----- Original Message -----
From: LeoCasey at aol.com
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 8:26 AM
Subject: Re: Just Wars
In a message dated 05/10/2001 3:40:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
owner-lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com writes:
Name one person in the history of the world that has the moral authority to
inaugurate death. Not political power, moral authority.
Ian
Spartacus
Nat Turner
Denmark Vessey
Gabriel Prosser
Toussaint L'Ouverture
Any inhabitant of the Warsaw ghetto
The list could be greatly expanded, but I think the point has been made.
============
Nope, sorry it hasn't. Nor, I believe could it, for to do so would be to achieve moral certitude. In the absence of moral certitude there can be no moral authority which is why moral skepticism is a necessary, but not sufficient, reason for a potentially peaceful society.....The people you mention, however "noble" their cause may have been, had no more authority to command or persuade others to engage in killing than did their nemeses. Nor did those who were commanded or persuaded have the moral authority to alienate their responsibility to refrain from inaugurating violence against another human being, any more than their nemeses did......
Ian
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