(Really, though, I don't understand how my points differ at all from the standard "subjective" consequentialist line. I think your attempts to claim that they're not in a consequentialist vein are quite odd.)
-- Luke
----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 9:50 PM Subject: Re: Is there a nonviolent response to September 11?
>
>
> >(I said): I do not support war, but there is
> >>a
> >>fairly well-established protolocal for a criminal investigation.
> >
> >Why bother with a criminal investigation? Do you actually believe that
> >doing so might deter or prevent future terrorism? Or are you of the mind
> >that there exists some reducable material fact legitimating deserts as a
> >coherent concept and thus making punishment obligatory?
>
> Firstly, yes, I am a retributivist. I don't know about a "reducible
material
> fact," whatever that is, that explains this, but I do think that if you do
> evil, you deserve to be punished, other things being equal. Secondly,
> although I do not think that criminal sanctions will deter OBL or his ilk,
> they may incapacitate them. ANd it would answer to popular demand taht
> something be done, which counts from a consequentialist point of view.
>
> >
> >
> >>You gather evidence, identify suspects with probable cause, find 'em,
and
> >>bust 'em. In this case there is the added problem that they are
> >>(apparently) under the protection of a hostile nation. By "apparently,"
I
> >>mean if it's OBL. The Guardian and Le Monde think there's pretty decent
> >>evidence;
> >
> >Even if there was none in regards to 9/11, I've seen nothing to suggest
> >that the other charges against him are fallacious.
> >
> >
>
> Well, no one was really pushing it on the others, And there is more
evidence
> now tying him to 9/11.
>
> jks
>
> >This is what I don't understand. The reason I most viscerally reject the
> >"blowback" analysis is because it has the unintended consequence of
> >trivializing the prior crimes it depends on for whatever force it may be
> >said to possess.
>
> And you call yourself a consequentialist. Fact is, blowback is _real_,and
we
> better understand it if we don'twant more of the same.
>
> Supporting Islamic radicals in an insurgency
> >against
> >relatively benign Soviet imperialism was wrong for reasons having nothing
> >to do with the unforeseeable consequences of 9/11.
>
> Sure, generic anti-imperialism did the work there, also the fact that we
> were supporting bad guys.
>
> Preventing the
> >Palestinians from obtaining a state was and is wrong for reasons having
> >nothing to do with 9/11.
>
> Yes, and?
>
> Smashing the Taliban while taking care to
> >cause
> >as little suffering as possible and trying to ensure that a better regime
> >takes its place was and is right for reasons having nothing to do with
> >9/11.
>
> Oh, no. The US cannot, CANNOT, be trusted to do the right thing. The T is
> dreadful beyond measure, but the Afghan people have to deal with him. The
> best thing we can do is stay out of their way.
>
>
> Of course, I know most here disagree with that last
> >statement. But
> >I think the dissent stems entirely from a mostly well-founded mistrust of
> >the US and not the worthiness of the goal.
> >
>
> Who wills the means wills the end: you ask for US imperialist means, you
get
> US imperial ends.
>
> jks
>
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