I think the question speaks for itself:
Why should I not fire a nuclear weapon at your country?
Take this as a serious philosophical question, not a joke.
Because it could result in a devastating response for you and all your people.
It seems to me to answer that question we would have to know your objective, and maybe a little more about you.
If, for instance, you are a country that we wouldn’t mind totally eradicating, well, we might totally eradicate you (speaking from, and for the US). You may not mind, but we don’t know that yet.
You may be an organisation, but again, we don’t know why youwould shoot the bomb at us, so we don’t know why you shouldn’t.
Please forgive my bluntness, but I don’t think it’s a very good question, as posed. It’s certainly not a good philosophical question, because it is so vague.
My life is painful, I should be pleased to die. I have no people. I am like a rock in a pile of rocks. Why should I not fire a nuclear weapon at your country?
No particular reason, then.
Take it that I’m an individual with a nuclear weapon. This is not a political question, but rather a moral / existential one.
You ask what objective I have. Let us say that I get a pleasant sensation from it.
Yeah, then go for it.
I will add this - this is an example of a degenerate moral question. Degenerate morality occurs when life, one’s own life, doesn’t matter anymore. Christian morality being, ultimately, a prime example. Of course, Muslim morality also fits the bill. You could, if you want, claim that God told you to do it, and no one would know the difference.
As far as I’m aware, I was just trying to ascertain the objections people would have to it. Man is a phenomena, a nuclear explosion is a phenomena, destruction of man with a nuclear bomb is a phenomena. Why not? This probably appears a silly question to most people, but I’ve been trying to get a practical grasp of the different moral systems recently and so I thought it would be useful to pose a specific question, so that I could look for the logic, or absence of it, in the answers.
Most moral systems will include the idea of moral agency - moral responsibility. That would be assigned to people, and not to phenomena such as explosions. They are not equal, typically.
But what is a person? Are we not just configurations of matter like everything else?
You are entitled to that view. But then, morality doesn’t apply, so you can no longer call it a moral question. Morality exists in a paradigm, and your conception lies outside any moral paradigm. Logic alone won’t get you there - decisions about moral agency - whether it should be considered or not, will.
In a moral paradigm, “person” has a definition that falls within a particular range. It’s a technical term. For instance, most moral systems do no confer personhood to infants. Even though they are human. People are configurations of matter, but persons are not, within a moral framework, typically. Morality, like all philosophy, defines terms more closely than you have. You are free to use your own definitions, but some definitions require a certain context to mean anything.
I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your point (yes, I’m thoroughly ignorant). Aren’t personality and morality configurations of matter like our bodies, or are you saying that mind is something other than matter? I would have thought that personhood is a phenomena which springs from individualised consciousness and morality is in turn a phenomena which springs from personhood. Is this nonsense?
Are you saying that morality is relative, and it depends on your definition of it? Surely then, if morality is whatever a man says it is, I can say that morality to me is whatever pleases me, and so justify anything I like as moral. Does this mean that there is no reason why I shouldn’t fire a nuclear weapon if I choose not to construct, or place myself within, a moral framework?
Excuse my way of speaking, by the way, I’m not meaning to appear rude.
There are many reasons why you shouldn’t do it.
To put it short - It’s not moral.
You mean “can you convince me not to do it ?”
That depends on specifics which you haven’t stated, smart.
Aren’t you just trying to be amused ?
There’s a paper I posted in my “post or request an article” thread that says alot about this. It’s all about nuclear deterrence and what criteria must be met before it’s a good idea. You might check it out if you’re really interested and not just amusing yourself. If you can’t link to jstor, and you want the article, let me know and I’ll email it to you.
It seems I just have a way of talking which sets people against me. Apparently I have no tact. I posed the question so that I could get numerous different answers, and so would have a better understanding of the varying standpoints.
I’m not quite sure why its necessary to have specifics on why I’m doing it. Feel free to ask, but I won’t answer if I don’t see why its relevant. Perhaps you could explain to me why it depends on specifics, so that I can understand the flaw in my question.
If masses of people said, “it’s wrong to eat cheese,” and when I asked why, they said, "because it tastes horrible, " I might reply, “but I like the way it tastes.” For what reason should I not eat it? Because you don’t like the taste?
Taste is cheeses would be considered by most to be subjective, I think that it’s pretty much true that nuclear holocaust is objectivley bad.
I looked through the posts and couldn’t tell which was the correct link. I would be interested to read it, though I’m not sure ‘deterrence’ enters into this topic. I’m not asking, “why shouldn’t I retaliate,” but rather, “why shouldn’t I destroy you?” Most people might laugh at such a question, and consider it obvious, but it’s not obvious to me, hence why I started the post.
If you think your article might be of interest to me, go ahead and PM me the link.
Excuse my ignorance, I know these might be dopey question, but why? Perhaps I’m not fully up on the definition of ‘objective’.
Without getting into any philosophical hair splitting…
I know that is seems like everyone agreeing that cheese is bad gives that idea the same grounding as everyone agreeing that nuclear holocaust is bad.
But the difference is that it is true that almost everyone hates the idea of dying a terrible death. (Almost everyone.)
It is not however, true that everyone hates cheese.
If you push for the philosophical distinction, this will become muddy and way overcomplicated. But I think the truth of it is evident right there when you first read it. Does that make sense at all?