Destructionator XIII wrote:Seriously, D-XIII, I get that you're being sarcastic for the sake of trolling the thread. But there's trolling and then there's being nakedly stupid, in ways that reflect badly on the speaker even if he "doesn't mean it."
Do you have a consistent ethical system? If so, what is it?
You keep talking about the consequences of actions, which makes me think it's some kind of variant of utilitarianism. But, in utilitarianism, the means themselves are neither good nor bad. Only the consequences matter.
There is
nothing wrong with taking an issue hostage, even an important issue that can give you big leverage. Indeed, if doing so can lead to some greater good - like Senator McConnell and a lot of other people believed - it is the
right thing to do.
In the strawman-strict form of utilitarianism you describe,
getting your math wrong is a sin.
It really is that simple. If all ethics boils down to points scored, assuming that something is worth 10000 points when it is
in fact worth 10 points is not really forgivable, not if it leads you to cause -9000 points of harm.
This is important to understand. It's also one of the reasons why real philosophers have mostly advanced beyond the simplistic core of utilitarianism. Because the only ways to avoid the unforgivable sin of miscalculating when lives are at stake involve coming up with guidelines for action that secure you against a miscalculation.
As applied to politics, this is not a new idea- the idea that yes, important people should act in ways that, if they are mistaken, will minimize the harm caused by their actions. It's the linchpin of true conservatism, arguably, in the Burkean sense and not the right-wing-Jacobin sense.
This is the test that McConnell most blatantly failed. His actions can
only be justified if he is absolutely right in his political views. There is no room for hedging his bets, for misinterpretation, for going back and fixing things if he turns out to be wrong and this kind of tactics really does lead to a US debt default. Moreover, his behavior, even if he is right, shakes confidence in the US's good faith when it comes to the national debt- because he actively courted a default, by all signs being quite happy to let it happen. We're already seeing consequences of this.
To call it wrong, you've got to believe any one of these:
a) that refusing to vote for important legislation until you get what you want is wrong in and of itself. I'm sure you'd not be consistent on this though the moment someone tacks on pork for your district, or some rider on a defense bill for an issue you like or whatever.
I think that there has to be a limit to the use of this tactic.
If you use it for limited aims, as a way of forcing a majority to compromise
on small issues, so that your 40% of the legislature can get 40% of what it wants while the other 60% gets 60% of what it wants, that is not so bad. Especially not if, you really are willing to give in and let the bill pass rather than hold out until things fall off a cliff.
If you use it for unlimited aims, if you are trying for revolutionary and radical shifts in government policy, then yes, there is something deeply wrong with the tactic. Because you're not allowing a real public debate, you're not allowing for real compromise, you're essentially trying to shut down or bypass the democratic process- "screw my inability to convince the system that I should get what I want, if I don't get it I'll blow the place up!"
This is, in the long run, tremendously damaging- and I don't think McConnell weighed that damage into the "costs" side of his cost/benefit analysis.
That's the fundamental problem with "ends justify means." If the means are bad enough, they can have much worse consequences than the man on the spot is likely to realize... and they will not allow the moral agent to take back his bad deeds if the ends turn out not to be as good as he'd hoped.
Which is why rule utilitarianism and its descendants were invented. There are things you simply
should not do, because on average they turn out this way. Breaking the rule is usually a bad idea even when it seems like a really good idea.
"Yes, it may seem safe to ignore the worker's safety regulations because only an idiot would stumble into this particular pit of chemicals... oh look, there goes Bob. Yes, it may seem like it's more important that
I get this money
now than that the bank get to keep it for next month... robbery ahoy!"
And so on.
Mitch McConnell and the House Republicans broke rule utilitarianism in July 2011, and broke it hard.
Again, he believed he was working toward a greater good. If you were simply saying that you disagree with him as to if it's worth the risk or what is actually good or bad, you'd have a point. But, no, people in this thread are being outraged over the means and attacking their motives over it.
What I am saying is that it is not enough to think the ends are good, you have to have some kind of a procedure that offers you "I fucked up my calculations" insurance. Calculation alone is not enough, naive-simple utilitarianism is not enough, to provide a set of guidelines for ethical conduct. Especially not in positions of power, where the long term consequences of a decision can unfold and blow out of control so easily.
