How do you determine what is right?

[MorkandMindy]

This is on ethics mainly as applied to foreign policy.

I understand that there are two approaches.

The first is the deontological approach

This was broadcast back in the Vietnam Era as the main approach - we are doing what is right whatever the cost.

The anti war movement objected that it was costing too many lives - recall Country Joe McDonald at Woodstock - 'be the first one on your block to have your son come home in a box'.

.Country Joe McDonald - "Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die" - YouTube.

But this objection was on the grounds of consequence whereas the justification put out to the public was on the grounds of what is right,

so the objection was not a satisfactory rebuke to the 'reason' and such phrases as 'make love not war' whilst a lot of fun, nonetheless also totally failed as valid logical objections.


What the protest movement needed was to firstly respond to the question of what is right, and after debating that as conclusively as it could be,

then move on to the Consequentialist side of the question and consider that as completely and as conclusively as possible.

 

[MorkandMindy]

The first question is why do most people now believe the Vietnam War to have been a mistake, when back in the 1960s the public generally thought it was the right thing to do.

One possibility I would like to suggest is the public were bamboozled by the quick switch made in the justification for the war between a deontological argument and a consequentialist one.

The argument went something like this:

Communism is a belief system that is against God and therefore it is wrong and evil, it is also violent and is being spread by force, across much of Europe and into Asia as well and if we don't stop it then it will soon be knocking on our gates.


The first part of the argument is deontological on the basis of what is right, and the second part is consequentialist, based on expected consequences.


Well we have the 20-20 hindsight now, we lost and it didn't make a tad of difference, so here is your homework -



identify the flaws in the argument.

 

[Autumnleaf]

The gulf of Tonkin incident was a lie made up to get the US public to support the war. That is why it was wrong.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I'm neither a deontologist nor a consequentialist. I favor a virtue ethics approach.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[MorkandMindy]

The gulf of Tonkin incident was a lie made up to get the US public to support the war. That is why it was wrong.

I have a few questions -


1. What has been done to prosecute the perpetrators of the Gulf of Tonkin trick?

2. Has the same sort of trick been done before? How can anyone be sure the same type of thing isn't being done now?

3. Why is the public so easily tricked?

Even if the Gulf of Tonkin incident had happened:

4. what were those US warships doing so close to the coast of Vietnam? Shelling in support of a mercenary attack perhaps?

5. Did the public ask why the Vietnamese sent patrol boats out to attack destroyers, isn't that just a bit too pointless? A bit like Saddam's aluminium tubes, you can't use them for Uranium enrichment so why were they part of the watertight case for invading Iraq?

6. Why are the Vietnamese so cross with the US or are they just very territorial with everyone?

7. Should an unsuccessful attack on US destroyers be blamed on the patrol boat commanders (now dead) or is it best to attack the entire country they came from, most of whom knew nothing about it, and kill a few million of them?

 

[MorkandMindy]

I'm neither a deontologist nor a consequentialist. I favor a virtue ethics approach.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Then do supply your own method of determining when a country should be attacked or invaded. I'd suggest opening a new thread because it will help keep the different ways of reasoning from resulting in confusion

cheers M of M&M

 

[Cuddles333]

It must have greatly upset those feeding at the taxpayer war money trough when Douglas McArthur decided to end the 'Korean Conflict' (war) so abruptly. Their money-train also ended abruptly. So it looks like they fished around down there in Southeast Asia till they found some local hostility that was going on in some rather unknown country...and decided to capitalize on it. Using the power of the CIA and the U.S. Navy and the assasination of Preident Kennedy (who was totally against their Asian plan) they were able to get their money-train going again. I must say, I am suprised at just how good our guys were who were fighting over there. The North Vietnamese Army confessed that our guys had the tunnel complex all but wrapped up......in 1965! However, orders from the top were to removed themselves from this site??? So the NVA and the Viet Cong continued to use the tunnel system to kill our young men for the next 10 years.

I think that things like this continue and continue to worsen because big business leaders do not fear the general public. Our politicians that we elect (and Judges they appoint) become their puppets. The only way to stop this and make politicians heed our Judeo-Christian values, is to make a 'wall of separation' beween politician and business