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Idealism vs. Reality
Dalboz
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
This was inspired by some comments made in the Haiti thread, as well as some memories that they brought up.
Some people have argued that sending aid to Haiti is not our responsibility, and that we need to take care of our own problems (meaning the U.S., in this case). This is an argument that I've heard about several international issues in which the U.S. became involved in the past. Somalia and the Bosnia-Serbia war are the most recent memories of this.
Back in high school many ages ago, I was a member of the Junior Statesmen of America club (I can't believe I actually remember this). I don't remember the full details of what we were discussing one particular day, but we broke into teams playing the role of parliamentary members of different nations, and I got place in England's Parliament. As I said, I don't remember the precise issue at hand, but I remember the concern was that if we took a certain action that, while it would be morally right, would likely cause massive immigration to an already unstable economy. My teammates barely even thought about it and immediately fell on the moral side without thinking about. Since it was a debate club, I decided to start a debate and began arguing alone for the selfish, and some might call realistic, side.
But this brings up an interesting point. While idealism is all well and good, what happens when it gets faced with harsh reality? More specifically, what do you do? Now, the Haiti issue is not a major contender in this case. While the economy is obviously hurting, we can clearly still send aid in a time of crisis. But let's say for the sake of argument that there wasn't enough money to help. Would attitudes about sending aid change, or would people still be leaning towards a moral high ground even in the face of harsh reality? Which also leads to the question on where we draw the line between ideals and reality. What would make you stop and say, "Wait, we can't do that?"
This is not intended to be Haiti-specific, but is meant to be a more abstract discussion, so if you want to bring up other examples, please do.
Some people have argued that sending aid to Haiti is not our responsibility, and that we need to take care of our own problems (meaning the U.S., in this case). This is an argument that I've heard about several international issues in which the U.S. became involved in the past. Somalia and the Bosnia-Serbia war are the most recent memories of this.
Back in high school many ages ago, I was a member of the Junior Statesmen of America club (I can't believe I actually remember this). I don't remember the full details of what we were discussing one particular day, but we broke into teams playing the role of parliamentary members of different nations, and I got place in England's Parliament. As I said, I don't remember the precise issue at hand, but I remember the concern was that if we took a certain action that, while it would be morally right, would likely cause massive immigration to an already unstable economy. My teammates barely even thought about it and immediately fell on the moral side without thinking about. Since it was a debate club, I decided to start a debate and began arguing alone for the selfish, and some might call realistic, side.
But this brings up an interesting point. While idealism is all well and good, what happens when it gets faced with harsh reality? More specifically, what do you do? Now, the Haiti issue is not a major contender in this case. While the economy is obviously hurting, we can clearly still send aid in a time of crisis. But let's say for the sake of argument that there wasn't enough money to help. Would attitudes about sending aid change, or would people still be leaning towards a moral high ground even in the face of harsh reality? Which also leads to the question on where we draw the line between ideals and reality. What would make you stop and say, "Wait, we can't do that?"
This is not intended to be Haiti-specific, but is meant to be a more abstract discussion, so if you want to bring up other examples, please do.
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I think the utter depravity of facing many truths with a straight face and a lack of remorse is the wellspring for most forms of idealism, anyway. It's a defense mechanism.
In general, I think a contrast between the 'practical' and the 'moral' is always a false dichotomy, and it's the result of both a general conceptual mistake as well as a caricature of what 'practicality' and 'morality' are. Practicality and morality are not enemies--what is practical is intimately connected to what is moral; it's never moral to pursue a project that would, by practical necessity, be a dismal failure.
I would make an argument that how one accumulated such debts should also be taken into account, but honestly, I'm not interested in making Haiti some political stage right this second. I'm interested in people getting removed from concrete rubble before they suffocate.
If you don't want to donate, that's your choice. Personally, I'm not a fan of being the guy on the bottom of the 'persons who did the most to help' list.
Will we send an enormous military assistance force? Yes. Will it do much good in the long run? Not really, no. Long term, Haiti will still be a dump. The corrupt politicos will get their hands on the reconstruction money, and then a hurricane or two will rip through the area.
What would be the fix?
I think America should offer Haiti's people the same deal we cut with Puerto Rico in the Jones-Shafroth Act*. Long term, only American stewardship can drive out the worst of the corruption. Of course, this will never happen because Haiti is dangerously overcrowded and there would be an immediate influx of Haitians using their citizenship to move to mainland America.
*Which granted all Puerto Ricans citizenship in America (the reason for this was so we could draft them but that's water under the bridge at this point), but restructured their government and subjected them to most of our laws.
Are you talking about whatever terrible shit we've done to Haiti in the past? And how would we atone for it? Who's standards of morality are we going by anyways?
Wouldn't non-utilitarian schools of ethics disagree?
I don't know about MrMister, but I personally find non-utilitarian schools of ethics to be incoherent.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It's less trivial to make the case in non-utilitarian systems, but it's not by any means impossible. For instance, John Rawls justifies income inequality on the basis of the practical consequences of attempting to ensure exact equality. That demonstrates pretty clearly that his Contractualism does not set out some 'moral' path that we are supposed to blunder down, regardless of what pitfalls are waiting along the way.
Pointing out a conflict between an ideal (equality) and a circumstance (free riders) is the beginning of a discussion, not the end of it. That is not the point at which we throw up our hands and say: "either you do the blunderous moral thing, and you attempt to ensure complete equality, or you do the heartless pragmatic thing, and allow the poor to die in the streets." Those are both obviously terrible options, and a fortiori are not the right thing to do. Ethics is the business of finding the right thing to do, so it settles on neither of those artificial poles.
As it turns out, what the right thing to do is depends on the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
I agree, but I wasn't sure that the concept was as open and shut as MrMister colored it to be. In re-reading what he said though, I think I may agree with him. The idea I was pushing for would, I think, ultimately require a utilitarian ethical system to (at the very least temporarily) usurp another ethical paradigm in determining how one behaves. Which isn't in line with what I was arguing for.
Still not quite sure though.
Look at it this way, if the US does send aid in immense amounts of resources and time, it will take a hit especially due to its economic standing. However, it will still be better off than the nation on the receiving end of aid. Its very hard to argue support a foreign nation without using some moral factors to your argument, helping others at a cost to yourself is a very morally fueled action.
The real question is this; what are the ramifications of creating world where the most realistic option, no matter how selfish, is taken, as opposed to a world where the morally correct decision, despite the cost, is chosen. Call it unrealistic, but the morally correct option, despite the cost, was what created much of the human rights standards that are so valued today as opposed to the past. It is also the morally correct, even if unrealistic, option that helped people such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Junior fight, and succeed, for some of the most important ideals to humanity.
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I think this is the most dangerous, stupid and wrong opinion that's been posted in quite some time, and that the bolded section in particular highlights everything wrong with the Haitian aid efforts
There are millions of children living below poverty in the United States. The news never does shit to report on it, out of sight, out of mind. It takes an event of extraordinary consequence that will give ratings before people at large give a shit.
Thousands of people die in this country every week due to simple things that are preventable. There are families who starve and go without medical care. We don't seem to give a shit because it's just icky, there's no big drama to it, and it's been around so long it doesn't have that fresh accident smell.
There's no harm in helping others, in fact I think as a species it's one of the things we do best. It's the marketing of the events that causes me to throw up my hands and get pissed off about the whole thing.
I'm generally talking about the centuries of horrible shit that Europeans (and their ancestors) did in conquering the New World, and how we lament it in spoken and written word, yet do little else.
Not that I am or am not taking sides in the debate, but simply stating that those who do still take no action. They still live lives reaping the benefits from those many hundred years of terror and subjugation.