Decisions of Kings and Presidents and the Moral consequences

[Stravo]

I know that the majority of this board is atheist or at least gives religion and its morality system scant respect but a thought came to me as I went over some of the things Bush has done over the last 8 years it got me thinking about something I never considered before.

Are Kings, presidents, leaders in general probably doomed to burn in hell or for the humanists and athiests out there can Kings and Presidents be moral men?

Let's back this up a bit. When considering the judaeo-christian moral construct and the rules of what gets us all into heaven and hell and comparing it to the repercussions of what leaders do to their populations doesn't it make it almost a certainty that they have committed grevious sins and are going to hell? Absent religious belief can a leader responsible for horrible decisions be a "good" or "just" person?

Take for example a leader who presides over an economic collapse. Millions of people go hungry, many lose their jobs, some die as a direct or indirect consequence of this collapse. The collapse happens because of your decisions or because of your inability to stop it. Doesn't this make you directly responsible for all that misery?

On a more direct level if you lead your nation to war are you not responsible for every death, every maiming, every crime committed in your country's name? You can say that each soldier makes his own decision to kill thus absolving the leader but doesn't this logic automatically absolve crime lords and other criminal leaders because their capos and soldiers are each responsible for their own actions?

Even a defensive war leaves you with blood on your hands.

I guess the heart of the question is if leaders whether on a national or city wide level have in the eyes of Christianity or morality in general either make it infinitely harder to be considered good or if there is some sort of executive privilege I've never heard about carved into the rules of morality for kings and presidents.

And if there is this executive privilege why would it be allowed for one man to be considered good with the blood of a nation on his hands and another evil for killing just one person?

Please any "hurr hurr Bush will burn in hell" comments are not welcomed nor wanted and simultaneously the empty of content "but religion sucks in general" statements also not helpful.

[Samuel]

Well, if you believe in absolute morality (certain acts are inherently evil), than the answer is yes. If you believe that the measurement should be more consequentialistic, than no, as long as the alternative person would have been worse.

[Melchior]

If you believe that the measurement should be more consequentialistic, than no, as long as the alternative person would have been worse.

This appears to be a rather weak argument: if the other person is a corrupt warmonger, while you are merely corrupt, your corruption isn't justified.

[Coyote]

I suppose it would depend on whether the President was part of the problem, or if the problem was thrust upon them by circumstance despite good efforts.

Let's face it, GW Bush is an idiot who botched his 8 years, but a lot of things that came to a head on his watch were not so much his fault as it was that he handled them incredibly poorly. The economy was probably on a collision course due to things that happened as far back as the Carter & Reagan era, and things like the Middle East are still reeling from things that happened post-World War Two in some cases. However, it doesn't help that when those problems came to fruition, GW Bush screwed them up worse.

So, to an extent, he is at fault, but to an extent, he's not.

As for the angle of "sin" and otherworldly ethics being applied, it would probably come down to whether a person felt that all sins were pretty much absolute, or if there were degrees of sin and one could commit a sin that would be forgiven if it meant a greater sin was avoided.

[Junghalli]

I think it depends on a couple of things. First, how are you defining morality, by intentions or by acts? Somebody can have good intentions but screw up and create immense suffering.

Assuming you define morality primarily as a matter of acts, I suppose it comes down to whether the consequences of your actions would have been better than the consequences of other actions you could have taken. For instance, you mentioned even in a defensive war you have blood on your hands. That's true, but the consequences of not defending your country by force of arms could have been worse, and if that is the case then I'd say your actions were justified, because you had no really good options and you simply took the best one available. This is what I tend to think of as the most practical approach to ethics.

[Kanastrous]

When I think moral man+White House I come up with Jimmy Carter.

[Rye]

There is such a thing as "least worst of" in humanist moral judgements. This would justify fighting a totalitarian regime, for instance, but not exterminating an ethnic group because you dislike their unibrows.

[K. A. Pital]

Kings, presidents, premiers can be moral, why not? You can weigh the good consequences of their rule vs. the bad ones, and make a judgement.

Utilitarianism provides a pretty good framework for that.

[Alyrium Denryle]

It is also worth noting something. A lot of ethical system assume that the actor in question can foresee the consequences of their decisions. This is almost never true. A country is a complex system and all even experts can do is make a best guess. Economics, foreign policy, some things are foreseeable some not.

When Woodrow WIlson created the League of Nations, he could not have foreseen that this, plus the treaty of Versailles would create a resurgent and very angry germany. Any politician can be good if they do the best they can with what they have to work with. The consequences might not always be great, but there is an important distinction to make between being a good person, and making the correct choice.

[inasilentway]

[quote="Stravo"]The collapse happens because of your decisions or because of your inability to stop it. Doesn't this make you directly responsible for all that misery? [quote]
Thats fallacious. You could say "The collapse happens because of your decisions or because you failed to stop it when given the chance," sure. But surely it is absurd to hold someone morally responsible for something that you acknowledge is outside of their control.

[Samuel]

It depends on wheter or not they bothered to check to see if the plan they were using was correct- if they didn't, they are culpable. Being in a leadership position requires that you insure that your planning is sound.