On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:56:44 -0500 Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> writes:
>
>
> Eubulides wrote:
>
> >
> > Take this rhetorical strategy to it's limits and no one was
> responsible for the
> > Holocaust or the conquest of North America, the Rape[s] of Nanking
> or Abu Ghraib
> > or [insert horrible human tragedy here]......Of course, if we're
> just
> > neurochemical automata, why give a fuck about politics and the
> like at all?
>
> Admitted, the rhetoric is somewhat sloppily composed -- but I would
> argue that we can oppose all the listed horrors above without
> invoking
> any doctrine of responsibility; perhaps without even invoking the
> word
> in any of its neutral senses (which it does have), since English is
> richly supplied with synonyms & paraphrases. (The reference to "just
> neurochemicals" is beside the point.) I want torture to stop -- but
> it's
> incidental to me whether someone is made morally responsible for its
> occurrence. Swift writes somplace that he was glad the hawk that had
> been raiding his chickens had been shot, though that was nothing
> against
> the hawk.
B.F. Skinner in his book, "Beyond Freedom & Dignity" proposed replacing the notion of responsibility with the concept of controllability. He also argued that the literatures of "freedom and dignity" helped to reinforce reliance upon punitive forms of behavioral control, even when such forms of behavior control could be demonstrated to be ineffective or counterproductive.
>
> And as a matter of fact, concepts of responsibility have probably
> interfered with the struggle against atrocities (including Abu
> Ghraib)
> in Iraq. The responsibility of a few enlisted personnel replaced the
> the
> question of state policy.
>
> And most of those "horrible human tragedies" pale into insignificnce
> when compared against the ongoing daily horror of prison systems,
> sexual
> oppression, social exclusion of reprobates, etc.
>
> Carrol
>
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