no longer allow
any type of protection from action by the claim of self-defense…is this
harsh, yep… but that is kinda the point… holding people accountable for
their actions regardless of their reasons for committing that action, is part
of returning people to accountability/ responsibility for their actions…

I agree that a woman who kills a man for spousal abuse is harsh, but
the question becomes this… if we allow murder to occur for some reasons
but not for others, is that justice/equality? equal treatment under the law
means just that… equal… everyone is treated equal for the same acts committed…
regardless of the reasons for those acts committed…

put the burden of whether an act us just or not, into the hands of
the jury… let them decide if an act is justifiable or not…
in other words, if the jury decides that the crime was justified,
they can declare that in their verdict…the jury gets to decide if
a crime is justified or not, not in the defense of the defendant,
but in the conclusion of the jury…

in other words, you cannot plead innocent because of self-defense,
you either plead innocent or you plead guilty, but you can’t choose
your grounds for making either plea… the jury decides the grounds
for being innocent or guilty… be it self-defense or be it insanity…

now another change I would make is this… many people plead off of
serving on a jury due to economic hardships… so we correct that
by the jury rate being whatever the rate of pay that the juror
makes… so the juror won’t lose any income, the jury pay become
equal to their rate of pay in a job… and those who don’t work,
retirement or otherwise, should get a larger sum of money…
if being a juror is so important, then we must pay more money
to reward those who serve that important job…

justice is equality yes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t overhaul the
entire system to make is more just, more equal… the entire system
requires, demands equality from start to finish…

if someone is found guilty of a crime and is innocent and then put into jail, then we
must give them one million dollars a year for every year in jail for
being unjustly being put into jail… and the system needs to be overhauled to
the extend of the judge and the DA must get punished if they send a person to
jail, who is innocent, which is unjust… make it clear that we no longer toss
people into jail unless there is just cause…

we must hold everyone engaged in the judicial system accountable for their actions,
from the police to the DA to the judges in the system…accountability
for our actions, and in our judicial system…

there is no punishment if the judge or DA or the police arrest, try and
put someone into jail… to be just, equal, then all involved must
be held accountable for their legal actions… including all lawyers
involved…and the rock upon we build this case for is the rock of
justice, that all concerned must be treated equal under the law…
and everyone who engaged in bringing about justice must also
be held accountable for their actions… perhaps the new
paradigm is to hold people accountable/responsible for their actions…
regardless of who they are and what job they hold…
no matter the title or position they hold… judge, DA, policeman…
private citizen or president of the United States…

justice demands equality by all or there is no justice for anyone…

Kropotkin

4

but let us try this… if we are to hold individuals accountable for their actions
against society, then we must be equal and just and hold society accountable
and responsible for its actions… thus an individual who must steal of loaf of
bread to eat… the question becomes who is responsible? and the answer
becomes the society at large… if people are starving and homeless, then
the society, the state is accountable… for we cannot hold the individual responsible
and the society not responsible… it takes two to tango… and if millions of
people are homeless and close to starvation, then the society/state is responsible…
and must be held accountable…but how does one hold a state accountable,
responsible? if we are a society/state, then all within that state/society
become responsible, accountable… thus we must engage everyone within
that society… thus, we must equally engage within that state/society…
corporations, wealthy individual and private citizens as well as members
of that state… the institutions of that state…

where I am going with this is that we can no longer afford to allow
corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying taxes, for whatever
reason… if you work and you gain income, you pay taxes… far too many
wealthy individuals and corporations avoid taxations by buying senators
and congressmen…the concept of justice and equality demand that everyone
pays their share of taxes… equality under the law is not just about obeying the law,
but about an engagement with all aspects of the state/society…

no more mobil-exxon paying no taxes for some bogus excuse,
if you make money, as an individual or as a corporation, you pay
taxes… justice which is equality demands that much…
if you gain some benefit from society, then you must pay for it, to be just
and equal, you must also pay for those benefits… the poor doesn’t
have the money to pay taxes, but they can pay in services rendered…
perhaps have the poor engaged in some public works from which
they too benefit from… cleaning the streets perhaps?
a minor act of benefiting the society/state from all, is necessary
and needed to be a just/equal society…

there is no free ride… but that can be rendered in services performed…

we must engage in some thought as to how we can, all of us, provide
for all of us, either in taxes or in services rendered…

we must rethink, reevaluate our engagement with the state/with the
society at large…what does it take to “pay” for our benefits from
society? as there is no free ride, we cannot allow the wealthy or
corporations to get a “free” ride… if you benefit, you pay…

the question becomes, in what form does that payment come?

Kropotkin

5

now one may say, but Kropotkin, you have gone really far from
morals/ethics you promised us…but isn’t morals/ethics a communal,
society thing also? in other words, we don’t just have private morals/ethics,
but our engagement with ethics/morals have a public, community aspect…

ethics/morals are a social dimension that is not only about us individually, but
about us collectively… we together have an ethical/moral aspect that must
be answered if we are to correctly engage in ethical/moral actions and behavior…

it isn’t about us individual, but about us together… what is a collective
moral and ethical understanding of our behavior and actions?

in fact, I would suggest that Robinson Crusoe has not need for ethics/morals because
he is a man alone…and a man alone, a human being alone has no need for ethics/morals…

ethics/morals are only applicable within a group of two or more… this tells us
that there is no such thing as a private ethics or morals… ethics/morality
is an engagement with all of us together… thus any solution to ethics/morals
requires a sign off by all of us… there is no such thing as an individual
within morals/ethics… there is only a group…

Keep this in mind when thinking about morals/ethics…

Kropotkin