Posted on 04/14/2009 7:32:01 AM PDT by annalex
There is also a contradition between reason and rationalization. Reason is an objective thing: reason and evidence can compel a conclusion which we, if left to our preference, would not have chosen. Rationalization, on the other hand, always serves preference.
It is called collateral damage, but it is intentional. To expect 5% civilian casualties, for example. Please call it whatever you want, but that is the way it is.
Sorry if I’m not semantically correct, but I believe you know what I mean. Please re-phrase it as you see fit, if necessary.
The word "intentional" may be too ambiguous. We might be able to avoid the ambiguity by using the words "directly intended" vs "not intended but foreseeable."
Let me give an example. Let's say you had to give a lot of people shots to prevent tetanus. The shots themselves are expected to be quite painful. This pain is foreseeable, but it is not directly intended.
Because you don't directly intend the pain, you'll try to minimize it as much as possible. If there's an alternative to the shot --- say, an oral pill or a transdermal patch or something --- you'd use that. If theres no alternative to the shot, you might give them a local anaesthetic beforehand, or a pain pill and an ice-pack afterwards, to minimize the pain. So, even if the pain occurs, it is not morally depraved for you to have given the shots.
However, if you were directly intending the pain -- say the people you're giving the shots to are prisoners of war for whom you feel animosity-- you'd do nothing to prevent it, and maybe even make it worse by saying and doing things that increase their fear and pain.
If you did this, then your act is morally depraved, to the extent that the pain was directly intended.
Same with collateral deaths. Say you intend air strikes against the train tracks going into Auschwitz. Say the train tracks are being repaired and maintained by crews of conscripts and Jewish slave labor. If you destroy the tracks you will foreseeably kill hundreds of members of these track maintenance crews. You may be morally justified in doing this if (1) You have a reasonable expectation that by doing so you will save many more lives, and (2 you plan the air assault in such as way as to minimize the exposure of the track crews, as far as possible.
If you carry out the air assault with a depraved disregard for the lives of the conscript and slave laborers, you have incurred moral guilt. But if you tried, within the limitations of the possible, to shield these noncombatants, then their foreseen but unintended deaths are not --- from a moral standpoint --- murder.
Forget the word games. I believe you know what I meant. If not, then there is no need for more discussion.
I’m sorry. It was good-faith attempt to clarify. I am disappointed that you think this a “word game”.
Certainly nothing to be disappointed about. We just believe differently.
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