If you were making a claim about what ought to be the case, great. The point I was challenging was the descriptive claim that the "profession of arms serves policy." I claimed that it creates policy. You are now saying that it causes problems when it does that. Fine, but that is not I was challenging. If the point of your earlier post that I disagreed with was just to say that it ought to X because when it does Y it leads to bad results then I wouldn't have responded the way I did. What I am trying to be clear about is that many in the military hold the view that there is an absolute distinction between creating and carrying out policy and that the military does only the latter. This is descriptively false whatever we may think about what ought to be the case.Originally Posted by William F. Owen
I still don't find this argument convincing at all. In fact I think you have it precisely 180 degrees wrong. Also, I think your examples prove my point rather than yours. The Nazi's may have taught ethics, big deal, that doesn't mean they were right about it. However, they also taught law and they used that law to murder innocent people legally as you point out. This seems to make the case that the law is more dangerous because it has the force of government behind it and can license all variety of immoral behavior. I think law is more the product of prejudice and fashion and that your Nazi example shows this. I also think that it is through moral theory and the study of ethics that we try to improve the law (ideally) in order that the force of law does not license such immoral behavior. It is not a knock against ethics or morality that Nazis were so confused and barbaric.
Rwanda don't prove your argument unless you think that what is right reduces to whatever some person happens to think is right. Bill Clinton thought he was right to ignore genocide, now he thinks it was wrong. What does that have to do with the fact of whether what happened was actually right or wrong? Does the moral status of the Genocide in Rwanda really depend on what people believe?
If your claim is that we just can't know if anything is ever right or wrong and all we have to rely on are people's beliefs, fine. And further, that these beliefs should not be subject to reflection outside of what the law says, I don't see how that view makes the law any more appealing than anything else. In fact, to me it seems that it should be less appealing because you are giving power to the state in matters where all actions it takes according to the law will be (in regards to questions of right and wrong) either arbitrary, capricious, indeterminate, or based on beliefs which may be either true or false depending on what people happen to believe at a given time absent any further reflection. How has the law changed if it is not subject to reflection outside its own mode of thinking? In addition, at least here in the US, you are giving that state power over people's lives while acknowledging that there is no way to know right or wrong other than opinion. If there is nothing but what people happen to believe and to enshrine in law to determine right and wrong than it seems to me that we should really be careful about how much power we give to the law.
Regards,
Chris
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