Military Conscription - Page 3

On July 27 2008 12:43 BottleAbuser wrote:
The idea of justice must first be defined. Trivial? I don't think so. I don't know what the term means, myself. But it's pretty strongly tied to the idea of "fairness" which somehow involves the concept of "equality" and "reciprocation." How? Define it very clearly. Or completely ignore the definition if doing so ends up hurting your argument, and hope that the affirmative team doesn't bring it up.

Social contracts aren't the only way to justify conscription, as mentioned before. The utility of a larger military may, depending on what "just" is, justify a draft.

Your second paragraph is interesting. When can a country no longer ask a person to do something?

On July 27 2008 12:52 PsycHOTemplar wrote:

Well let's just say if I woke up tomorrow, and I got a letter saying Harper demanded I back my boots and go to Afghanistan, I'd tell him fuck off, I don't think we really need to be there. Canada isn't really in danger if we're not in Afghanistan... don't get me wrong, the work we're doing there is good but it's work done by volunteers. People who aren't there because of a social contract, people who are there because they couldn't afford schooling or didn't do well in school, so they decided the military was better than working at McD's and the honour and respect soldiers receive was enticing.

If I woke up tomorrow and I got a letter saying my country needed me to defend because we were being invaded by some crazy country that we could actually take... Maybe I would feel obliged to join the effort because I like Canada how it is. That would be social contract.

The thing is... most wars today are being fought without specific interest in the nation's defence of livelihood... they're being fought in the name of trying to be world police... Which I don't think social contract can be applied to with any seriousness.

On July 27 2008 09:41 DamageControL wrote:

I've somewhat researched the topic. Let's use the US as an example. The moment you turn 18 you are an adult. Society does not have to say: All right if you want to leave we'll pay for a ticked and you can go.
You leave, and admit that a state of nature is better than society.

On July 27 2008 12:55 BottleAbuser wrote:
We're not really talking about the hard realities here, we're just "theorycrafting," so let's go back to some of the stuff everyone seems to be taking for granted.

As mentioned in my previous post, must define "justice." You can base the rest of moral "rightness" or "wrongness" and how to tell them apart on this. Alternatively, define those other terms and get the meaning of "justice" from them. Anyways, must define first.

Also must lay down the theory behind what government is for. Personally, I think it's for utility, in the sense that a collective resource can be more efficiently used when directed by a smaller entity than the entire population. "Government by the people, for the people." Which is why when enough of the people are unhappy with the government, the idea is that they'll change it so it suits them. Hence the methods instated to change the damn Constitution itself.

Above paragraph was mostly an example. Your own idea of what government is for may vary; be sure to justify it (in a logical sense - do not confuse with idea of moral justness).

On July 27 2008 12:58 micronesia wrote:

The USA isn't an isolated society... if you are talking about society, you can do so generally. In which case, you are justifying drafts etc. for all countries. If you are talking in the case of one country, then you should say that you have the protection of your country, and in exchange give up some of your rights. I'll continue as though this is what you meant.

You claim that society does not have to say 'all right if you want to leave we'll pay for a ticket and you can go' but you do not provide any rebuttal for my claim in the prior post. How can you be responsible for having agreed to give up your freedoms by doing nothing? We aren't talking about a special situation you were placed in, such as when you get arrested. We are talking about being born and surviving in a specific place, which you have no control over. The most they can reasonably expect of you is to make a choice as to whether or not to give up your additional freedoms (and the government telling you 'feel free to figure out some way to leave the country' isn't an acceptable means of offering you a choice). I'm not saying the government has to do that though, so long as they don't force you to do things like serve in the military.

On July 27 2008 13:02 PsycHOTemplar wrote:
Depends if the countries consider each other part of the same society (even if they have different laws). They might be contractually obligated to protect each other, but really, that's how WWI got started, and I'd hoped we learned a lesson from that.

You're right, it's only a abuse of conscription I'm talking about. But when you bring of the topic, it's too easy to immediately assume the topic is about one's own country... It's perhaps wise to clarify that issue when you begin (and if you're debating, your opponents should know so they don't prepare arguments for something you don't intend to discuss).

On July 27 2008 13:13 BottleAbuser wrote:
I looked at the OP again. "Military conscription is unjust." That's the statement that the affirmative team is trying to prove, a blanket statement with no qualifiers. If you could show just one case where military conscription is "just," then you'd break their thesis and force them to modify their position or capitulate.

For utilitarians, a simple case of "No one wants to fight but then everyone will die; if 1% of the population is drafted then half of the drafted die in combat and everyone else survives" will work.

Maybe more tricky for deontologists.

On July 27 2008 13:07 DamageControL wrote:
They don't have to do anything FOR you, however you may leave the society, when you come of age.

Your getting into the specific social idea of government which is quite different from the general societ so...
The government has to provide you with your general freedoms, but in return for the ones you give up it offers you a society that is more or less preferable than not having a society at all. Feel free to disagree, but if its not then you may leave the society. Military conscription is actually one of the few things that are justifiable, so i dont know what you mean by "things like serve in the military" Even that is only justifiable when the society ITSELF is in danger. At this point in time, if we need troops to protect our very way of life, the life you have been enjoying you are obligated to protect it.

On July 27 2008 13:24 micronesia wrote:

"Things like serve in the military" meaning responsibilities you are assigned without agreeing to, other than passive ones that specifically protect those around you (such as you can't kill your neighbor for a dumb reason, or you can't rape him/her, but what you do in your house by yourself is your business). Your justification for the claim that we are obligated to protect the lives we enjoy (which the government helps provide) is that we are enjoying (benefiting from) them. I don't see that as fair. If I go to your house and capture the criminal that was in there without you asking me to, can I rightfully expect you to owe me service? I helped protect the society around you, and you benefited. But it's your call whether or not to owe me. The weakness in this example as I see it, is that you should reasonably expect the government to be protecting you in this manner all the time, whereas you didn't expect me to come to your aid. But you did nothing to prompt that knowledge, so you should be no more 'responsible' to the party that benefited you in one case than the other.

On July 27 2008 13:31 BottleAbuser wrote:
Deontology defines "good" as some sort of a fixed idea that's "out there." Kind of like the number 2. It's not in the actual universe, although it's embodied in things that do exist. (They call this the non-natural realm.)

How do we know this thing if it isn't actually present in the world? Deontologists propose a mental faculty available to humans known as "intuition." Which is why deontologists are also known as "intuitionists." Through this mental faculty (some laymen call it "common sense"), we inherently have a grasp of what "good" and "evil" are. But I call something good which you call evil. Who's right? NO CLUE. Which is why I prefer naturalism myself.

Alternatively, you can have religious ethics in which right and wrong (and the methods to tell them apart) are described in some sort of religious text such as the Koran, or designated by some other religious authority such as the Pope. Blech.

On July 27 2008 13:40 BottleAbuser wrote:
The social contract is somewhat weak, I think. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding it...

In a non-democratic society (which arguably the US is becoming, but that's another topic), one might have absolutely no say. The social contract argument just doesn't apply.

In a democratic-like society, well.... no one's ever told me anything about that. Certainly not before I was 18. I never signed anything or otherwise showed my consent. An unaware and unwilling population presents a problem for social contracts. Eduficating the population should probably be part of the obligation of a government that wants to use the logic of a social contract to get something from the populace.

On July 27 2008 13:54 BottleAbuser wrote:
Okay: Ethics 101 in 30 seconds time! Hopefully I won't misrepresent anything here.

Ethics is the process of determining what is "good" and what is "not good" (alternatively, "evil), and promoting this "good." Clear enough, but we don't know what "good" is.

Non-cognitivists assert that the term "good" has no actual meaning, that it is used to morally justify actions or condemn others (the meaning is what you make it out to be; anything can be good if you just call it good). Critics claim that such a definition would result in moral anarchy and chaos. Proponents claim that it is a resilient definition, and has no problems with explaining ethics historically. I must agree that non-cognitivism is impossible to break.

Cognitivists, on the other hand, assert that the term "good" has some actual meaning. Now, cognitivists are divided further into...

Naturalists, who claim that "good" is a natural property. This means that good can be characterized by things that we can see or do or touch -- things within our "known universe." "Pleasure" might be equated with "goodness." We can know what "good" is then, by sensory experience. Because we can sense and experience pleasure. (Not my definition, but it gives you an idea of what naturalism is.) Critics object that naturalism then reduces ethics to a science, as you can then quantify and measure goodness. Proponents assert that this introduces objectiveness and is conducive to the idea of "fairness," and also is less susceptible to deviants.

Naturalists then have a problem with how to characterize good. Because many proposed definitions yield scenarios that are labeled "good" but most people reject as a moral situation.

Non-naturalists, or deontologists, or intuitionists, on the other hand, believe that "goodness" is a transcendental property. Mathematical concepts are pretty much the only other thing that is also in the "non-natural realm," so you'll see a lot of explanations about "you can't see the number 2 or the idea of logical 'truth,' but you'll agree that it exists... somewhere. That's where 'goodness' is." So goodness is more of an idea. Problem: how to tell who's actually right? If we accept the deontologist's view, we still only know some part of what goodness is, we don't know what exactly is good and how to tell it apart from something that isn't good.

Deontologists understandably have to make a few more assumptions, such as "good is logical" and "altruism is good." From there, you can use logical arguments to build whole ethical frameworks. But you still need some more postulates for non-naturalism to be useful.