Is there a nonviolent response to September 11?

Luke Weiger lweiger at umich.edu
Wed Oct 10 01:48:44 PDT 2001


This has either the makings of a great argument or a tiresome retreading of material we've already covered (I suppose it has an expected utility of .5 if the two possibilities are equally probable and the latter outcome is represented by 0 and the former by 1). In any event, would you like to have it onlist or offlist so as to not bore the Perrys of the world? Or not at all (an option I find undesirable)? You yourself claim that philosophical arguments are hardly persuasive to most (if not all) people...

(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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