Obi, it occurs to me that your Mozart analogy is flawed, because it begs the question. Who is to say that Mozart is worth more than you? Worth more to whom? Honestly, you're probably worth more to me than Mozart. I don't like most of Mozart, musically, and therefore the paltry service you do me by interacting with me on this site give me more value than Mozart gives me.

should be Obi > ∞ !

I scarcely play dip here anymore, it's all about sitting at the feet of the master Obi and trying to catch those pearls. Sometimes he can be hard to understand - If only he would post more explanatory text!

@ :) :

Adressing the purely Star Trek parts first (so if you couldn't care less about Trek...well, you probably hated this whole post, but yeah, skip on down to the next part):

I actually did think of using Picard's "Insurrection" speech, but I actually really hate that film and even though THAT is a good speech, the dilemma THERE really falls apart logically--I will ask for the millionth time: even if we somehow allow that moving 600 people IS wrong in the face of getting benefits for hundreds of billions of people across the galaxy, I must ask...IT'S A PLANET! How do 600 need THE ENTIRE PLANET? Hell, even if the Federation decided to be extremely generous and give those 600 people a space the size of the United States, that'd STILL allow for at least 75% of the planet to be free...so yeah, even setting aside I have a hard time sympathizing with the 600 people here against billions, might I ask, since you like the film, why they couldn't just use the whole rest of that PLANET? LOL--and I thought the dilemma with Data was more sympathetic since...well, it acually makes logical sense, for one, and for another we can move beyond the sci-fi idea of "what do you call a robot that's sentient" to the idea of how we might treat and subjugate a race of Datas...like slaves, as we've done in the past to various peoples.

So yeah, that's why I used that clip and not "Insurrection," but both work out of context; in context the "Insurrection" one just doesn't seem logial (again, just looking at this from a point of logic--even if we allow for the fact that moving these 600 people would be wrong, then what, may I ask, is wrong with the rest of the PLANET?!) XD

Also, yeah, TOS and TNG are more idealistic than DS9, TNG especially, TOS sometimes had a darker tone and had some great, tragic endings--I still say "City on the Edge of Forever" is the best Trek episode ever, I always recommend it to folks who say they've enver seen Trek but don't want to see "just a sci-fi show," that story is very much detached from sci-fi elements...to tie in, albeit in a completely different way than intended initially, with our ends vs. means theme, the time travel is just a means to get the Kirk/Edith romance and tragedy going, it's not the "end," that is, it's not the focus...that, "The Apple," TNG's "The Best of Both Worlds" and "The Measure of a Man," and DS9's "In the Pale Moonlight" are probably my Top 5 "issue" Trek episodes.

Not as many people remember "The Apple," but it really is one of the best TOS "issue" episodes, and it actually has some good action to stop it from getting Voyager-level preachy...if you don't remember it, in a nutshell:

-Planet of people who are primitive and worship giant living comper-rock-thing as God
-Kirk, Spock, Bones, Chekov, girlfriend for Chekov, and redshirts beam down
-Planet's like a virtual Eden...so naturally it kills off the redshirts fast using projectile-launching flowers and exploding land-mine rocks (who WOULDN'T want land-mine rocks? That'd stop Jehovah's Witnesses before they could even ring the door bell! I kid, I kid...) :p
-People don't grow at all due to their relying on rock-computer-God for everything
-Bones says these people should have this computer "god" taken away so they can grow as a people and actually learn to pcik food with out divine computer intervention; Spock says they're happy and healthy so why mess with their Eden of sorts
-Kirk sides with Spock
-Fights
-'splosions
-Scotty has the Enterprise blast the hell out of compter-rock-god
-Spock points out they, in giving these people knowledge and taking them away from their compu-god, acted a bit like Satan in the Adam and Eve story; Bones points out SPOCK looks like Satan, laughter, end credits

I really do like that episode, partly because it IS a very fun one and almost everyone gets a chance to have a moment, even Chekov, who was always my favorite in TOS, and partly because I like that question of if ignorance is bliss and if religious belief in something, even if it's silly like worshipping a paper-mache "rock-god," is preferrable to scientific fact, and if faith and science really do oppose each other.

That and, again, rock-land mines and Chekov having a good episode. :)

So yeah, TOS, TNG, and DS9 were all good in their own way...VOY was bad...ENT was even worse...Abrams' film I liked as a start, we'll see where it goes.




And now the non-Trek matters of actual philosophy and ethics, for those who are sick of obiwanobiwan talking Trek and those who never wanted him to talk about it in the first place (I DID say at the beginning of this this was a fun end of the eyar thing, so yeah, I didn't really go into this with the usual drive to have a purely-philosophical debate, it's that and sort of a fun end of the eyar chat on things, and I like Trek and just decided to through that in to illustrate the two sides of the issue and open up a discussion on which approach is better, which does for fans often involve which captain or show is better, so yeah, I can discuss this with or without the Trek, I just thought the Trek might be some fun after all that WWII posting and talk about facism and communism and democracy and the corruption in all of them.)

On the actual issue itself of ends and means as you presented with DS9:

You make the statement that the Romulans--the people Sisko manipulated into the war, for those that are saying "I thought the Trek part was over!", it is, bear with me--would ahve been attacked anyway after the War was lost, so Sisko's not so much dragging them into an unnecessary war as he is potentially doing them and everyone on their side of the War a favor.

The two issues with that from a philosophical standpoint:

-That still doesn't mean that Sisko isn't manipulating them and thus treating them as means to a greater end, or at least so he believes...the best we can do is say it's "justified" manipulation, and that this is a case where the ends justify the means, but reagardless it's still manipulation and ends over means; I'm not sure if you asserted that or not, I'm just saying. What's more, in this case...

-For this to be assumed, that bringing these people into the War will benefit them, suffers, it would seem, from the fallacy that presupposes that these people WILL be attacked in either event, and so dragging them into the war is really just getting them into an "inevitable" war early so they might have a chance to help them all end it. To refer back to a point that IS Trek but relevant for the philosiophical point here, another race, the Cardassians, were approached by these people and made an alliance with them, and, at least of THIS episode they're doing pretty well, as this alliance is working out for them well enough that they're winning the war and conquering lands...they're doing well enough to bring Sisko to the point he needs to essentially do something that's potentially ethnically wrong--and DEFINITELY immoral, if we account for morality, existant or not--and an act of sheer desperation, brough on because they're losing the war.

So, for those asking "Where's the point, obi?" here it is:

You made the statement, Smiley, that the Romulans, based upon the fact Sisko's people were dragged into the war as were the Klingons and the Romulans are next in that line, are faced with the inevitability of war, and so whether Sisko manipulated them or not they would STILL go to war eventually, and so while it's immoral to do so Sisko's manipulating them into the war is really doing them and everyone else a favor, since they'd be fighting this war anyway, and if they didn't do so now they'd have to fight solo later and lose.

But we've seen that SOME other races in the way, ie, those Cardassian people, didn't have to go to war against these invades to this point, but instead made an alliance with them that's pretty beneficial to them at the moment...

Also, to digress into Trekdom again but again to illustrate the point, those people with the alliance, the Cardassians, are closer to the invading people--called the Dominion for non-Trek people or people with a life ;)--and yet they dealt with this by getting an alliance, so we cannot make the claim that sheer proximity means war, because the closer power, the Cardassians, were able to get an alliance, whereas the powers that were futher away and so are non-threatening, the Federation and the Klingons, are in war.

As a result I don't think we can make the logical claim that this was an inevitable war, and if THAT'S the case, even though we can still make the claim that Sisko's ends justify his means since this manipulation will at least save the Klingons and Federation from being conquered, so two powers saved as an end can possibly justify one power being forced to fight a war they might never have had to or could even have fought for greater gain, we can't say that on the basis of inevitability.

For those who disdain Trek, to use another example, and actually this is one of my favorite ethical-dilemma scenarios, I read it a while back:

Imagine you're in a train station, and oncoming is a speeding train that the conductor inside cannot stop. It is currently on a track to hit ten people who cannot hear it and cannot get out of the way in time as a result. However, you are standing near a switch and can change the track along which this train speeds; however, there is one person on THAT track currently that cannot and will not hear the train and won't get out of the way in time.

Do you pull the switch and sacrifice one for ten or leave the switch be and leave ten for one?

In the Sisko line of reasoning, that train is going to hit SOMEONE, so it might as well hit the track with only one person--after all, simple matter of mathematics, ten is greater than one, and so since you cannot save everyone here--and for the purposes of this scenarion just suppose that to be true, that for whatever reason these people CAN'T hear this loud train approaching and WON'T leap out of the way in time to avoid death and that they WILL die and not "simply" lose and arm or a leg--you should save the greater number, it's INEVITABLE that the train will hit, so make sure it hits with the least possible loss of life.

The problems with that, at least the ones I'll bring up, you might find your own:

-The obvious issue of who's "worth" saving more; we only said it was 10 vs. 1 on the tracks. What if it was 10 people who were joking and kidding around and had just beaten someone up for drug money vs. 1 person who's SUPPOSED to be on the tracks as a maintenence man, and so he's just innocently doing his job and is actually supposed to be there...and instead of spending his money on drugs he spends his hard-earned salary on a wife and three kids, all of whom will be severely traumatized and compromised emotionally and financially with this 1 person's death, whereas these 10 aren't really cared about by anyone seeing as...well, they don't seem very nice, do they? In THIS case...if you KNOW the kinds of people these folks are, the worker and the duggies--do you really kill the worker and harm his family as a result to save the druggies who weren't even supposed to be there? Bonus question: if you DO say that's the course of action you'd take...why?

To reset the tracks and to make this even more interesting, let's put 10 of those innocent, honest workers on the one track, and then 1 person on the other who's NOT really supposed to be there...but he happens to be President *insert a leader you admire here, dead or living*.

NOW what?

Killing the 10 workers seems a heinous action, they're jsut doing their job, after all.
But the President is the President, and even if he's being a bit stupid right now, he' stil...the President.

EVEN if you wanted to make the argument that the President's elite status shouldn't obscure the fact he's being an idiot right now and so shouldn't be used as justification to kill 10 people who are NOT being idiots right now and are being good, honest, and hard-working Americans (or Englishmen, if you're reading this from across the Pond, or *insert your nationality here*), we still face the question of impact, namely, 10 honest people dying and their families severely hurt by this tragedy is a steep price...

But losing the PRESIDENT? That literally affects billions of lives, the 300 million in his country and then it affects, in some capacity, AT LEAST those in Europe, Asia, Mexico, and the Middle East, to varying degrees.

Even if we wanted to throw out those other lands and say that's too indirect--though I don't think that's the case--we're still faced with the fact that the President affects hundreds of millions of people in the United States. What's MORE, we've established this is a "good" President, President *insert leader you admire here*. As a result, since he's such a good leader, we may assume he's doing and will do good things for the Ameican people and possibly other nations as well, so even if he's not remembering what even a 4-year old is taught and isn't looking both ways as he takes a stroll, so to speak, he still doesn't seem to be a repugnant figure like those 10 druggies and thug.

The issue of "worth" here is apparent and seen, it's FAR beyond simply a matter of two powers losing a war vs. one getting dragged into one or 10 people vs. 1, and that's WITHOUT really looking at this and making this even more complicated by saying that one of those 10 honest workers will go out and murder 100 people if left alive but also that one of thpse 10 druggies will reform and invent the flying car and donate all his money to charities.

Woth is EXTREMELY hard to determine, and impossible to do with numbers alone, so saying Sisko's saving more lives by forcing a war seems to treat those lives as only numbers without taking into account the individual worths of those lives, that he might be forcing a Romulan man into war who will die but would otherwise invent the Omega Mega Peace Ray (or something.) ;)

-The issue of "inevitability" here is also a factor--WHAT, precisely, is inevitable? The train will hit someone, yes, that is inevitable, and, using our analogy, we may say that the invading race will inevitably make it to the Romulans. What's NOT inevitable? The person that gets run over; obviously we can't say it's inevitable the one person on the other track would be hit, since he's only hit if we CHOOSE to have him be hit, and since we ARE at the controls and DO have the opportunity to save them, the ten people on the track where the train is, too, cannot be cconsidered "inevitable" casualities of the train, since we may reason that since we MAY save them their fate isn't inevitable. What's more, we can't argue that it'd be the "natural course of things" if the ten are hit, since we see clearly we have a choice as to who is to die and so it's only "natural" that they are our choice to allow to die if they are "DESTINED" to be killed--and since nothing here suggests THAT, we cannot accept that. By the same token, we cannot assume the "natural course" or "destined course" of that invading force meeting the Romulans would be for the latter to be conquered by the former, especially since, as shown by the Cardassians, we may see that it's NOT a forgone conclusion of this invading race meeting another that the latter is conquered; the Cardassians made an alliance, and so we cannot claim that it's an inevitability that the Romulans will fall rather than make an alliance to help themselves as well.

sophism: ruining everything since the fifth century bce

On the "Why is Mozart worth more?" rationale:

See my reasoning for why the President is, in a certain sense, worth more than the 10 workers in THAT analogy, and stick in Mozart instead of the President and just up the influence meter even more, since Mozart's been around even more.

That's my basic rationale--10 workers as they are right now and their familes will have some influence and feel a great deal of pain at their loss; if it's the President then it's 300 million Americans affected, possibly hundreds of millions in other countries, and then if it's MOZART, like him or not--and you can dislike him...I can't imagine someone disliking him, but it IS taste-based and I really like classical and opera, so I guess someone might ask me how I could not care for Metallica in turn ;)--he had a huge impact on music and without him we have one of the most important figures in music absent, and the effect is enormous, since Beethoven was influenced mightily by him, as were others, even today his influence is felt in classical music...

It'd be an enormous loss, like the President, to many more people than those 10 workers, or obiwanobiwan (at least until obiwanobiwan takes all this energy he puts into these posts and sits down and writes a coherent BOOK!) :p

Also on Mozart:

The other reason for calling Mozart greater than obiwanobiwan or *nsert person you care for if you don't care for obiwanobiwan here* is what I would colloqiually refer to as The Hero Principle.

Consider a basic narrative.

In a basic narrative--let's take, say, the story of Sir Gareth, or the Knight of the Kitchen, from Sir Thomas Mallory's "Le Morte d'Arthur"--we we have a hero, and this hero usually starts out as an everyman or something close to it. This is the case with Gareth; he's related to Sir Gawain, Athur's nehpew and one of the most celebrated knights of the Round Table--he's my personal favorite and the one I generally identify with...for those who ahve never read a King Arthur story and want to know why I like Sir Gawain, read the famous and influential Medevial poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," it's, obviously, a public domain text and so is available online free in tons of places, or if you, like me, prefer an actual book you should be able to find this story, alone or in a collection, at any self-resepecting bookstore--and so by connection also related to Athur, thus making him by blood pretty damn important.

But he doesn't say this when he first comes to Camelot (or Logres, however broad or precise you want to call the place.) He just acts like a regular guy and asks Arthur for two favors--to stay and do some work for the court and to be given an opportunity for a request some time later on.

And so Gareth works in the kitchens--hence the title, "Sir Gareth, Or, The Knight of the Kitchen,"--under the supervisiory eye of Sir Kay who, in this story at least, is the biggest asshole in Medevial history and definitely in Arthur's court as he constantly taunts this person, who actually has royal blood and is being pretty humble right now, that HE, Sir Kay, is a knight and all this guy can ever hope to be is some sod working in the kitchens and stables.

But Gareth puts up with this for a good long while, never uttering a harsh word in return, until one day some damsel comes to Camelot in distress--shocker!--and says her sister is being held captive--even bigger shocker!--in a castle protected by the Red Knight--really...is ANYONE shocked that this is the situation for an Arthurian tale? ;)

And so Gareth makes his request--to be allowed to go out and save this lady's sister, a favor King Arthur readily grants and makes him a knight, a title Gareth must earn on this quest.

But the lady is none to happy about this, she's infuriated that after her long journey to Camelot and to the Round Table Arthur, instead of sending Lancelot or Gawain or Percivale or some other immensely-brave and famous knight, sends her, to save her sister...some guy from the kitchens. (On reflection...yeah, I can see how that'd get someone angry, sort of like telling MI6 you need the best secret agent they have for a mission of the utmost delicacy and instead of sending James Bond they send Agents Moe, Curly, and Larry.)

So they ride off Gareth and this person, and the entire way the lady berates Gareth, until they come to...THE BLACK KNIGHT! And, of course, if you've EVER seen Monty Python you know the Black Knight says "None shall pass!" and that "The Black Knight ALWAYS WINS!" But...well, true to Monty Python, actually, the Black Knight gets his ass handed to him in combat, but instead of losing all his arms and legs and calling it a flesh wound Gareth kills him in a jousting contest and takes his armor.

But THIS doesn't impress the lady, who now, on top of saying he's not really a knight, derides him for killing a "real" man. (Backseat drivers are the WORST...)

So off they ride to...the GREEN Knight--but not Gawain's Green Knight, another Green Knight, because green, I guess, was just fashionable amongst Medevial knights with amazing powers--and he thinks Gareth, wearing the black armor, is his brother the Black Knight, and learning he's dead makes him pretty damn angry, so they joust, Gareth wins again, and tells this Green Knight to ride back to Camelot with all of his mend and to tell them who sent him.

And the same thing happens when Gareth meets the Puce Knight. (Puce???)

Finally the lady respects Gareth--took her long enough, he just risked his life three times for her!--and so much so she tells him to turn back, that she doesn't want to see him killed by the Red Knight. Gareth says no, however, he's come this far and he's going to finish the job. She says fine, but to fight at sunset or something, because the Red Knight's strenght is multiplied many times as the day goes on, peaking at noon. Gareth says hell no to that, he's no coward or cheat, and so he'll fight him when he's his strongest DESPITE the fact the lawns of his castle are, in fact, littered with the corpses of dead knights.

So they DO indeed fight, and it's a pretty epic fight, as their lances AND shields are shattered by the force of their collision AND their horses die from the impact and so they pull out their swords and have a day-long fight until Gareth finally wins, learns the Red Knight did all this to try and lure Lancelot here so he could kill him, forgives the Red Knight and sends him back home, and the rescues and marries the sister of the lady who rode with him this whole time.



"WHAT" you may ask "WAS POSSIBLY THE POINT OF TELLING THAT NEAT BUT TOTALLY-LONG-WINDED ARTHUR STORY, OBIWAN?!"

Again, I said I would place Mozart as being qualitatively a greater person than 100 obiwanobiwans (or, again, if you dislike me...why are you reading this, for one thing, but for another, if you dislike me, 100 regular people that you DO like) because of that Hero Principle, and the Hero Principle in a narrative is that of someone who becomes qualitatively better for his experiences. He often doesn't START OUT as the guy who's able to vanquish the Red Knight who's many times stronger than normal men, but as they go along in life they perform various deeds and grow and, in the end, have acquired a quality about themselves which makes them better than the average Joe. Gareth, despite his noble birth, doesn't start out as the guy who's ready to go out on a famed Medevial quest. He's not ready to deal with being insulted all along the way. He'd DEFINITELY not ready to be fight the Black or Green or Puce (seriously, why Puce?) or Red Knights and rescue the maiden in distress.

He GAINS all of that, those things which make him better than the average kitchen boy.'

He GAINS that ability to take insults and slanders against him from enduring Sir Kay all that time. He works his way up to being able to take on the Red Knight by taking on the first three. His year just working in the kitchens despite his noble birth makes him more patient.

He progresses and becomes something greater as a result--he works at it and becomes a Hero, and so the Hero Principle makes him greater than the average person because he has qualities--his incredible patience, his chivalrous attitude towards women, his prowess jousting and swordfighting--that you or I or Joe down the street lack.

Gareth in the heroic sense is BETTER than you or I, and what's more--and what's better--he's NOT better because of some noble birth or any garbage like that, he casts that aside at the very start of the story so he can earn his knightly spurs the right way, though actions and deeds and actual growth and acquisition of greatness, not just because of familial relations.

And the same may be sad of Mozart, or Shakespeare, or Abe Lincoln, or most figures, I'd say, that we as a culture praise and view as being "great" somehow.

Shakespeare wasn't BORN the best playwright ever, and he didn't even start off that way; I love "Titus Andronicus," but read that and "Romeo and Juliet" and you're reading works that are good, sure, but not the best of all-time, not even of HIS time, Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker (seriously, was every other playwright in the Elizabethan era named "Thomas?") wrote FAR better plays, better traedies than those two works.

But Shakespeare kept at it and kept working, and eventually DID, as a result of labors and the creative process and learning what worked well with his style and what could be done better, become the greatest of his era and at the very least one of the indisputable strongest candidates for "Greatest Author Ever," even if you don't see him as such you have to admit that he has a lot more power behind his candidacy than most authors, not because they're BAD, far from it--Shakespeare's tales just have endured better than Kyd's, are more universal than Middleton's, are less possibly offensive and more modern than Marlowe's (if you thought "The Merchant of Venice" had a few questionable moments regarding the treatment of Jews, try Marlowe's similar-yet-incredibly-more-Anti-Semetic "The Jew of Malta.)

Abe Lincoln DEFINITELY didn't start out as the great president many see him as (including myself.) He really didn't have a first year or so...the nation breaking apart ans seceding is usually going to hurt your poll numbers a little. He even endorsed slavery.

But he kept at it, kept an open mind, and through it all grew as a leader and a man, and so the Lincoln that was shot in 1865 was not the same Lincoln who took office in 1861. He certainly DID support reunification with or without slavery, at first he didn't care, and then he came to see freeing blacks as nothing more than a potential too to help the Northern whites win the war, and finally he DID, by the time of his death, actually come to the position that slavery and being treated like that was counter to that "all men ar created equal" bit and just morally wrong.

He GREW into becoming a hero in a way you and I have not, not because we're bad people or because Lincoln was an Ubermensch--ha! you thought I was going to use that, didn't you?--but simply because he underwent a journey of sorts and found the strength within himself to change as well as the reasons without and around himself to change, to grow and become that man we immortalized on Mt. Rushmore, a giant marble statue and memorial, and, yes, even our copper penny! ;)

Abe Lincoln is worth more than obiwan, as are Mozart and Shakespeare and innumerable figures.

I said last week that I don't like it or accept it when folks I talk to refer to me as a "philosoher" or even a writer, and was angry as all hell about how those terms are abused and flung around today.

I said it's an HONOR to be called those things, that you EARN that title.

And you earn it the same way Gareth earned his knightly title--not by being BORN better than people, not by simply being stronger than other people, but by being chivalrous (hence his sending the defeated knights to live in Camelot instead of brutally chopping their heads off while they were down) and courteous even when treated unkindly and patient and all the rest...being a good knight OVERALL.



And that's what the Hero Principle really is, you can call it the Knight Principle, I suppose.

I'm not better than those figures because they, though their won hard work, achieved something on their own personal quests, their own lifelong missions, that allowed them to acquire something internally that makes them great figures--Lincoln's sense of justice and tolerance was acquired, not inherent, and Shakespeare and Mozart might have had raw talent but they acquired the ability to rank at or amongst the top of their artistic categories through their own hard work and revelations and experiences.

Most people DON'T have those experiences or revelations, most don't even go on the "quest."

I've already used Trek, so I'll go ahead and use "House M.D." now to punctuate a point (or at least attempt to, for all I know it could fail miserably):

House treats a patient in one episode who doesn't want to be ressucitated if something goes wrong and he loses his ability to play his horn.

House asks if that's all there is to him, just that damn horn, and the patient shoots back and points out that really, for House, the world begins and ends with his medical cases, he NEEDS that, it gives him purpose, and without a medical mystery...well, if you've ever watched the who you know that just like Sherlock Holmes is incredibly bored when he doesn't have a case and takes to using coccaine, House gets incredibly bored with no case and generally takes to self-destructive behavior as well (and usually even more so than Holmes, Holmes seems to have more discipline in that area.)

The patient says, to paraphrase, that MOST PEOPLE get married and have kids andthat's where they find purpose, or at least most of their purpose in life, and so they don't act as misantropic as Hosue or this patient does (or as Holmes is at least capable of doing, for that matter.) But for those people like him, the horn player, and like House, they have that one thing that they can, working hard enough at it, do better than those people, do it to a better and greater degree than most people, and THAT'S where they get purpose from...so without that one thing, they're like a flat tire--useless, or at least that's how they feel.

Take that into account with that fact that a great deal of thinkers and artists in history have either been bachelors or at least had troubled relationships--Nietzsche, Mozart had a troubled relationship, Kierkegaard, Kant, Hobbes, Sartre, John Lennon certainly had his woman issues between Cynthia, Yoko, and Yoko's friend, van Goh, da Vinci, Poe, etc.--and I think there's some truth to what that horn-playing patient has to day.

Maybe not absolute thruth, but certainly two of the three I started out giving an account on, Mozart and Lincoln, are known to at least have had issues with their marriage, Lincoln in particlar; we don't know much about Shakespeare's personal life, he married and had children, but of course we don't have great knowledge on how happily or not he was in marriage, and in any event, like I said, it's not an absolute that you must either have the one thing or marriage, it just seems to have somewhat of a root in truth when it at least comes to artists and writers and philosohpers (and, with Lincoln, I think we can throw politicians in there a bit, PLENTY of poor marriages in political history...the Clintons and Edwards families certainly are/were not great marriages, though that might be due more to their naughty, naughty husbands than their husbands being good at that one thing that's their calling--unless, of course, that "one thing" that DRIVES them and they're good at is, in fact...) ;)



So in essence, yes, that's why a Mozart or a Shakespeare or a Lincoln is worth more than me or the average person--they've earned it on that Hero's Principle, at least in a more modern sense of it. Most people don't devote their lives to writing and thinking about the big questions in life or trying to compose music that hits closer and truer to whatever sort of soul, metaphysical or mental or emotional or otherwise, we might have, and most people don't run an entire war for reunification and have to deal with the question of the fundamental rights of an entire race and of all races.

So yes, for those that do, I consider them of higher and greater being and importance--but even better I consider that importance ACQUIRED, not earned through the blood, so really anyone can become a modern-day Sir Gareth and earn their knightly spurs in whatever field they wish.

I choose to believe that, that rather than saying "everyone's special" like this world of ever-increasing mediocrity loves to do, it seems, I PREFER to say "some people are GENUINELY special...and if I work hard and dedicate myself to it, perhaps I can earn my wings, too."

The issue with these "well it's Mozart we're talking about" kinds of things is that we only know Mozart was an amazing composer because he /was/ an amazing composer. Because that being an amazing composer happened already, it's over, it's in the past. There's really no reason that I can't argue that those ten regular joes you'd sacrifice for Mozart wouldn't have cumulatively amounted to more had you not killed them. Your argument is absurd, please stop kidding yourself. Counterfactuals as divorced from reality as the ones you propose are pretty worthless.

Actually I made that point, sir, that that COULD very well be the case.

But, as you just said, we don't know the future and so cannot treat of it, THEREFORE if I am given the choice to save someone I KNOW is already a great by the definitions of that I have given, ie, a Mozart, OR ten people who might become ten Mozarts...

The ONLY logical choice if I am to argue from my standpoint of greatness being my ethical deciding factor is Mozart, I cannot evaluate men for what they haven't done and to expect me to do otherwise is a fallacy.

So there IS a reason you can't argue that--it's IRRELEVANT unless you can somehow PROVE they will become ten Mozarts because, as you so astutely pointed out, we make decisions in the present and with the present and past to guide in that decision, NOT the future, so I can ONLY treat and evaluate these men as ten working schmoes and, as nice and honest and hard-working as they might be, I would via my argument from greatness place a Mozart ahead of them UNLESS you can PROVE to me with a time machine or something that they WILL be greater than Mozart collectively.

But even THAT idea of proving it via a time machine or some other means of revealing the future to me fails as, when you reveal the future to me, I experience or view that future and deal with it as the PRESENT.

The future is IRRELEVENT in these matters UNLESS:

1. You wanted to make the argument for possibility and potential--as you are doing--in the case of a baby vs. an old man, in which case we are still talking about a fallacy, ie, judging the baby as worth something in the future when really in the present it has no immediate value (assuming, of course, we're not short on population, but at 8 billion or so on Earth, I will assume that's not a problem) but in this case we're dealing with extremes, namely, the old man about to die and teh baby about to truly live, and so the extremety if the old man about to become the past and the baby about to make the future his and our present allows us to at least conceive of the possibility of a case where we might be justifed in going with the fallacy as arguing for future potential as a criteria in this ethical balancing act

OR

2. You wanted to challenge my ethical argument from greatness DIRECTLY and say that 1 Mozart is NOT any greater than 10 average workers instead of arguing THEY might become Mozarts as well, so to speak, and thus committing that fallacy of making an ethical judgment based on an unknown future and only the *potential* of something occuring. The latter is illogical, but if you have an issue with my valueing 1 Mozart or Einstein or Shakespeare above 10 workers, I'd be glad to hear that out, though I do feel strongly about this point.

So it's like when Riddled gave Batman the impossible choice of saving Robin or saving Dr. Chase Meridian aka Nichole Kidman. Of course, 007 would have plugged Riddled before he could pull the switch, but Batman manages to save both just as Kirk managed to solve the Kobiyashi Maru.

I don't believe in impossible situations, just unexplored potential solutions.

Dank Droid and its autocorrect. Riddler, not Riddled.

Damn it! Droid. Love it and hate it both at once.

Draugnar posted, "...My decision is to leave the forums until I hear that maple has been banned. I will continue my games and will play in the Leagues and the next round of the GFDT, but this is my final participation in the forum."
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At least try not to triple post, you fucking simpleton.

Re: Insurrection:
Well they didn’t need the planet, they needed the rings, and the procedure would make the entire planet uninhabitable and toxic. I liked Insurrection mostly because it was about standing up to “the man”.

Re: “The City on the Edge of Forever”: Good point. TOS had those emotions. But I still say they were as thoroughly explored as they were in DS9.

Re: “The Apple”: I loved your synopsis, but I actually did remember it. I didn’t like it that much though.

Re: Romulans: First of all, I hate Kant. Arguing Kant is a pretty surefire way to make me not agree with you. ;-) But I never said that it wasn’t manipulation, it in every way was. My point is that it’s much more a discussion of paternalism rather than a discussion of “ends justify the means”.

It does suffer from the second fallacy that you mention. But this is fiction, not real life, and it is presented as virtual fact that A. The Dominion is evil, and B. Romulus will fall to the Dominion if The Federation loses the war. If you don’t agree with A, you’ve never seen DS9, and if you don’t agree with B, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. That’s why I don’t really think it’s a fallacy to say that Sisko was acting in the Romulan’s best interests. And I could be wrong, but even though they didn’t start the rebellion until halfway through season 7 or so, the Cardassians still didn’t exactly love the Dominion.

And you could argue that the Romulan’s are the Federation’s enemies anyway, so they don’t have to be honest to them. But I’m not going to. ;-)

Re: 10 vs. 1: That’s awfully Utilitarian for a Kantian. :-P

Oh, and top five episodes?:
1. In the Pale Moonlight (DS9)
2. What You Leave Behind (DS9)
3. The Best of Both Words (TNG)
4. The City on the Edge of Forever (TOS)
5. The Measure of a Man (TNG)

That's a hard list to make. Can't believe I'm leaving off episodes like "All Good Things...", "Peak Performance", "Chain of Command", "In a Mirror, Darkly", "A Piece of the Action", "Worst Case Scenario", "Renaissance Man", and "The Way of the Warrior". I could go on, but those are the ones I most regret mentioning.

obiwanobiwan, your second to last post above was 5 1/2 pages long when I copied it to Word. For goodness sakes, get your life in order and stop wasting your life writing essays like that. I read the whole thing. You said almost nothing.

It's not a matter of clogging up the forums, I'm legitimately getting a little worried about you. You scrawl out the worst sort of post-modern pseudo-intellectualism and while that in and of itself is harmless, the amount of time you must spend crafting these posts can't be healthy. Go build a snowman or go out with your friends or do something else productive. Stop writing rambling essay with gossamer theses. While you think you're making some profound point for the ages, you are merely slowly dying in front of a glowing screen, you arguments largely ignored and unappreciated.

So join a Diplomacy game!

Really, obiwan, while I'm not exactly a utilitarian and certainly don't think morality can be reduced to a numbers game, and while I really despise these ridiculous counterfactuals and don't think they really add anything of value to our understanding of ethics at this point, here's a thing about your argument: Whatever a Mozart or Shakespeare's personal accomplishments /up to a specific point in time/, you really can't pull the "well it's Mozart" card because whatever great things that person accomplished, at the moment of choosing between this Mozart or those ten average joes, you have absolutely no guarantee that your Mozart's going to produce anything during the balance of their life, should they live it out. Consistency is a pretty basic part of a well-reasoned argument, you should try it some time. Or you could play a game of diplomacy like invictus suggests and stop writing essays stroking your own ego.

@invictus: "rambling essay with gossamer theses" - surely this description is enough to encourage more time not less.

If the essays can be made less 'rambling' and more in tune with the understanding of the 'common webdipper' then they would be better appreciated.

so it's almost a challenge for obi to write better.

I'm the first to admit i spend way too much time here taling a lot of bollocks. However i don't think i've ever proof-read anything or considered/edited posts, it's all just ramblings (and some ranting when i really get going...)

Not reading anything after the first two posts,

An interesting application of the "greater good" vs. the individual's rights could be racial segregation of private businesses.

On one hand, you have a racist restaurant owner who makes black people eat in the kitchen. Since he owns the business and the property it's on and everything in it, he has a right to do what he wants with what he owns.

However, he is mis-using and abusing his right by making black people eat in the kitchen.

So, should this policy of his be made illegal, since he is wronging others and creating a poisonous atmosphere in general, or should it be allowed, since, after all, it is his restaurant and one should respect his property rights while in it.

And yes, I would reccomend that you try condensing your essays, like say your main assertion in the first sentence, and then expanding on it from there.
There are better things to do with hours of your time than philosophy for only philosophy's sake. How about you try writing a book with all the opinions you express here on the forum? You certaintly have enough time, given the lengths of your essays, and, if you could sell it, it could help pay for post-secondary education.

@baums 'blacks guys in the kitchen'

1) humans are capable of discerning what is 'fair' (some animals have been demonstrated to be able to do this as well, social animals can use this ability to judge whether a deal is worth making, from simple sharing of a kill between weaker non-alpha males, to argueing about 'human rights' - ok only humans have developed this level of language, that we know of)

2) if a black person deems it unfair to be forced to work in the kitchen he can opt to eat elsewhere.

This hurts business so eventually only businesses which don't discriminate against their customers will be successful. (or with free movement of people all 'different' people will relocate to one another's geography... see the exchange of population between greeks and turks at the end of the first world war, when the ottoman empire fell, and a greek and turkish state were separately set up... This is an alternative 'stable' solution)

However the free market advocate says 'let people do whatever they will' and the markets will decide who is 'right'. Very simple, and in this case i'll side with the free marketeers.

*forced to eta in the kitchen* not forced to work...

Good luck getting this pseudo-intellectual narcissistic attention-whore to condense ANYTHING.

obi = Don King

Apologies to Don King, who is far more coherent.

"For that matter, if the only qualification for something being good or bad is one's opinion I'd have to say that officially is the death knell of any sort of morality, as by that logic, intended or not, a charitable donation may be seen as just as good as people burning crosses on lawns or ramming planes into towers or making a (failed) Holocaust reference and threat" - Essentially yes. And actually your 9/11 reference is the perfect example. I'm willing to bet that from the perspective of the hijackers 9/11 was a much more moral act than a charitable donation would have been. And for them that moral code was "real" enough in some sense that it actually caused them to sacrifice their lives to uphold it. Similarly the bible, (particularly the old testament) is filled with references to people killing all the men from an entire nation, and raping and enslaving all the women, and while we would consider this an atrocity and expect to see Sean Penn and Bono lobbying governments to intervene, the bible upholds these as righteous and holy events. Why has our perception of these events changed? Because only human beings exist to stand in judgment of morality, and the standards of what constitute moral behaviour have changed drastically in the past several millennia.

good luck not being a freak with nothing better to do than meta-criticise our attempts at actual discourse.

I'm glad to see you're around to set the average IQ below the rest of us.

Don't bite off more than you can chew, hall monitor......

"And actually your 9/11 reference is the perfect example. I'm willing to bet that from the perspective of the hijackers 9/11 was a much more moral act than a charitable donation would have been. And for them that moral code was "real" enough in some sense that it actually caused them to sacrifice their lives to uphold it. "

yes, and violence in the name of nationalism (instead of religion) has been used to justify the invasion of 'evil' empires before and since.

You just have to paint the 'evil' target on someone's head and it's a 'just war' - guess who painted the 'evil' target on the US and the World Trade Center? well i'll give you a clue, it was made easier when Trade became a tool of US foreign policy. And being the only superpower the US push their policy through where-ever they could. (not that any power has done any better/worse in all the years of human history)

But it's much easier to paint a target on someone who is bigger than you and willing to use that power.

True, but it was not my intention to turn this into a discussion about US foreign policy (we've had plenty of those.) I'm just layin' down some moral relativism.

Orathaic: maybe you've cribbed notes out of Rand Paul's playbook, but the thing is the government has an obligation to prevent discrimination in public places, and places that serve the general public are exactly that. If you want to open a restaurant that takes private reservations from your friends of whatever race or set of people you feel most comfortable with, and only from those people, then do whatever you like. But if something is open to anybody and everybody, then it has to serve anybody and everybody alike.

just expanding on your example.

how and ever, i do realise how torn i am today, between Picard idealism and the ever practical Sisko. On principle i like that kestas created a forum which is self-moderated. I think it is a perfectly acceptable form of self-organisation. Ideally people can act responcibly and not go out of their way to cause trouble (though we may say thigns which offend, this is usually in the context of a conversation/discourse)

On the other hand, i just want to ban mapleleaf for being an absolute ass. Practically it would be one small actoin which had a 'greater good' in terms of the results for the forum (but only from my limited perspective as a human who can't predict the future)

discuss.