Comments on: Promises, Promises

By: Antigone

Antigone — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:48:26 +0000

That’s about the thrust of it, I guess. And to add to that: you said “when you could prevent or stop it”- in the case of a wife beater, there may be very real reasons not to intervene: my life, the life of my family, the life or my roommates may be in danger, and if I call the cops, they may make it worse.

When we get to “immorality” we start having to have the conversation on what the appropriate punishments for “immorality” are- from critisms, to actual jail time. If you think that it is immoral for a person to not intervene in a situation, what exactly do you think the pentalty should be?

On the original topic, whoever the women Edwards cheated on with is being loudly harangued without actually having done an action one way or another. Edwards is the one who deserves the critisism: not Mrs. Edwards for “not providing enough support in the marriage” or whatever the argument de jur boils down to, and not “the other women” for breaking a promise SHE DID NOT MAKE.

By: Lisa Kansas

Lisa Kansas — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:39:08 +0000

So, you don’t believe it is immoral to allow someone to be hurt when you could prevent or stop it, merely amoral, and you think that whether or not you are required by law to do something has anything to do with morality or lack thereof. Well, okay. We’re just entirely different people, you and I.

By: Antigone

Antigone — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:19:48 +0000

Lisa KS- Yes. I am not required by law to intervene. However, if I wished to be MORAL, I would actually have to intervene. It would be amoral to do nothing, it would be immoral to help beat the wife, but it would be moral to intervene.

By: Lisa Kansas

Lisa Kansas — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:11:51 +0000

Let’s see: you’re saying that when your choice is to either behave immorally or do nothing, you’re not required to behave immorally. Very true. However, the question is, can your inaction in a situation ever be construed as immoral? How bout this one:

Your next-door neighbor is beating his wife. You do not choose to call the police or otherwise attempt to intervene; you are a paragon of inaction. So you have no responsibility and therefore no immorality, you claim?

By: Antigone

Antigone — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:00:39 +0000

Bush was responsible for the United States; he implicitly agreed to the action. As did the English government (considering they were a major contributor). Again, the Germans supported the Holocaust THROUGH THEIR ACTIONS (electing Hitler, allowing him to control power, et cetera). This really isn’t disproving my point.

Now, if you wanted to say that I’M responsible for Katrina, because I didn’t do anything besides donate 20 bucks, that would be a more apt comparison. But, I’m going to say that I’m not because I was not the one who broke my promise re Bush.

Morality does require an action, and requires responsibility. I don’t have a responsibility to honor someone else’s promises. If I knew someone who promised god to convert everyone to Christianity, am I required to honor that promise? If I know someone who promised to get home early from work, am I required to cover that person’s excess work so that s/he can honor that promise? No, I am not- and it is neither immoral nor moral.

By: Erin

Erin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 06:09:34 +0000

Bush re: Katrina comes to mind. The English government re: the Irish during the potato famine too. Millions of Germans re: the Holocaust. I’m not sure how you can argue morality requires an action Antigone.

By: Lisa Kansas

Lisa Kansas — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:00:45 +0000

I guess we have to agree to disagree–I can easily think of lots of situations where I would consider someone’s inaction immoral. But if you can’t, okay.

By: Antigone

Antigone — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:33:16 +0000

Lisa KS-

I would say the situation is a-moral. In order for an action to be immoral or moral, there actually HAS to be an action. No action means that there’s no morality.

By: Lisa KS

Lisa KS — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:35:17 +0000

Beckabot–the analogy is not a comparison of a man to an object that is owned; the analogy is a comparison of the morality of someone doing something that is wrong vs. the morality of someone enabling someone else to profit from something that the someone else has done wrong. If you’d prefer, we can use this analogy instead: Someone you work with is badmouthing someone else because she wants that other person’s job, and it’s working pretty well–people are starting to act very cold towards that other person and that other’s person’s boss can be heard complaining about the other person’s work. Now, the person that you know has also started taking a group of folks out to lunch every Friday on her own dime to a really great, chic place that you love, and the outings are amazingly fun. You are in that lunch group. Now, although you yourself have never said anything bad about the other person and have no intention of ever doing so, since you are profiting from your association with the person who is, you choose to keep your mouth shut and mind your own business. Is this moral?

By: Lisa KS

Lisa KS — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:23:06 +0000

Anarcha, if you read the post I wrote that Antigone is responding to in this blog post, you’ll see that I’ve already considered the situation of prostitutes who aren’t emotionally healthy–indeed, it took me years to believe myself that there were any who weren’t in some kind of coercive situation. However, I assure you there are–they blog, for one–and the post I wrote was in answer to someone else’s comment originally based on the morality of the situation specifically for women who are fully and freely consensual and emotionally healthy sex workers. (I know, a tangled path here of comment-post-comment-post.) But seriously, if you do read it, you’ll see that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in blaming women who are sex workers who were in any way coerced or damaged into being in that situation for anything whatsoever–qute the opposite.