The Hogman question.

[NameIess]

55 minutes ago, CameronUluvara said:

I find this as distasteful as most Western systems. Why should anyone's guilt be judged by the skill of their lawyer? But all systems are flawed. Really, this whole debate is unnecessary, as the differences between systems hardly matter (in terms of human behavior) as long as it's consistent.  

I'm curious as to what you mean by this. Why do the differences hardly matter as long as they're consistent?

[Pathfinder]

9 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Did you leave it outside knowing that it would be stolen, with the intent for it to be stolen? I would find it hypocritical for you to complain about that thing being stolen, but the person who stole it still did something wrong.

Let me ask another question:

Would it be right to leave something outside and then hide near it, waiting for someone to come along and steal it so you can beat them up?

In any part of your example, did you antagonize the thief? Did you coerce them? No. So you did not make them steal. That is the issue I am commenting on.

3 minutes ago, CameronUluvara said:

You can't equate that; we're talking about intent.

My point is we aren't. The killers had no way to know jasnahs intent nor what's in her mind. Jasnah does not have mind control abilities. So jansahs intent has nothing to do with making the killers commit a crime. She didn't do anything to make them do anything. Which is why I am continually perplexed by the statement that she made them attack her.

[NameIess]

Just now, Pathfinder said:

In any part of your example, did you antagonize the thief? Did you coerce them? No. So you did not make them steal. That is the issue I am commenting on.

So you believe that it would be right to take any actions towards the thief that would be right if they had, for example, stolen that same item off of your porch right in front of you?

[Frustration]

Just now, Nameless said:

So you believe that it would be right to take any actions towards the thief that would be right if they had, for example, stolen that same item off of your porch right in front of you?

Do you mean. "If you found a thief who didn't see you you could rightly take any action against them you could if they had stolen right in front of you."?

[Pathfinder]

3 minutes ago, Nameless said:

So you believe that it would be right to take any actions towards the thief that would be right if they had, for example, stolen that same item off of your porch right in front of you?

Personally i am not commenting on right or wrong. What I am commenting on is the statement that jasnah caused the evil men to do evil. Which is why her intent doesn't matter. Whether she was gleefully picturing mutilating the men or thinking of pink fluffy clouds doesn't change the actions those men took. She could have plotted getting a new pencil prior and it would not have changed their actions one bit. That is why I can't wrap my head around the idea that some people believe she caused them to attack her.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Pathfinder

[NameIess]

8 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Do you mean. "If you found a thief who didn't see you you could rightly take any action against them you could if they had stolen right in front of you."?

No. I'm asking if the fact that you placed something where you knew it would be stolen and then lay in wait with the specific purpose of causing physical harm to whoever stole the thing changes the morality of defending your possessions.

8 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Personally i am not commenting on right or wrong. What I am commenting on is the statement that jasnah caused the evil men to do evil. Which is why her intent doesn't matter. Whether she was gleefully picturing mutilating the men or thinking of pink fluffy clouds doesn't change the actions those men took. She could have plotted getting a new pencil prior and it would not have changed their actions one bit. That is why I can't wrap my head around the idea that some people believe she caused them to attack her.

Yeah, I agree. I think Jasnah was wrong to do what she did, but her actions weren't enough to mitigate the men's guilt in attacking her.

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Nameless said:

No. I'm asking if the fact that you placed something where you knew it would be stolen and then lay in wait with the specific purpose of causing physical harm to whoever stole the thing changes the morality of defending your possessions.

No, I don't think it does.

[Pathfinder]

4 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Yeah, I agree. I think Jasnah was wrong to do what she did, but her actions weren't enough to mitigate the men's guilt in attacking her.

I respect that is your beliefs. My follow up is just to clarify one thing.

Not commenting on whether it was right or wrong of her to do what she did. I believe that to be a separate discussion.

Also I am not ascribing "guilt/innocence " or trying to ascribe blame.

 

The only thing I intended to offer commentary was the idea of her walking down that alley wanting to kill those men, caused those men to attack her. Which I am stating is not the case. Nothing she did in that scene constituted provoking or causing those individuals to attack her with lethal force.

 

The only reason i even used the word evil, was because that was the word employed in that post. 

So just wanted to clarify that. Thanks!

[Experience]

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

No, I don't think it does.

If there was a law that you couldn't kill a bear unless it was in self defence, would you think it was okay for someone to go and agitate a bear by taking one of it's cubs to the point where it tries to attack them and they then kill the bear?

[Pathfinder]

5 minutes ago, Experience said:

If there was a law that you couldn't kill a bear unless it was in self defence, would you think it was okay for someone to go and agitate a bear by taking one of it's cubs to the point where it tries to attack them and they then kill the bear?

I am responding to this because it illustrates the point I am trying to make perfectly. 

In your example, you actively antagonized and harassed the bear into taking an action. In the Jasnah example she did no such thing. So in the bear situation you caused it to attack you, while in Jasnah's situation they chose to attack her.

[NameIess]

24 minutes ago, Frustration said:

No, I don't think it does.

Interesting. I think that it does change things, at least a little bit, but to each their own.

[Frustration]

11 minutes ago, Experience said:

If there was a law that you couldn't kill a bear unless it was in self defence, would you think it was okay for someone to go and agitate a bear by taking one of it's cubs to the point where it tries to attack them and they then kill the bear?

The men were never provoked, and are the ones provoking a responce.

[NameIess]

As interesting as the Jasnah's morality debate is, we already have a thread for it, and this isn't it. Let's refocus the discussion focused on the hogmen question.

To that end, I'll pose another hypothetical. Would it change your response if instead of the dead man being a hogman, he was instead a king?

[Experience]

17 minutes ago, Frustration said:

The men were never provoked, and are the ones provoking a responce.

Yeah I'm not asking about the Jasnah situation, was wondering what your thoughts are for this one.

[Frustration]

4 minutes ago, Experience said:

Yeah I'm not asking about the Jasnah situation, was wondering what your thoughts are for this one.

If you are provoking the attack then its on you.

6 minutes ago, Nameless said:

As interesting as the Jasnah's morality debate is, we already have a thread for it, and this isn't it. Let's refocus the discussion focused on the hogmen question.

I'm with you on that.

6 minutes ago, Nameless said:

To that end, I'll pose another hypothetical. Would it change your response if instead of the dead man being a hogman, he was instead a king?

No, I wouldn't change my responce, other than maybe assigning men to watch them to make sure they aren't killed.

[NameIess]

Just now, Frustration said:

No, I wouldn't change my responce, other than maybe assigning men to watch them to make sure they aren't killed.

What if it was the king of a foreign nation, one potentially hostile to you?

[CameronUluvara]

1 hour ago, Pathfinder said:

In any part of your example, did you antagonize the thief? Did you coerce them? No. So you did not make them steal. That is the issue I am commenting on.

My point is we aren't. The killers had no way to know jasnahs intent nor what's in her mind. Jasnah does not have mind control abilities. So jansahs intent has nothing to do with making the killers commit a crime. She didn't do anything to make them do anything. Which is why I am continually perplexed by the statement that she made them attack her.

Because it's about Jasnah's intent, not the killers. She walked out of her palace and went to find men to kill.

 

1 hour ago, Nameless said:

I'm curious as to what you mean by this. Why do the differences hardly matter as long as they're consistent?

That is a very very long answer that can be partially summed up to "as long as the laws are known and applied consistently, the region will be peaceful and the people happy, regardless of what the laws actually are." Any other explanation would best be moved elsewhere, because it's really long.

16 minutes ago, Nameless said:

As interesting as the Jasnah's morality debate is, we already have a thread for it, and this isn't it. Let's refocus the discussion focused on the hogmen question.

To that end, I'll pose another hypothetical. Would it change your response if instead of the dead man being a hogman, he was instead a king?

You may find my answer immoral, but yes. The response would have to be different if a king were killed. Now the response should be a very public trial, and a very public execution. Of all four of them. Name one the leader, pin the whole thing on him, and call the other three accomplices. You have to do this for the good of the country. It's a way of reasserting your might, and discouraging war and future assassinations. Your citizens have faith in their safety again. As for the one innocent, his life is forfeit anyway. If the country sets one free, somebody's going to kill him. There are plenty of people who aren't going to care if he was ruled innocent if there's so much as a hint that he was involved in the monarch's death. So let his death be for a purpose, and give him a quick death. Order in the country does far more good than potentially sparing one innocent.  Disorder and anarchy are always more dangerous and cause far more harm than an imperfect system.

[Returned]

3 minutes ago, CameronUluvara said:

The response would have to be different if a king were killed. [...]

Do you consider there to be any difference, even a potential difference, between something being morally right and something being practical or useful? Or, put another way, is this a moral deliberation or an amoral deliberation?

[CameronUluvara]

Just now, Returned said:

Do you consider there to be any difference, even a potential difference, between something being morally right and something being practical or useful? Or, put another way, is this a moral deliberation or an amoral deliberation?

Well, of course, but outside of the practice of religion, the debate of morality is impossible. And yes, innate morality or Immanent Will are for the purposes of this argument religions.

[Returned]

Just now, CameronUluvara said:

Well, of course, but outside of the practice of religion, the debate of morality is impossible. And yes, innate morality or Immanent Will are for the purposes of this argument religions.

Well, I certainly disagree with those (particularly that discussion of morality is impossible). But I'm not looking to get into it, just asking your view.

[CameronUluvara]

3 minutes ago, Returned said:

Well, I certainly disagree with those (particularly that discussion of morality is impossible). But I'm not looking to get into it, just asking your view.

Well any religion’s morality essentially boils down to ‘it’s moral because my god said so’ and then it becomes proving the existence or power of one god over another…anyway, we could judge this by Roshar’s religion if you wanted. 

[Returned]

16 minutes ago, CameronUluvara said:

Well any religion’s morality essentially boils down to ‘it’s moral because my god said so’ and then it becomes proving the existence or power of one god over another…anyway, we could judge this by Roshar’s religion if you wanted. 

I have no such desire, as I feel it irrelevant (not unlike you, though for different reasons). But the concept that ethics and morality can only exist if they come down on high from a deity (a claim which, itself, is far from airtight), or exist in the framework of a "religion" (quotes to underscore that you define that loosely here) is one that I totally reject.

It may be hard to establish what the terms of discussion are, but that just means that the discussions are difficult, not impossible. The perspective you present here is a variety of nihilism, which I both reject in its own right and view as a degenerate philosophy (particularly as it's deployed by most everyday people who espouse it). If that's the basis of your interpretation of the dilemmas presented here then that's implicitly rejecting that any action can be moral or immoral; the concept simply does not and cannot apply. There's no room for discussion of the thread's topic to be had, as the amoral frame preempts any other elements.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Returned

[Frustration]

48 minutes ago, Nameless said:

What if it was the king of a foreign nation, one potentially hostile to you?

Then I'd hand the men over to that nation as the crime was commited against them.

[Pathfinder]

37 minutes ago, CameronUluvara said:

Because it's about Jasnah's intent, not the killers. She walked out of her palace and went to find men to kill.

Her intent did not place them at that alley. Her intent did not arm them with those weapons. Her intent did not move their bodies to approach her. Her intent did not lift the the guys arm holding the knife. And her intent did not drive the knife towards her chest. 

Jasnah cannot control their minds or their bodies. They are not purely ruled by base urges. Even animals have been shown to resist base urges. So Jasnah's intent has nothing to do with the actions those men chose to take.

[NameIess]

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Then I'd hand the men over to that nation as the crime was commited against them.

So you'd deny an innocent citizen their right to protection against foreign authorities?

Edited April 28, 2022 by Nameless