<DIV>A consequentialist is someone who thinks that what makes an act right or wrong is the goodness or badness of its consequences. Utilitarianism, the classic but not the only version of the doctrine, says that we shoulod do what maximizes happiness, happiness being what classical utilitarians consider to be good. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"The Arabs" cannot be guilty of any act, obviously, whatever some ignorant people may think. Only particular individuals can be guilty of an act. Those same ignorant people would reject the idea that it would be appropriate to kill innocent office workers in New York or Washington as revenge or retribution for real or supposed crimes of the US govt. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>jks</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>jks<BR><BR><B><I>Bill Bartlett <billbartlett@enterprize.net.au></I></B> wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">At 1:43 AM -0700 23/6/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote:<BR><BR>>It is precisely retributivism that rules out colective punishment, and consequentialism that in principle admits it. Consequentialists contort themselves with implausible explanations of why framing and harming the innocent is wrong (the deception will be discovered, etc.), but they cannot say the one thing that retributivists can say which is the obvious explanation: those people should not be punished because they are innocent.<BR><BR>But, dammit, those Arabs are GUILTY. It was definitely ARABS who carried out the suicide plane attacks on the US. And even if that was not the case, they (Arabs and more particularly the Iraqi Arabs) failed to be WITH America in the war against Iraq. By definition they (Arabs and more particularly the Iraqi Arabs) are GUILTY of being against America! Not innocent.<BR><BR>Vengeance is mine sayeth the retributivists. What's a "Consequentialist" anyhow?<BR><BR>Bill Bartrlett<BR>Bracknell Tas<BR>___________________________________<BR>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</BLOCKQUOTE><p><hr SIZE=1> Do you Yahoo!?<br> <a href="http://pa.yahoo.com/*http://rd.yahoo.com/evt=1207/*http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/">SBC Yahoo! DSL</a> - Now only $29.95 per month!