Skip to content
September 27, 2019 / Congau

Good Criminals

Sometimes it’s immoral not to be a criminal. If the law demands that you deliver Jews to the Gestapo, then you should break that law. If the law makes it impossible for you to feed yourself and your family, then it may be ethical to commit a crime and do what the law defines as stealing. Hopefully most people would agree that it is worse to be guilty of murder than to break an unjust law.

But then there are plenty of less extreme cases where the state seems to make unjust demands even though it doesn’t exactly require you to kill anyone. Still, if you have admitted that very bad laws should be broken, you have agreed to the principle that laws should not always be obeyed. Then where is the limit to be drawn? How bad must the law be for you to break it?

You may be in general agreement with the laws of your country, consenting that they are not perfect, but still insisting on their being followed rigorously. But you can still do a lot of bad, short of murder, by always obeying the authorities.

Would you tell the police everything? Would you report a close relative for a minor offense knowing that it might have serious consequences for him? Do you always obey laws that make no sense not knowing what it may lead to? You may have to break the speed limit to reach the hospital in time. You may need to take shortcuts.

If you are in the army, you must do what you are told because the fighting force depends on it. But if you are an ordinary citizen, the state works fine without your compliance in every minute detail. It’s important what you do only for real people around you. Don’t sacrifice people to please an anonymous state.

Filed under ethics, Philosophy
0
September 26, 2019 / Congau

Globalization

The best doesn’t always win. Free competition doesn’t ensure quality for that is not what we are looking for. We choose what is more visible and what already has a competitive advantage. The trends are reinforced over and over, and nothing succeeds like success.

On the global market globalism wins, not because it offers anything better but just because it spreads and grows and becomes omnipresent. It becomes the undeniable reality, as naturally as anything else around us, and it is difficult to imagine it not being there. The sky is blue and grass is green, coca cola is the drink and macdonalds is the food, and just as we cannot imagine the laws of nature to be different we don’t think of the possibility of those universal brands to be absent.

There is no choice anymore, for we only have a choice when we are conscious of the possibility of things being different.

Humans are creatures of habit and we are always enclosed in our private world of limited imagination. Surely, at any point of history the little man has found himself in an isolated corner where he perceives everything inside it as the obvious reality and everything outside as non-existent. Still the more enterprising individuals could venture to the next valley and find a different reality and it might occur to them that something could be different and that consequently they had a choice.

Now the world has shrunk to the point where the valley of globalism is everywhere. When we now look away from our native conditions, we don’t see the myriads of local cultures around the world. Maybe the Bengalis or the Hausa possess interesting features that would fit you just right, but you will never know since all you see is the global marketplace where the winners have already won and the loudest screamers get your support.

Filed under Philosophy
0
September 25, 2019 / Congau

Flattering Force

A dictatorship forces; a democracy flatters. Dictatorial power is violence; democratic power is enticement. Power is always about making people do what they otherwise wouldn’t have done, what they didn’t really want, and democratic power is no different. But democracy is presumably to give the people what they want. In other words, it makes them do what they don’t want which is what they want. It is an ingenious invention! A power that is not a power! A force that doesn’t force! What a glorious deception!

We hate it when we are told what to do. We dread the whip and long to defy it. But the sweet songs that we hear dull our resistance and entice us into submission. They tell us we are free and sovereign, autonomous and independent, and since we believe them, they can rule us. No totalitarian state can be that clever.

But the rebels among us refuse to surrender. It is frustrating when the enemy poses as a friend, and it’s annoying to see fellow citizens bow to the inevitable while believing it to be their own choice.

The rebel misses the honest fight. He envies the clarity that his soul mates can find under outright oppressive conditions. It is easy to make people notice their prison guard when he is ugly, but it is difficult pull off the disguise from that sweet talking flatterer they have elected president.

What is better? To think you are free while in chains or to know you’re in prison?

Well, an awful truth is hard to bear, and a sweet deception has often been a savior. So maybe that’s the true benefit of democracy. It makes us love an unloving government because we think it loves us. Only those obsessed with the truth are bothered by that.

Filed under Philosophy, political theory
0
September 24, 2019 / Congau

Making the Police Happy

Laws are made to make society as well functioning as possible. Nothing else could be the purpose, but the idea of what it means for something to function well is sometimes confused, especially when it comes to something as value laden as a society. Order easily becomes a goal unto itself without enough consideration as to the ultimate reason for it.

A well working machinery is in a way always praiseworthy. A sophisticated weapon system is certainly admirable if we can only forget that it may be used for massive killing. A society that runs smoothly also looks impressive even if it is an oppressive totalitarian state and, with a slight twist of language, we could be tempted to call it a happy state.

Now if you want to contribute to this “happy state”, you should always obey its laws. After all your very obedience is a part of its proper function. However, if you rather think that the notion of a happy state is quite meaningless unless the individuals who populate it are happy, you would be less concerned with the formal rules than with the outcome. Sure, if everyone tells on the Jews, the Nazi state will be more successful, and if you only care about the well being of your democratic government, you add your support when it suppresses minorities. But if you wish to see your fellow man as content as possible, you make an effort to please him rather than his superiors.

Sometimes there is no contradiction and both little man and big government benefit from your straight behavior. But sometimes you can only make the police happy, and then your choice should be easy. A medal for bravery and good conduct is worth nothing if it wasn’t given for the assistance of real people. Only people can be happy.

Filed under Philosophy
0
September 23, 2019 / Congau

Progress?

There seems to be progress in the world. Technology is being developed at an ever-faster rate. Everything is getting bigger, stronger and quicker. So there is progress, they say. Well, progress of course means improvement, and whenever something gets better, there is progress at least in that area; a faster computer is progress as far as the speed of computers goes.

But how would we measure progress in the world as a whole? You could list all new inventions and count them as improvement and then you could subtract all the new problems you see emerging, from climate change to rising crime, and whatever you choose to emphasize more would for you be an indication of progress or regress.

But why would you choose one particular element as your measure? What makes something more important? What would make the world a better or a worse place?

Only one thing is good in itself; there is one thing we all want: Happiness. Or if you are not comfortable with that word, we can call it well-being which means exactly the same. Is there more or less happiness and well-being in the world today than at another point in history. If yes, there has been progress.

Of course it’s still your choice what deserves to be emphasized, but at least it indicates a direction for what might be considered more relevant. (Flying to the moon may not count as progress in this overall perspective.)

How are you? How are we? This simple question is usually quite meaningless when asked in the daily casual way, but when taken seriously it’s the most meaningful question there is. How do you feel? How do you think mankind feels? Better or worse? I would challenge anyone to find a more important question than that when meditating on the state of the world. Answer that question and we can start talking about progress.

Filed under Philosophy
2
September 22, 2019 / Congau

Is Property Fundamental?

Life, liberty and property – the three fundamentals that a government must protect above all, or so they say those old theoreticians. Well, life is obviously essential since without it, there’s nothing. Liberty must have been there from the beginning since no one can be naturally born into domination or submission. But property?

However one explains the emergence of property, whether through hard work, speculation or petty theft, it was not there originally. The human infant was born into life and freedom, but it was utterly naked. One screamingly arrived in a palace and many others in a peasant’s hut, but none of them had received their belongings from nature and none of them had yet deserved what they got. Why did their property (or lack of it) need protection?

There may be pragmatic reasons why a government would want to guard the goods of its citizens. It might be difficult to run a meaningful business if your gains could disappear at any moment and perhaps the capitalist mode society is the more effective (that’s another debate), but that doesn’t make property fundamental.

Your body is properly yours, but what else? Everything else is external. Some things are more or less vaguely associated with you. The clothes you are wearing at the moment are more directly associated with you than those hanging in your closet. The things you are using belong to you in another sense than the things you keep in a safe. Your children are yours, but you don’t own them, still they are more strongly yours than anything you happen to own. Your country is supposedly yours, but what does that mean? Do you have any claim to it?

What is the meaning of those possessive pronouns “mine” and “yours” anyway? What is ownership? What is property?

The legal system defines “property” for us and whatever the law says, is lawful, but its meaning is arbitrary and not essential.

Filed under Philosophy
0
September 21, 2019 / Congau

You Should

They say that no one can tell you what you should do, and then they tell you. They say that life has no rules, and then they give you the rules. Freedom is a dreadful thing and slavery is just as bad. In the middle there is no balance, only and incessant pull between two evils.

If there’s nothing you should do, there’s nothing you can do, for nothing will please you.

If there’s always something you should do, everything is compulsive, and nothing will please you.

If sometimes you should and sometimes you shouldn’t, you are torn between ignorance and compulsion, and nothing will please you.

Nothing will please you.

There is something you should do, but they cannot tell you what it is. You should do what pleases you.

But it’s complicated. You don’t always know what pleases you, maybe you never really do. Instant satisfaction is easy enough, but that only lasts an instant, later it may make you suffer. That chocolate you enjoyed, was full of calories and you didn’t enjoy that. That delicious drink later made you sick. If that’s the case, maybe you shouldn’t drink.

Or maybe you should drink. It doesn’t depend on what they say, and it doesn’t depend on what you feel, it depends on what you enjoy – ultimately, that is, in total and in the long run – what makes you happy for real.

You should!

You should be true to yourself. But realize how difficult that is. You must know yourself to know what you should do and what is right for you. Do you? Does anyone?

We are told that no one knows us better than we know ourselves. Maybe that is true, but maybe it isn’t. Don’t listen to those who try to flatter you. Listen to those you think can teach you something about yourself.

You should…

Filed under Philosophy
0
September 20, 2019 / Congau

What is Good?

What does it mean to be good? That shouldn’t be such a difficult question since we use that simple word all the time. Good food, good behavior, good result, good day; it’s usually clear what we mean. We like it, we approve, there’s something positive about it – at least compared to our expectations.

“Good” is relative, we know that; nothing is good without qualification. The same thing can be good in one context but not in another. That, however, is not quite the same as saying that “good” is relative to the individual; once the context has been decided upon, there should be a high level of agreement among rational people as to what is good.

“He is a good plumber” probably means that in my opinion this person is good at fixing the pipes and whatever defects he has, his unflattering looks or his criminal record, does not influence my assessment of him as long as he makes the water flow properly; that is his purpose and if he can do that well, he is good.

But what if I say: “He is a good human being.”? One might think that this statement is too personal to have a universal meaning. If a plumber is good for me, he’s probably good for you too, but we are more likely to differ about whether a man of unspecified profession is good. “Good for what?” one might object. For what? A workman has a purpose, but a human being as such has none. Or does he?

If you are a plumber, you go ahead and fix the pipes, but if you are simply a human being, what do you do? Anything?

Human life has no purpose, some say, but even they would not approve of just anything. They would liberally allow you to choose your own profession, but they would probably not let you kill someone.

A man should not murder; that would make him a bad man. What should a man do? If we could agree on that, that would indicate a minimum human purpose. That would be good.

Filed under ethics, Philosophy
0
September 19, 2019 / Congau

Undeserved Punishment

Does anyone deserve to be punished? Someone does something bad, something very bad, and therefore it is just that something bad happens to him. Is it?

Well, maybe, but how are we to tell what the proper measure of punishment would be? Someone kills; should he then himself be killed? Should he spend a number of years in prison? How many? What is the right amount?

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That seems fair, doesn’t it? What you take, should be taken away from you. But what good does that do to anyone? If you steal a dollar, you can pay a dollar back and the world is again in balance, but a lost eye will not restore another eye. This one to one retribution is therefore rarely a legal principle.

What other principle could then secure fairness? There isn’t any. No such principle could possibly exist. A punishment can never match a crime, for the two are incompatible categories.

Still we have the feeling that when something bad happens to someone who has done something bad, he got what he deserved. But haven’t we all done bad things? Don’t we all deserve what is bad as well as what is good? What is the right measure?

The universe doesn’t distribute justice. Life is not fair. There is more suffering in the world than we could possibly deserve. Why do we think we have to add to that suffering by inflicting punishment? What right do men have to play gods?

But what would happened to society if we didn’t? Wouldn’t crime rise if the criminal didn’t have anything to lose? Yes, there is that risk, and that is the only reason why we have to punish.

If anyone deserves to be punished, it’s not for us say. We shouldn’t punish then, but there may be no other way.

Be glad you are not a judge, and if you are, punish with a heavy heart.

Filed under Philosophy
0
September 18, 2019 / Congau

No Laws of War

“Inter arma silent leges.” “In times of war the law falls silent.” The Romans, the masters of war, knew this obvious fact. After all, marching into another state, killing its citizens and seizing the government couldn’t possibly be done according to the laws of that state, and no other laws exist in that domain. Only in modern times have someone come up with the idea that human laws remain after the laws have been crushed. How would that be possible?

Laws are upheld by authorities who make them valid by having the power to implement them and punish the offenders. When that authority disappears, there is nothing to validate its laws. There could of course still be laws of nature, moral laws, religious laws, physical laws or whatever other phenomena that have been given the name of law, but we are here talking about positive human laws that have no other claim to validity than the authority of government.

There are still laws of war, modern theorists insist. What they mean is that there are so called international laws written by an international organization, the UN, and signed by member states, and that supposedly makes them universally valid. But laws have no other validity than the authority that upholds them and there exists no international authority.

Sure, the UN may claim a moral authority (just like any other ideal organization), but that’s just to say that there is unethical behavior connected with war and who could deny that. Clearly, bombing hospitals is wrong and torturing prisoners is also wrong, but why stop at condemning that? Why not ban war altogether?

Of course, that would have no practical effect, but neither do the laws of war that now presumably exist. Their purpose is just moral condemnation, but by limiting that to only certain kinds of unethical behavior it has the opposite effect. It seems to condone all bad acts that don’t happen to be explicitly mentioned. Killing is fine, it seems to say, as long as it is not done with certain kinds of weapons; it’s okay to slaughter soldiers; buildings that are not hospitals are acceptable targets.

There are no laws in war, but ethics doesn’t depend on law.

Filed under ethics, Philosophy
0