China, Not our Friend.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Fine, but surely you can see the distinction of "should/should not" because the action is wrong, and "should/should not" because the action might lead to an undesirable result.

"Should I drive to the store in the ice storm" is not a moral decision, although it IS a decision about what you ought or ought not do.

yah genocide to ice cream store. I understand ur point. is the benign a moral choice. u should atleast limit ur benign choices to things that involve other ppl though.

[David Floyd]

I understand the system is complex. and u might object to the fact that because of that u can't claim grand sweeping claims. nonetheless the complexity of a system does not invalidate it. the concept of looking at the circumstances of an act in order to determine its morality is not new. I believe in the objectivity of the determination and I understand ur concern about how "complex" that can become. but there is no reason to think morality should be simple.

No, I'm not claiming that your system is complex. Rather, the opposite. All you are saying is that "If I can justify it, it's OK." Well, great. I can justify just about anything, but soon a problem arises: Why is my justification acceptable? You are saying that genocide is OK in "certain circumstances", yet you fail to state those circumstances, nor do you argue in favor of why this is so, nor do you tell me why other circumstances aren't equally acceptable. In a sense, what you are saying is even more silly than what most relativists (which you clearly are, by the way) say - they say "your views about morality are just as valid as mine", while you are saying "my views about morality are all that matters, there is no 100% objective truth for me, but you have to adhere to my beliefs". This doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

is the benign a moral choice

A non-moral choice that involves ought/ought not can involve people, though. Remember the example about non-coercive lying? If your lie does not actually hurt anyone, it isn't necessarily immoral, but it might still be inadvisable to lie.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by David Floyd


No, I'm not claiming that your system is complex. Rather, the opposite. All you are saying is that "If I can justify it, it's OK." Well, great. I can justify just about anything, but soon a problem arises: Why is my justification acceptable? You are saying that genocide is OK in "certain circumstances", yet you fail to state those circumstances, nor do you argue in favor of why this is so, nor do you tell me why other circumstances aren't equally acceptable. In a sense, what you are saying is even more silly than what most relativists (which you clearly are, by the way) say - they say "your views about morality are just as valid as mine", while you are saying "my views about morality are all that matters, there is no 100% objective truth for me, but you have to adhere to my beliefs". This doesn't make any sense whatsoever.



A non-moral choice that involves ought/ought not can involve people, though. Remember the example about non-coercive lying? If your lie does not actually hurt anyone, it isn't necessarily immoral, but it might still be inadvisable to lie.

no need to badger me into responding. I am sorry that u do not understand the concept of objectively determining morality through circumstances. perhaps someday it will become clearer to u how ppl do this and the methods. until then u will just have to keep on trying.

[David Floyd]

I am sorry that u do not understand the concept of objectively determining morality through circumstances.

You cannot objectively determine morality if you let circumstances influence your thinking. This defies the definition of "objective".

[yavoon]

Originally posted by David Floyd


You cannot objectively determine morality if you let circumstances influence your thinking. This defies the definition of "objective".

shame on me for responding.

but simply put, no. an act is defined by its circumstances. ie. it matters who u lied to and how and when, that defines the moral parameters. the parameters don't change. but u can not classify all arbitrarily simple acts(lying) by broad sweeping claims(lying is wrong). because w/o the circumstances the act took place in u in effect have not defined it.

[David Floyd]

I think you are missing one major point.

For an action to be morally wrong, that action must harm someone else in some objective, measurable way. Lying is an action that can go either way - it depends on what the intent and result of that lie is. If you are lying to someone in an attempt to commit fraud, then obviously you are harming that person in an objective and measurable way. If you are lying to your girlfriend to, say, avoid an argument that doesn't really matter to begin with (for example, sure, you had drinks with another female friend who is nothing more than a friend and nothing happened, but of course your g/f won't believe you), this is not harming anyone - it is not coercive, and thus not morally wrong.

What I am saying is that the morality of an act depends upon coercion. Once an act has been defined as coercive - and thus immoral - it stands to reason that one shouldn't commit that act. Now, if an act is NOT immoral (not coercive), we can take circumstances and value-judgements into account (the lying to your girlfriend example). Again, we are making a distinction between immoral behavior, and inadvisable or inappropriate behavior.

To sum up, you are saying that an act is defined by its circumstances, and that these circumstances define morality. I'm saying that you are missing the bigger picture - an act may indeed be immoral, but this immorality is not a result of the circumstances in which the act was committed, but because the act itself is coercive and hurts someone.

Now, do you want to disagree with my claim that the only immoral actions are those which are coercive?

[David Floyd]

I'll put this another way. You say

it matters who u lied to and how and when

I'm simply asking you this: What makes lying morally wrong?

In my opinion, the only thing that can make lying morally wrong is the presence of coercion. In other words, it isn't the lying that is wrong, but the coercion which is wrong.

[mindseye]

Thanks, David Floyd and Yavoon, for stomping this thread into another irrelevant, onanistic semantics pissing match. Can’t you start another thread? Are you guys trying to outdo the Fez Scourge?

Originally posted by David Floyd
If torture can be OK if society says so, and if this is right, then if a government can say torture is OK, that's pretty much like society saying that torture is OK.

I don't think a gov't saying torture is okay is anything near the same as a society saying that torture is okay. "Society" is not usually understood to mean the rulers of a country, especially in a place like the PRC where the gov't is not elected.

In any case, you really didn't answer the question. Do you think that torture can be OK? You did say that you feel torture is a major problem in China, so does this mean you agree that torture is never OK?

Well, I suppose that torture could hypothetically be okay if a society really did agree that it was all right for its gov't to torture it. However, this is, as I said before, a nonsensical proposition since I cannot imagine anyone, much less an entire society, willingly agreeing to undergo torture.

If this is the case, then, I don't see how you can condemn torture inside of China - if torture isn't necessarily wrong, who are you to tell China not to do it?

The flaw in your assertion is that you assume that the Chinese as a society feel torture is acceptable.

That's nice, but I wasn't asking if people enjoyed torture.

I was making an analogy. Did that really escape you, or are you simply trying to be cute?

Most? You wouldn't say that ANY human rights abuse is indefensible?

No, I would not say that, because the definitions of "human rights abuse" which you, I, and the Chinese hold are probably all three different. There are some problems (e.g. workplace conditions) that often fall under the catch-all moniker "human rights issue" as it is used by some westerners. These problems, to which I would apply a different label, in my opinion require knowledge of the local situation to properly assess (or condemn). This is exactly what I was referring to in my earlier post (and countless previous) about westerners applying contemporary western values to a Chinese situation.

Quite obviously, you missed the point, which was that you have to be a member of the Communist Party to run for office.

No, my friend, if you re-read my post, you will see that it is you who missed the point. I was comparing my life in San Francisco to my life in China. I would never claim that the life of locals in Shanghai is the same as the life of locals in SF. For one thing, no one in San Francisco can ride a maglev railway.

Within limits, huh? Well, excuse me, that just changed my ENTIRE opinion of China

Well, if you maybe took a look at the press situation five years ago and compared it to now, maybe you would understand the significance. But I suppose that would be a lot harder than just making snarky comments.

Limited, obviously, to what the government doesn't want you to see, as you yourself tell us in your next few sentences.

By "pretty limited" I meant that a tiny percentage of web sites are blocked. Even on the topics I listed, there are many sites which are not blocked. Does this mean I approve of it, or think it's a good idea? No. My point was that, internet blocking, like many other problems in China, are usually much smaller or less prevalent than many westerners believe. Through these and other comments, I am hoping that other Westerners may benefit in some small way from my experiences and observations here. I don't think you, however, are interested in entertaining any notion that might possibly conflict with your preconceptions.

[mindseye]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
I was aware of that. Your emoticon was unnecessary.

Apologies, Gatekeeper. I thought you were just trying to be sarcastic. Perhaps my post was not clear, when I said "my life here in Shanghai is not all that different than my life in San Francisco" I really was intending to compare my life here with my life there - not the lives of Chinese in general. I was trying to make the point that China is not some sort of oppressive police state where people are afraid to associate with foreigners, speak freely on the phone, etc.

**shrug** OK, then. My question still stands, but let me clarify it a bit: "...that a Chinese citizen can also run for political office (at any level of government, i.e., local, provincial, national) as something other than a member of the Communist Party?"

Chinese citizens who are not members of the Party currently can only run for the lowest levels of office. Like so many other things here, this is changing. There are currently discussions among Party leadership for opening up more political activity to a wider range of citizens. You may be aware that recently it was decided to allow capitalists to join the Communist Party and even hold positions near the top of the gov't. Perhaps I should point out here that, to my surprise, nearly all of the Chinese I have discussed this with really have no problem with the current system. They know it's not perfect, but they think it's not so bad and don't want to press for change when so many things are improving so rapidly.

I assume that you can't do that in China, either, along with various other criticisms that don't fall "within limits."

The limits are always changing, and are hard to define. Example: you could criticize some gov't actions (e.g. failure of local gov't to maintain a street), but normally a typical citizen wouldn’t in print criticize an official by name (although they may have no hesitation to do so in conversation, even in a classroom). Having said that, there was recently some very harsh front page criticisms - by name - of the number two official in the national health minstry, a fellow named Gao. In a press conference Gao downplayed the role of the doctor who "blew the whistle" on the under-reporting of the number of SARS patients in Beijing. Gao was blasted for it, and back-pedaled the next day. Some newspapers here are no longer under direct control of the information ministry, there have been increasing signs like this.

In my experience as a journalist, if governments really don't want you to know they're keeping an eye on you, you won't find out.

To some degree I am protected by the inefficiency and bureaucracy of Chinese officialdom. For instance, it would be very difficult for "the police" (China being China, there are many and overlapping levels, types, and jurisdictions of police, even within a single city) to figure out that a foreigner lived in my apartment, or what my telephone number was. They could find out, but it would take some work (the records are not computerized, it's just a slip of paper in a massive file in a local precinct office). If they are watching, they don't appear to care much. For example, they don't do anything about illegal personal satellite dishes (which are rather hard to conceal).

America may be starting down that same path in the name of, you guessed it, security.

A very serious concern of mine, as well. To be honest, I worry a lot more about freedom in the USA than freedom in China. Freedoms here seem to be generally on the increase, I am no longer so sure about my homeland.

Personally, I think free media and the Internet will be the major tools that will one day finally loosen the grip the Chinese Communist Party has on the nation. It's just a matter of time and patience.

I absolutely agree. And I'm increasingly convinced that that time is going to be sooner, rather than later.

Any chance you could be assigned to cover a breaking story in Shanghai?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by GePap

If the Chinese were so expansion crazy, why no attempts by Chinese dynasties (as opposed to Mongol ones ruling China) to take over Japan?

Besides, one does not have to be a modern western power to conquer vast territories. The largest single empire in History was achieved by the Mongols in the 13th century, and the Aras in the 8th century did rather well, as did Timur in the 15th century.

The Chinese were expanding when they were defeated by the forces of militant Islam at the Battle of the River Talas. This marked the limit of the westward expansion of the Chinese, and sparked the beginnings of the Sino-Turkic Islamic culture in the oases around the Silk Road to the West.

http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/China/Talas.CP.html

China's greatest expansion (as China, rather than part of the Mongol Empire) was under the Manchu dynasty- another foreign expansionist dynasty like the Mongols.

The greatest single empire was the British Empire after the WWI settlement, when Great Britain and its colonies picked up German colonies in compensation, and Great Britain gained the Palestine, Transjordan and Iraqi mandates, and occupied the straits and Istanbul, all at the expense of the former Ottoman Empire.

At this point the Empire reached an area of 14 157 000 square miles/36 666 630 square kilometres as opposed to the Mongol Empire's greatest extent, which for a period during the first half of the 13th Century reached
12 800 000 square miles/33 152 000 square kilometres.

http://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/maproom.htm

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2532/page4.html

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/site/request/setTemplate:singlecontent/contentTypeA/conGallery/contentId/30/navId/005001001

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by mindseye

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
America may be starting down that same path in the name of, you guessed it, security.

A very serious concern of mine, as well. To be honest, I worry a lot more about freedom in the USA than freedom in China. Freedoms here seem to be generally on the increase, I am no longer so sure about my homeland.

I'm genuinely curious about this. You have spoken somewhat favorably of the Chinese situation simply because you feel safe. Why would you worry about others following that path?

[yavoon]

Originally posted by David Floyd
I'll put this another way. You say

I'm simply asking you this: What makes lying morally wrong?

In my opinion, the only thing that can make lying morally wrong is the presence of coercion. In other words, it isn't the lying that is wrong, but the coercion which is wrong.

think outside the box for half a second for me plz. u can replace lying w/ any other arbitrarily simple moral act u want. ur seriously mentally impaired.

[David Floyd]

Mindseye,

I don't think a gov't saying torture is okay is anything near the same as a society saying that torture is okay.

So, then, whatever "society" (which is a term you still haven't defined, BTW) says is OK, is just fine?

Well, I suppose that torture could hypothetically be okay if a society really did agree that it was all right for its gov't to torture it.

But let's say "society" can agree that torture is only OK in certain situations, or against certain people. Is that OK too?

The flaw in your assertion is that you assume that the Chinese as a society feel torture is acceptable.

So, then, whatever society says is automatically morally OK, for that society? That means you are a moral relativist, which brings us back to the point that you have no basis on which to condemn torture anywhere.

No, I would not say that, because the definitions of "human rights abuse" which you, I, and the Chinese hold are probably all three different.

A valid point. Some of the things that the UN defines as "human rights", such as healthcare, aren't human rights at all, but rather, the extension of these "rights" to a nation results in the violation of actual human rights.

So, then, I grant you that just because the US or UN or EU defines something as a "human right" doesn't necessarily make it so. But just because China says something is NOT a human right does not make that so either. Obviously, then, what we need is a clear, objective, and absolute moral standard that EVERYONE should live by, regardless of culture.

yavoon,

think outside the box for half a second for me plz. u can replace lying w/ any other arbitrarily simple moral act u want.

But you're missing the point. Lying DOES NOT qualify as a moral act, unless it involves coercion. You can replace lying with any act that you want, it doesn't really matter. What matters is whether or not the act is coercive - the issue of coercion means the difference between "inadvisable" and "immoral", for example, the difference between lying so your girlfriend won't throw a hissy fit and lying in order to gain money at the expense of someone else.

ur seriously mentally impaired.

You're the one who is constantly missing the point.