From: dliebman@terapin.com (David Liebman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Genocide and degrees of morality?
Date: 11 Jan 93 22:42:58 PST
Organization: BBS

karen
>>>>      Many of you have posted, or written me personally, to comment on
>>>>the difference in the "systematization" of the genocides between Hitler's 
>>>>attempted extermination of the Jew and the American relatively successful
>>>>extermination of the American Indian.  Regarding this, I say they are
equally
>>>>immoral.
 
CMK
>>>why? you admit he was more systematic. that means his primary intention
>>>was to murder. this makes his actions more reprehensible in my mind.
>>>that is the reason we have first-degree murder, second-degree murder,
>>>and manslaughter.
 
DL
>>surely this particular aspect of the legal system was not devised
>>purely to correspond with the contents of your mind?
 
CMK
>well, you only included one small section of my point. the main point
>was made in my previous post . the above was just an analogy.
 
you did not offer any explanation of why the relative reprehensibility
of an act depends on 'primary intention', other than your opinion on
the matter.
 
DL
>>the argument of means versus ends is typically deployed in the service
>>of murderous politics.
 
CMK
>the invocation of cliche arguments is typically deployed in the defense
>of indefensible positions. sorry.
 
you are forgiven for your crude rhetorical repertoire.  however, the
fact is that intentions are easy to come by.  one can as easily say
'for the good of the nation' as 'for the good of the race'.  if one
ascribes ethical value to the concept of 'nation', but not to the
concept of 'race', one then decides that 'nation' is a legitimate
intention, whereas 'race' is the symptom of a psychological defect.
i consider both concepts to be equally abhorrent, contrived, and
arbitrary.  therefore, i consider both to be equally in/valid
ethical considerations.

 
DL
>>the government of the united states was, as
>>karen has noted, fully aware of the homicidal implications of its
>>annexation policies.
 
CMK
>when? when they came over from Europe or 200 years later?
 
suffice it to say, long before they were finished killing native americans.
whether or not the quote that karen attributed to jackson is accurate,
it would be reasonable to assume that the millions of bloody corpses would
have come to the attention of the u.s. government at some point.
 
DL
>>as far as the united states penal code is
>>concerned, this consitutes premeditated -- first-degree -- homicide.
>>the distinction you refer to is not one of ethics, but rather of
>>semantics: it is the difference between 'we will kill them in order
>>to occupy the land' and 'we will kill them in the process of occupying
>>the land'.  the relevent linguistic phenomenon here is the auxiliary
>>verb 'will'.
 
CMK
>i don't quite get what you are trying to say here.
 
whatever the primary intention of the u.s. government, the killing of
native americans was willful and premeditated.  when considering the
_will_ of the u.s. government, the genocide was neither primary nor
secondary to the annexations: the two were concurrent.  in other
words, i consider the justificatory strategy -- whether sincerely
believed or disingenuous -- to be irrelevant, since the murdering of
native americans was understood at that time to be _essential_ to the
grabbing of land.
 
CMK
> are you saying
>that if the Europeans had, instead of what they did, herded up
>all the Indians and gassed them to death summarily, while extolling
>the virtue of this, and conducting medical experiments on them,
>you would not think they were more wrong than they were for what they
>actually did?
 
you've changed the subject from considering intention to examining
method.
 
i grant you the point here because i am not, as you say, arguing that the two
cases are equal.  in fact, i am not even interested in debating the issue
of degrees of morality.  i was simply responding to your assertion that
intention was a valid concern here.
 
Karen
>>>>The end result is not, in any way, lessened by a lack of intent
>>>>on the part of the European settlers.  It was official government policy
>>>>that
>>>>what the Indians would not trade, the government would take "even if
>>>>every last
>>>>Indian must die" (President Andrew Jackson).
 
CMK
>>>because he considered the US to be at war with the Indians. that war
>>>was unjustified, as i have said before, but unjustified war is not
>>>the same thing as genocide.
 
DL
>>but jackson presumably believed that the war was justifiable.
>>similarly, hitler believed that the killing of jews and gypsies and
>>homosexuals was justifiable on the grounds that should be familiar
>>to you; stalin was a paranoid ideologue, and so forth.
 
CMK
>were the Jews and gypsies trying to shoot arrows through Hitler's head?
 
perhaps they should have been.
 
CMK
>the war with the Indians was unjustified looking back on the overall
>history of the conquest. at the time, all he probably saw was a threat.
 
a threat to the expansion of his nation; as hitler saw a threat to
the good of his nation and to racial purity.  nationalism is no more
of a legitimate excuse than racism.
 
CMK
>remember, the war had started scores of years before. even though
>the Europeans had started it, should they have let themselves be
>killed by the Indians? of course not.
 
we've already established that territorial acquisition, not defense,
was the most significant motive.
 
>what they *should* have done was to make peace with the Indians, 
>giving them their rights, and setting aside *substantial* amounts
>of land that they would not colonize. they did not do this. instead
>they let themselves war with the Indians over territory. that still
>is not the same thing as systematically rounding up Indians and
>torturing and killing them.
 
oh, please.  they did not just 'let themselves war'; they willed it.
it was avoidable, therefore intentional.  so again we are left with the
question of method, which has been dealt with above.
 
DL
>>all three
>>of them were in error -- why should jackson's error be any greater
>>excuse for clemency?
 
CMK
>not clemency. why do you people keep accusing me of defending Jackson
>or anyone else? i am not. i am just damning Hitler more. there *is*
>a difference.
 
a frivolous use of words on my part.  you are, on the other hand,
advocating leniency, though not acquittal, for jackson.
 
CMK
>and you have made one more point for me here, by bringing up "error".
>Jackson was in error, aided by an unjustified hatred, i can admit.
>Hitler made no error. he knew exactly what he wanted to do, he
>prepared for it years in advance, and then he did it. so how
>can you compare the two?
 
if hitler 'made no error', then what exactly was jackson's?
jackson's fallacies were nationalism and race; hitler's were the same.
they both knew exactly what they wanted to do: get rid of indians
and jews.
 
CMK
>there are degrees of maliciousness. why do we have the Geneva Convention?
>presumably because there are some forms of killing that are considered
>worse than others. why are biological weapons considered "unfair"?
>why was dropping the bomb on Japan considered worse than the
>death of any other group of a similar-sized civilian population? because
>there *are* degrees of intent. there are things which are worse than others,
>even if both are horrible.
 
the crucial factors, as you point out, are clearly not the numbers of
people killed, nor their status as civilians -- and aren't these measures
of intent?  and in what way is the form of death relevant to the matter of
intention?  you're losing it, charles.
 
 
CMK
>to use your analogy properly (you are comparing yourself
>to the Europeans), i must make explicit your implicit statement
        ^^^^^^^^^
        Americans
>that you had originally planned to drop the piano for some other reason
>than squashing me, but then you saw me loitering below and did it anyway,
>because you cared more about what you wanted to do than about how
>it would affect me. that would of course be very wrong.
>
>but i claim that it would be worse if you planned the whole
>thing in advance, lured me there and made sure i stood under the
>window (perhaps via an accomplice) and then dropped the piano
>*specifically* to crush me, when you had no other reason for
>dropping it *other than* to crush me, and when it would have costed
>you a great deal to drop it.
 
in the former case, i willfully kill you because i do not respect or even
recognize your right to continue living.  in the latter case, i 
*specifically* willfully kill you because i do not respect or even
recognize your right to continue living.  and 'costed' is not a word.
 
 
regards,
dave
 
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory