X-VMS-To: in%"ethics-l@polygraf.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ethics-l
Date:         Sun, 12 Apr 1992 09:58:00 EST
From:         JIM DOWNEY <JDOWNEY@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU>
Subject:      Second response to Nilges on Ethic Positions (Part II)
Comments: To: ethics-l%polygraf.bitnet@MITVMA.MIT.EDU

>>>     1.  Men and women are only in part free moral agents
>>
>> Says who?  How do you arrive at the statement?
>
> Says me.  Our moral choices are conditioned, and conditioned necessarily,
> by historical and social factors.  These factors do not determine our
> choices 100% but nonetheless they are present.  This means that
> Aristotle and Aquinas, who posit (in the case of Aristotle) a moral
> agent as a property and slave-owning male and (in the case of Aquinas)

And I have already shown that your perception of Aristotle is incorrect...

> a property-owning feudal lord or cleric, are of limited relevance to
> (say) an 21-year old woman BSCS from San Dimas with, say, bulimia.

But not irrelevant ot the issue of ethical foundations... which you seem
to forget is the topic of this debate...

>>>     2.  Structures and institutions are moral agents
>>
>> If this is so, then why have we so high a recidivist rate for prisons,
>> drug abuse, prostitution, etc.  We have courts, we have prisons, we
>> have rehab centers... How is that these societal structure and
>> institutions, and the capacity of these to be moral agents, have not
>> brought about morality...  Why is it that we have the FBI and yet we
>> still have cracking, copyright infringement, security breaches, etc.?

> (Sigh).  You misunderstood my "moral agent" to mean "good moral agent"

I didn't misunderstand anything...  The word moral means "directed towards
right", "virtuous", etc.  A moral agent can not, by definition of the words
used to create the term, be for the "wrong."  (WEBSTER)

> whereas "moral agent" MEANS "a person or entity capable of having
> an effect, FOR GOOD OR EVIL, in the moral sphere." Actually, also,

Source for your definition?  Please tell me it is not your own...

> it needs to be stressed that courts, prisons and rehab centers do
> much good.  But as moral agents they can also do as much evil as, say,
> universities.

"Moral agents" must, by definition, be those agents seeking what is moral or
capable of seeking what is moral...  But in a culturally relative, subjective
world one is free to redefine terms to suit the debate...

>>But this addresses degree of innocence or guilt, and the
>>quality/quantity of a criminal act, not free agency... And why do you
>>see Milken any less or more of a moral person than Gotti?  Is one
>>crime more or less a crime than the other?  Are you advocating the
>>idea of a "victimless crime"?  Or just a less victimizing crime?
>
> I hold to a dirty-hands theory such that moral choice is STILL
> relevant, perhaps even MORE relevant, after the point at which
> one becomes a Milken or even a Teflon Don.  Read Dostoevsky,
> or W. B. Yeats' poem "Crazy Jane Talks to the Bishop": morality
> is more important to criminals than it is to nice people.  I view
> Milken's crimes as attenuated by the good he did in financing
> struggling firms in a way that Gotti's crimes are not attenuated,
> and I believe that discussions of morality must take place in this
> murky "film noir" realm, rather than in the empyrean, where those
> who know nothing of the dark side will discuss how to avoid walking
> on the dark side.  I side with Plato, and St. Paul: "for all have
> sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God."

And now we visit the Divine Glory side of ethics...  It is good because
it glorifies God...  Of course, the definition of what exactly glorifies
God is in the hands of Ayatollahs, Right Reverends, Jerry Falwells and
Jim Bakkers...  Which is exactly the ethics displayed by Ollie North
and company... "For God and country!"... No matter what laws it breaks,
what rights are violated, etc.

As for your assertion that morality is more important to criminals than
nice folks...  Tell it to the inmates at Rahway, Walpole and Attica...
Prisons are the ultimate subjective and culturally relative environments,
next to a battlefield...  Everything is defined by how the individual feels,
by those having the power...  And basic rights are ignored completely...

Your ethical stances are still disturbing to me...  They are based on
fluctuating and unstable views of ethical foundations...  Your words
demonstrate this clearly...  One moment you take the subjective, then
the relative, then the ethical ego point of view...  Then when the
challenge is presented, you switch to a deontological view that doesn't
hold water, failing that you rely upon Divine Glory...

Taking this to the broader aspects of the debate, this is why I ventured
forth with the initial posts that started the debate...  To raise the question
of what is or is not ethical...  To examine the roots and foundations of what
we call ethical and to go deeper than a mere code of conduct, a mere passing
of a rule...

This debate was, obviously, not intended to change either view, yours or mine,
but it does demonstrate the gamut of ethical views that are possible.  This
was and is my purpose for attending to the discourse...  The heat generated in
the debate has generated light as well...
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