A Kyiv court on Saturday ordered the house arrest of Metropolitan Pavel, a Ukrainian Orthodox priest who is the head monk at the historic Pechersk Lavra Monastery.
Pavel is suspected of justifying Russia’s invasion, which is a criminal offense in Ukraine. He has denied the allegations, saying he had “never been on the side of aggression.”
After a court hearing on Saturday, a monitoring bracelet was placed on Pavel’s ankle despite his objections. The allegations against him were made by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and SBU agents raided Pavel’s home.
The arrest is part of a broader crackdown against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The UOC has historic ties to Russia but denounced the war and cut ties with Moscow following the invasion.
The UOC’s steps weren’t enough for the Ukrainian government, as other priests have been arrested and sanctioned as part of the crackdown. Pavel’s house arrest comes as Kyiv is trying to evict UOC priests from the Pechersk Lavra, known as the Monastery of the Caves in English.
The Ukrainian government owns the Pechersk Lavra and claims the priests living there have violated their lease by making alterations to the historic monastery. But the UOC priests say the accusations are just a pretext to kick them out. The priests at the Pechersk Lavra have refused to leave, and it has been a few days since Ukraine’s deadline for them to be evicted.
This is a big mistake by Zelenskyy. Someone needs to explain to him the importance of religion in the lives of many Ukrainians. UOC Church members include patriots who are laying down their lives to oppose Putin’s invasion. Pavel himself and the Church have broken their ties to the Moscow Patriarchy and condemned the invasion.
The Ukrainian government needs to distinguish dissent against the Ukrainian government from treason. By all reports it appears that Metropolitan Pavel is not being charged with concrete acts of treason, but with thought crimes of which he appears to be innocent. Pavel appears to be a loyal Ukrainian patriot who is being persecuted in a political vendetta against his church. Very bad move bu the Ukrainian government. I hope Zelenskyy and his government walk back from this before the blow back hurts the war effort.
If they are arresting and detaining Priests, who else might be next?
Presumably a lot.
On pro-Russian sites, they are LIVID.
From a Ukrainian stand point, this makes sense as it substantially increases the odds of a major escalation between Russia and NATO
Ukraine is doing … whatever it takes … to provoke an escalation. Many in the US are rooting for them to succeed.
This plus depleted uranium increases the odds of an exchange of missiles. Hopefully conventional – though they pack quite a punch too.
I do not think you understand. This is Christial Orthodox Church of Ukraine — a chrch majority of Ukrainians belong. Besides Ukrainians, many other Orthodox Christians beling to it. Ukraine created a state mandated Orthodox Church of Ukraine — much, mych smsller. Zelenski wants to force. all Ukrainians to abandon their independent church and force then into State created one,
Zelenski hates Orthodox Christians and is more comfortable with West Ukrainian Catholics.
This is beyond bizzare. He has to accuse them of something. Being pro-Russian always works.
He is stsrting a religious war — sillly man. He may be chosen, but does not serm to grasp his own insignificance in the light of trouble he started.
So it would appear.
They are not!
Pavel is suspected of justifying Russia’s invasion, which is a criminal offense in Ukraine.
Smacks of our actions against citizens in the U.S. prior to and during our entry into WWI. The birth of our Espionage Act.
No it’s an individual charge, not a sweeping round up of people.
It is how it begins.
none of the other sweeping rounding up of people started with individual arrests for specific crimes so this is not how it has begun before at least not in the US as you compared it with. The US citizens of Japanese origin were not swept up following arrests of individuals of that group charged with specific crimes.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-american-incarceration#:~:text=the%20United%20States.-,Following%20the%20Pearl%20Harbor%20attack%2C%20however%2C%20a%20wave%20of%20antiJapanese,for%20most%20of%20the%20war.
“I charge you, as an individual, with being a dirty Jap, now get in the truck, we’re going to the interment camp”.
the point being that the US citizens of Japanese descend were not charged – but rounded up as a group – and thus exactly not a case where individual charges set of a motion towards more indiscriminate internment, but a case of this being the first action.
“They’re not arresting and detaining Priests! They’re only doing it because he justified russia’s invasion!”
You can’t have it both ways. Are they arresting priests or not?
What I said was not that they were not arresting priests, but that they were not arresting them on account of their job or faith, but because of allegations that they have committed crimes.
Actually, that’s not what you said at all.
the statement was
and your reply was
But even if you had qualified you statement (which you didn’t), you still wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, because no one cares about the official charge, they care about the substance of the issue.
It would have been very easy to make spurious charges to arrest people on, such as japanese people owning radio equipment which might be used in “signalling the enemy”, and indeed there were efforts to do just this in america, despite a total lack of evidence.
And isn’t this plainly the case with these priests? and I do say these priests because there have been more than one. The Zalenskyy government is claiming these priests have “justified russian invasion”. First of all, no they have not, this priest and all the other priest have all condemned the invasion. Second of all, even if they had, so? Did it hurt your feelings that he used mean words? Why should speech of any sort be outlawed?
Whatever the pretense, this is a round up.
The post I answered to was:
The implication being that Pavel’s only ‘sin’ was to be a priest!
My reply read the whole thing was:
So I stand by the reply they are not arresting and detaining Priests – they are arresting people suspected of having violated the criminal code.
The rest of your argument amounts to a Priest (or really anyone) can violate any of the Ukrainian laws and should not be arrested for being suspected for this behavior – i.e. the suspension of law.
1) If you want to make claims for other priests feel free to link to their cases.
2) They are arrested because they are suspected of crimes that is how laws work in general – i.e. you are arrested and then put on trail, not the other way around.
3) Freedom of speech is almost always restricted (even in democracies) when they face a foreign invasion
4) that Pavel have condemned the invasion does not prevent him from having justified it in other contexts.
No a round up is what happens when there is no specified charges – and likely will be no investigation of the individual cases – we are simply not there yet – we may get there, but you have not provided evidence that we are.
Yes, anyone can and many people should violate any law when the law is bad. Legality does not morality make. You should join the olympics with the enormous logical jump you just made there. That someone should violate bad laws means implies “the suspension of law”? really? Bad laws ought to be broken.
So? do you intend to imply that because an action is common it is good? People round up ethnic minorities and put them in internment camps, (even in democracies) when they face a foreign invasion. Does that make it good? Governments institute slavery (even in democracies) when they face a foreign invasion. Does that make it good?
Rights are universal. If they aren’t universal, they aren’t rights. The whole point of a right is to limit what others can do to you. If a government can violate any right whenever they go to war, all the more reason to start a war!
Ah, see, Waco wasn’t a round up, because they had a specific charge. Just burned down a compound of women and children but at least they had a claim that a crime was committed, so that’s great.
Having a specific charge is a bad standard. Is “being Jap” a specific change? sounds pretty specific to me. How about “speaking russian”? How about “preaching christian doctrine”? is that specific enough for you? because that is what the priests are accused of, preaching the christian doctrine that war is wrong and should be avoided, that one should love their enemy, do good to those that abuse you, to turn the other cheek, to seek to make peace. None of the priests justified russia, but they did condemn Ukraine implicitly simply by being christian and stating their beliefs. Pretty specific charge. This is a round up.
Indeed anyone can violate the law – only they do not get to decide if it is a bad law all by themselves, that bit is left to the law makers – if you happen to think that it is OK to sell secrets to the Russians then you risk being put in jail for espionage – you may find it a bad law but unless you can persuade your country men to change the government and the laws you do not get the final say.
What you are here arguing is that the individual should be allowed to decide which laws are bad and violate these laws – that is the suspension of law – as there are many thieves, robbers and rapists who all believe that they should have the same right as Pavel to decide which laws are bad and hence OK to violate – was that an argument that was too hard to follow?
Waco was not a round up – no one got to go to internment camps – it was a fight between a well armed group where there was a lot of collateral victims – but it was manifestly not a roundup – had the Branch Davidians not resisted there would only have been a limited number of arrests.
A specific charge has to be that named persons are suspected of having violated specific laws – so no being Jap, speaking Russian, preaching Christian doctrine is not enough and is not what they are being charged with, as none of these are illegal according to Ukrainian law, if they have branched out and are now preaching that it is a sin to resist the Russian forces and the Ukrainians have made this illegal then there is a specific charge.
while I could imagine that the Ukrainians would make it illegal to do this, that is not what they are being charged with – Pavel is suspected of justifying Russia’s invasion, which is a criminal offense in Ukraine – that is not the same as preaching to love your enemy.
that is a specific charge – there is a specific law and only the people suspected of having violated it are being charged – that is how law works and you do not get immunity just because you are a priest. What remains to be seen is if they get a fair trail, if they do not then you may have a point, as it stands you are arguing that some people should be above the laws, they personally or together with a small group find bad.
ah, so legality doesn’t mean morality except that it does because law makers get to decide what is good and bad.
yes and anyone with a brain sees that this is obviously the case. And this isn’t an ethical claim, this is an existential claim. You can’t possibly “not allow” someone to make their own choices. The best you can do is punish them after the fact. The question of whether that punishment is just or unjust is a seperate question from whether the act is just or unjust
So you assert but fail to prove. Violating a bad law doesn’t justify violating a good law.
I never said Pavel had “the right to decide which laws are bad”. Whether a law is bad or good is a fact completely independent of Pavel’s decisions surrounding it. If the law is bad, Pavel may decide to obey it and that would be morally wrong of him, because he doesn’t have the right to decide that it was good. If the law was Good and he decided to break it, that is morally wrong of him. Pavel isn’t “deciding” that the law is bad. The law is bad independent of him. It is only his choice to do what is right and break the law, or do what is wrong and keep the law.
Nor do rapists have “the right to decide” rape is good. Rape is bad regardless of the rapists opinions of it. Rape is also bad regardless of the opinions of lawmakers.
Suppose a women, raped by a man, pulls out a gun in self defense and kills him. Suppose further she lives somewhere it is illegal to kill in self defense. That would be a bad law. It is good to kill men attempting to rape you, “the law” be damned. I don’t think she has “the right to decide” it is good to kill her rapist. I don’t think the law makers have that right either, as you have implied. Anyone, law maker or otherwise, having the right to decide what is good or bad makes about as much sense as having the right to decide that two plus two is five, or the right to decide that the earth is flat.
The very fact that “bad law” is not an oxymoron implies this conclusion.
No, it was incredibly simple to follow, it was just a bad argument, because it was based on the lie that there is a “right to decide” what is good and bad and that this supposed right resides with “law makers”. Morality is either an objective fact, or it does not exist at all. There is no such thing as “subjective morality” that can be “chosen” or “decided” by anyone, lawmaker or otherwise.
It’s easy to pass laws against “being jap”, and it’s easy to name the specific people who are “being jap”. As a matter of fact, historically it has been illegal to be christian or to preach christian doctrine, and in this specific case, it is in fact illegal to speak Russian in Ukraine in many contexts, such as school. The very examples you’re giving of “not specific laws” are in fact laws that can or have been passed.
And the point about christian doctrine: my claim is not that the Ukrainian government outlawed “preaching christian doctrine”. My claim is that Ukraine outlawed “preaching peace” and that is christian doctrine.
No, this is a manipulation of my case. I don’t care if they personally think the law is bad. I don’t care if a small group of people with them think the law is bad. I care about whether the law is bad and this law is bad, and it is morally good for them to break this law, and it is morally wrong for Ukraine to enforce this law.
Law usually reflects society’s view upon some actions – a citizen has to abide by the laws the society he lives in has created or face the law – that is just how it usually works – you are the proponent of the right of the individual to pass judgement on the law – that path leads to anarchy as I tried to point out.
Most societies have rejected anarchy – I do not currently know of any place where a person can disregard the laws of the society because they seem bad to this person – do you?
Have I argued that a person was not or could not violate the law? All I remember saying was that they would then have to face the legal system.
Seeing as you would let the perpetrator (here a priest) decide on whether the law they break is good or bad, I pointed out that a rapist would then be equally free to decide that the law prohibiting that act was bad – and that is why I said that this would lead to the suspension of law – at least in the sense that if your argument is that society has no right to arrest or detain people who have violated the law as these people saw the law in question as bad – is that a hard argument to follow?
So we agree, Pavel broke the law and the Ukrainians (believing the law is a good law) have every right to arrest and detain him while they investigate the alleged crime – that is the conclusion of what you have said here (points I agree with btw) so now I’m a bit confused why you took issue with the Ukrainians applying the laws as they are supposed to in any country!?
So if no one gets to decide then the people are free to disregard the law (be it good or bad) – and we are back to anarchy.
1) Law is not morality though it often reflects society’s moral judgement upon certain acts.
2) If morality is an objective fact then there is very very little morality at all – e.g. most of the 10 commandments fail
3) Societies have had very different perspective on what was/is moral – is it that you claim that you now know the one truth – and all those many societies of yore were just knowingly amoral?
No it is not illegal to speak Russian in Ukraine, not in school nor anywhere else – what the law actually states is that Ukrainian is the state language – i.e. communication forms and paper work has to exist in a Ukrainian version. No one can be arrested for speaking Russia, it is simply not a crime.
No they did not they outlawed justifying the Russian invasion – you can preach all Christian doctrine without ever suggesting that the Russians were right to invade.
Only who gets to decide – so far all you have suggested is: the lie that there is a “right to decide” what is good and bad and that this supposed right resides with “law makers”.
Societies are built on people abiding with the laws, these are loosely based on the society’s view on what they consider to be morally right – that changes over time (no absolute morality or very little exist – as in you should try to avoid harming others) you seem to believe there is an absolute morality it is a position that I find hard to support without loads of caveats, and one that seems to indicate that we will have only very few laws or laws that are not based on morals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQL9onsCVyc
falsehoods upon falsehoods, again and again. Laws very rarely actually reflect societies views on some actions. Even in democracies, the vast majority of laws are not voted on by the voters, nor voted on by people the voters voted for. The vast majority of laws do not have popular support. A very small minority of laws, usually directly parallel to the ten commandments in some way, actually have popular support.
You confuse what is with what ought to be. That he must face the consequences of living in a disgusting or degenerate society makes no difference to the ethical actor. There is ethical behavior and there is unethical behavior. This is regardless of what the consequences will be.
Moreover, to suggest it is ok or ethical to abandon ethical actors because “he knew he had it coming” or because “that’s just how it usually works” is wrong.
All societies progress because there are law breakers who are proven to be good people. Martin Luther, Socrates, Lao Tzu, Jesus Christ, MLK, and on and on, where all law breakers whose moral virtue ultimately prevailed against a corrupt and degenerate law.
It is impossible to take away a person’s ability to judge the law.
And you have pointed out incorrectly, because you’re basing your argument on a lie. When Martin Luther broke the law, and germany seceded from what was effectively the catholic state, did germany become an anarchy? When martin luther king Junior broke the law, did america dissolve into nothingness and chaos? or does america still exist today? When Harriet Tubman broke the law escorting slaves to the north, was the result anarchy?
Breaking bad laws does not lead to anarchy.
Yes, that place is every place in the world. Everyone has the capacity to civilly disobey laws. There is nothing one can do to prevent it. What, will you make a law saying it is illegal to break the law? isn’t that redundant? How will that change anything? Everywhere has the capacity and the right to disobey bad laws.
agreed.
Wrong. My entire point is that wrong and right actions are independent of a person’s belief about the wrongness or rightness of the action! That the Ukrainians believe there law is good is no justification for them enforcing their laws. Do you think the Nazi’s thought their laws were bad? do you think slave owners thought their laws were bad? Do you think kingdom of Spain thought the inquisition was bad? Their opinion of their laws is no excuse to them, why should it be any excuse to the Ukrainians? Ethical behavior is completely independent of law, and law is no excuse for unethical behavior. Though they pass a law protecting rape, rape is bad, though they pass a law against self defense, self defense is good.
It seems though you claim to agree with the points, you have misunderstood where they point. If morality is independent of legality, as you claim to agree, there is no justification for Ukrainians passing or enforcing bad laws.
Wrong. No one gets to decide what 2+2 equals, and no one gets to decide whether the earth is round or flat. And yet people are not “free to disregard” the facts of the universe. It’s a false dichotomy to claim that either someone decides what is moral or there is no morality. There is a third option, and that is that morality exists outside of people and is objective.
Rape is wrong. No one can freely decide otherwise. In the absence of laws against rape, and the presence of laws against self defense, a rapist is not “free” to rape, and a woman with a gun is free to shoot him.
The purpose of laws is to describe morality, not prescribe morality. If the laws describe it poorly, those laws are bad laws. It is bad that those laws were passed, and it’s bad if those laws are enforced. One’s ignorance of morality does not excuse him.
No one! how many times must it be said? no one gets to decide! People may attempt to describe morality. And if they do it poorly, they are in the wrong. “But how do we know what to enforce?!” There never was nor ever will be any guarantee anywhere that morality will be followed. It us up to individuals themselves to do what is right, which will include reacting to other people’s wrong behavior. The Ukrainian government officials are reacting to what they percieve as wrong and immoral behavior. That reaction is in and of itself wrong behavior, and therefore it is my duty, and your duty, and everyone’s duty, to react to the Ukrainian government’s wrong behavior, just like the Ukrainian government wrongly concluded it was their duty to react to the priests.
Wrong. Societies are built on people abiding with ethical behavior (the natural law, if you like). That means following good laws, and breaking bad laws. That means Luther ought to rebel against the catholic church, that means slaves rebelling against slave owners, that means ML King rebelling against the US, that means Ukrainian priests rebelling against Ukraine. That is what societies are built on.
Laws change over time, and people’s opinions about morality change over time. Morality itself does not. Just like our understanding of mathematics expands over the millenia, and yet mathematics is an objective field full of objective claims, that do not change as our understanding of it changes.
Absolute morality either does or doesn’t exist. There is no “it kinda exists”, or “very little exists”. Can anything else in the universe halfway exist? Are you only partly in this universe and partly in non existence? The claim doesn’t make sense. That you admit there is “some” absolute morality means morality is absolute.
Indeed, there should be very few laws, and laws should all derive themselves in morality. There are no caveats. Why on earth should there be any of the following laws?
1. Salt Lake city: No one may walk down the street carrying a paper bag containing a violin
2. Utah: it is illegal to fish from horseback
3. Culpeper: No one may wash a mule on the sidewalk.
4. Richmond: It is illegal to flip a coin in a restaurant to see who pays for a coffee
5. Cheyenne: Citizens may not take showers on Wednesdays
The vast vast majority of laws ought to be repealed.
We have had laws against murder, theft, homosexuality etc. all based on morality – there are few laws that I can point to that are not actually at the very least influenced by current moralities – e.g. the legalization of homosexuality, gay marriage, making slavery illegal – I could go on, but really it is perhaps more interesting to get your input on what laws are not influenced by current moralities.
Who decide what ought to be???
Either you are now arguing that laws cannot be designed (no one have the moral right to decide upon the laws) or enforced as no one can judge which laws are bad. You either have to say who gets to decide on which laws get to be the ones governing the country or say how we are to judge which laws are bad and should not be enforced.
So are these the people who can grant us the laws and if so are we allowed to interpret them further or do we have to let anyone do what is not covered by these mostly long dead people.
You seem to suggest that there is no current people with the authority to make laws and if I understand you correctly no people with the authority to pass judgement on people who decide that a law is a bad law and needs not be followed. So how is anarchy avoided – I cannot see how laws get made or enforced in your society.
Actually Germany did descend into a protracted period of religious wars, but I’m prepared to ignore this, because the question which is most on my mind is: how was it decided that Martin Luther could brake the law while most everyone else had to abide by laws they saw as bad (e.g. homosexuals). Because the main reason that there might not be anarchy is that you assume that only one enlightened individual is allowed to brake the law – or how does it work – who gets to decide that a law is bad?
The issue is who gets to decide that the law is bad and is thus allowed to break it!?
There is the police or other authorities – the question was not if there was a place where there was no ‘criminals’ but if there was a place where there were no law enforcement.
So thieves have the right to disobey laws against stealing?
Once again without being able to point out the bad laws – this inevitably leads us to either
1) a society where everyone can decide for themselves whether they think any particular law is bad
2) a society where no one is authorized to decide whether a law is bad
No that is rather my point, you seem to think that there is some obvious way to decide on which laws are bad – is that the case?
Sure but once again who gets to be the arbiter of which laws are ethical?
Again this is unusable if we have no one who can decide if my morality or your morality is the right one – pedophiles would likely not think there should be an age of consent – who gets to decide that they are the ones that are wrong (I hope we can agree that they are), not so long ago the homosexuals had their preferences denied and are you OK with that change of what is considered morally justifiable?
You may believe it to be so but there are a lot of people who will disagree with you on what is or should be morally allowed and what should not – and you really have not yet made it clear who gets to decide/find that objective moral – as pointed out just recently (and many places still) homosexuality were considered amoral, and pedophelia still is – so the notion that this is objectively clear is not a stance shared by all.
I think I have made the point by now that you do not want to appoint / select anyone to judge what is the objective moral, and that there are people who disagrees on what is morally right and what is morally wrong (think e.g. abortion). is it really your stance that one side is objectively wrong and how do we get to decide on e.g. a topic like abortion where there seems to be plenty of people who disagree on what is the ‘objective’ morally right side.
See you have to have someone decide that they do it poorly – this is a quandary that you either do not see and/or have no answer to.
This is describing anarchy, using other words – in this scenario a pedophile will be able to claim that the law is bad and if you do not have neither enforcement nor anyone to challenge the pedophile’s perception of what is the objective morality of the act, then each man can claim his own version of the ‘objective’ moral – if he cannot then there has to be some arbiter of what that objective morality is.
For a person wanting an abortion that is the morally right thing to do, there are however many who believes that it is not – who gets to decide and if no one then there is no law and there is no objective morality.
I do not claim that there are some absolute morality, I claim that there are a few things that the vast majority of us can agree upon – at least for the time being – it has not always been like that and again you have to either find who gets to discover the objective morality and decide that others have to agree with that perception – or face that others may disagree and have a different perception – if you have no one with the authority to judge each man will be his own version of the law .
There is currently a law that all americans must pay farmers money to produce corn which no one will buy. This is called a “corn subsidy”. Almost no one thinks this law is based on the moral necessity of paying farmers for corn you aren’t purchasing. Even the benefactors of these laws would say they derive from moral law but they’d sure make some other argument about why we “need” to pay farmers money to produce corn we don’t want. There are laws against domesticating animals, though few people view it as immoral to do so. There are laws against producing shotguns with a short barrel unless they have a pistol grip. If you asked any random person on the street whether they though changing a shoulder stock to a pistol grip made a short barrel shot gun more inline with moral law, almost no one would answer in the affirmative. There are laws against keeping quail in your home; quail aren’t noisy, they aren’t messy they aren’t a nusaince, the don’t invite disease. No one seriously think’s it is against moral law to keep quail in your home. There are laws against producing insulin, a drug that saves the lives of diabetics, very few people think that is immoral to do. There are laws against producing a plethora of life saving drugs, or simply life improving drugs, which are pre-emptively outlawed.
Go read any city code, county code, state code, federal code, you will find a plethora of dumb laws that 1) no one in america voted on, 2) no representative in america voted on, 3) that have no basis in moral law. They are created by self appointed “experts”, more fittingly called bureaucrats. They aren’t altruists, nor are they uniquely intelligent. Their opinions have no more relation to the natural law than mine do, in fact they have considerably less.
Again, this is not my opinion, this is the opinion you wish I had, because it would be easier to argue against. Yes, laws are not designed or decided upon. It does not follow that nothing can be enforced, and it does not follow that no one can judge which laws are bad or good. I have repeatedly called on everyone to judge between good and bad laws, and good and bad actions and good and bad enforcement.
Lets go back to the math example. Really, the conversation would be so much easier if you though about this analogy and tried to preempt my responses. Then we could get down to the substance of the discussion, instead of wasting time with you accusing me of a strawman position.
Is it true that no one decides what math is? yes. Does that mean no one can judge between good sound logic and erronious logic? no.
“But if there is no central command dictating what math is, how do we know what it is?” Through reason, through peer correction, etc.
“But the peers don’t have a right to decide what math is!”
correct, they have an obligation to discover and communicate it, not a right to decide it.
“But what if the peers doing the correcting are wrong?”
All the more reason to have them be peers, not dictators. The must be reasoning and counter reasoning.
Funny, because earlier you said you didn’t know of any society that was anarchic, and now you say Germany’s religious wars count as anarchy. So which is it? I don’t really mind either way you choose, I just want to be consistent. Either there was a society that did actively choose to enter anarchy to come out the other side better than they were before, or Germany wasn’t an anarchy and conscientious objection doesn’t lead to anarchy. I don’t care which, you choose.
I make no such assumption of a singular enlightened individual, and all people must decide for themselves to break bad laws. I gave examples of “exceptional” people who started great movements, because they’re easier to identify. Had I given an example the obscure, it wouldn’t have made any rhetorical sense, but the obscure must choose between right and wrong as well.
Christ lead the way, but he was followed by many martyrs, James, Paul, stephen, and these other martyrs were followed by other law breakers, en masse, just as Martin Luther was, and as Thomas Moore was.
Who “gets” to is the wrong question entirely, because “gets” means there is some “allowance”. No body “gets” to decide for themselves which laws they “get” to break. But everyone “must” choose to break the laws they know are wrong. This isn’t any “hip hip hooray, I get to break the law”. If this is the impression you got, you’ve failed to understand the existential threat the ethical actor takes. They walk into the flames knowing they will be burned. They don’t “get” to. They have to! They are morally obligated to violate the laws of man to obey the laws of God.
Another problem: you ask who “gets” to decide which laws are good and bad and thus are “allowed” to break them. Who do you think is doing this “allowing”? Some government officials? if this is your answer, do you not see how this is circular reasoning?
I have already answered this question. If you don’t like my answer, you may address my answer. But it makes no sense to simply restate your accusation without adding anything to it. That’s not how reasoned discussion works.
Just to remind you, my answer is no, thieves do not have the right to disobey laws against stealing. But this has absolutely nothing to do with “the law” and everything to do with the “stealing”. Had the law been different, such that stealing was allowed, the thief still does not have a “right” to steal.
Everyone has a right to disobey bad laws. If you would like to conclude that this justifies stealing, you must first show that laws against stealing are “bad laws”, which you did not attempt to do, so your argument fails. Nor is it sufficient to say that the law against theft is a “bad law in the mind of the thief”, because as I have already stated, and you purported to believe, morality is independent of the opinions of anyone, including thieves. That a thief thinks a law is bad, does not make it so.
I make no assumptions on the relative ease or difficulty of reasoning out what the moral law is. My arguments don’t rest on any such assumption. Even if it turns out to be very difficult to conclude that murdering millions of jews is wrong, it makes no difference. If it is very difficult to conclude what is right and what is wrong, all the more reason to try very hard to discover it.
But since you brought up the question, I do think it is very easy to conclude murdering 6 million jews is morally wrong. I think it is very difficult to conclude the opposite. I think it is only possible to conclude such by first deciding what it is one wants, and then afterward imagining up some erroneous explanation as to why it is “good”. I don’t think rapists sit down trying to discover morality, and then conclude it is good to rape. I think they realize they want to rape, and afterward use motivated reasoning to justify their conclusions.
But again, regardless of the relative difficulty of discover what is right and what is wrong, right and wrong still exist. Calculus may be very difficult to understand, but that doesn’t mean whatever false idea creeps into your head is correct.
wrong, but very nearly correct. replace that “either” with “both”, and you’ve got it (apart from the pedantic. I would say everyone “can decided” for themselves, but if you are “deciding” what you think, rather than being dragged by reason to correct conclusions regardless of what you wish to be the case, you are behaving immorally. But again, this distinction is pedantic. Many people use “decide what they think” as a short hand for what I’ve described, and they don’t literally mean that their opinions are based on their whims, not reason. Long story short, if you mean they “decide” as a short hand for come to a conclusion and act on it, regardless of their personal desires, then you understand me. If you mean “decide” as in, they literally decide, then we don’t agree.)
(note also, the “decide” in your first point is the shorthand, but your “decide” in the second point is literally a decision).
No one, and there is no problem with this, and this doesn’t lead to anarchism.
If a police officer arrests you for theft, he is behaving morally, and he doesn’t claim to be an “arbiter” of the law, and he doesn’t need to be an arbiter. He just needs to be behaving morally. When the judge examines the evidence, he doesn’t need to have authority to decide which laws are good or bad, but he must conclude for himself (not decide, conclude) whether an action is good or bad, specifically his actions about how to sentence you. If you stole and the evidence shows this, his moral action will be to demand you restore what you stole, and to apportion a just punishment. The jurors must conclude and act out their conclusions on what they think is wrong and right, and so on.
And when Ukrainian officials decide they must arrest priests over things they said, if I conclude that behavior is immoral, it is a lie for me to claim or imply otherwise. It is a lie for me to stand idly by. It is immoral for me to justify other people’s wrong behavior on the basis that it is in accordance with their law.
to claim this information is “unusable” without a central authority makes no sense. Really? you can’t act at all without someone else there to tell you what is right and what is wrong? This is the most usable information of all, because is specifically rejects that one would ever have to wait on another’s decision. You have the capacity to reason, don’t you? then you have the capacity to act on that reasoning, and the conclusions you make.
No one can decide what is right and wrong, but it is easy enough to use one’s reason to discover it. You don’t need the conclusion delivered to you from someone else. You can discover for yourself that murder and theft are wrong, and once you do, you don’t need to wait around for other people or some central authority to agree. You are now capable of acting morally in the world.
no one gets to decide, but we all must conclude
One does not hope for something one believes to be fantastical. Is there some reason you think “we can agree”? perhaps you think, I, like you, don’t base my opinions on my whims, but on reason, and there is some reason some fact independent of either of us that clearly shows pedophilia is wrong? I have rejected the idea that any man can “decide” what is right and wrong, so there is no other way you and I could have come to the same conclusion that pedophilia is wrong except by reason. Doesn’t this show we don’t need someone else to tell us pedophilia is wrong?
Not true, actually. Homosexuality has been legal in most western countries for a very long time. In france, it was legalized in the 1700s, and america the 1960’s. the vast majority of the population of america has never lived in a state where sodomy was illegal.
I don’t mind people’s opinions changing. I do mind the claim that their opinions changing implies the underlying reality changed as well.
So? there were Greeks who believed all numbers were a ratio of integers, and there were others who disagreed with them. And yet, only one position was correct. I don’t care if others disagree with me. I also don’t care if it turns out I’m wrong about some things. One thing I do know is that there is only one reality, and it doesn’t change from person to person or place to place. Either morality exists and is objective, or it does not. There is no subjective morality.
On the contrary, that people’s opinions changed implies they though the previous opinion was objectively wrong, and the new one objectively right. If they thought it was subjective, there would be no need to change it, because there is nothing wrong with the old one. The people who fought to legalize homosexuality may have professed subjectivism, but they clearly thought the old view was wrong, not just “a different equally valid morality”.
first of all, so you assert but fail to prove. Second of all this begs the question, what’s wrong with anarchy? is there something objectively wrong?
Who said anything about no enforcement? The pedophile may claim his rape of a child was justified, but his claim is not likely to find purchase. People have the capacity to reason, and the police, the judge, the jury, etc, if they are trying to follow the moral law will condemn him for it.
In fact, it’s just the opposite of the way you’re portraying it. Suppose the people didn’t care at all about what was right and what was wrong, and only cared about “the law” as in the laws of men. Then a rapist very well might get away with it, if the laws are such that it is allowed, the pedophile too. Your search for some “solid ground” to stand on has led you away from what is objective an unchanging, reason, towards what is actually subjective, the laws of men, which change with every wind of doctrine, and more!
It isn’t society following natural law that has an enforcement problem; it is societies following the laws of men.
I could explain a very significant number of those law’s origin in what was the moral at least at the time the laws were passed, but importantly I am perfectly willing to accept the notion that there are at any time lots of laws which are no longer enjoying support from the current electorate based on their morals. But lets not waste time on that, the subject is too interesting/important to derail with such minor details. I’m prepared to accept that there are likely many laws with no apparent moral justification.
But rather than spending time on subjects that the overwhelming majority of us can agree upon try to resolve the current issues that there are very substantial disagreements on like e.g. abortion and discrimination
I’d argue that:
1) all people should be borne with the same legal rights (I hope you agree!?)
2) people have the legal right to bodily autonomy (as long as it does not hurt others)
Depending on ones interpretation of what constitute ‘others’ it follows from1 and 2 that:
a) abortion is either legal (a fetus is not an ‘others’) or
b) abortion is illegal (a fetus is an ‘others’)
If you believe in b, then the law discriminates against women capable of getting pregnant.
If you believe in a then you are getting into the quagmire of how late is it OK to have an abortion
It is here important to notice that if we have made abortion illegal then we have likely also made it illegal for pregnant women to exercise extreme sports or decide to do drastic diets – i.e. we would be curbing their rights to harm the fetus by a lot of different ‘activities’.
PS btw:
I have not indicated that I believe morality is independent of the opinion of anyone – only that there are some concepts that we are more likely to have a higher number of people agreeing with (i.e. have the opinion that they are right).
The application of ethical thought to specific laws isn’t really relevant, though that discussion may be intriguing. whether abortion is ethical or not, people are going to use reason to make their cases. That presupposes that morality is a “thing” that can be “discovered” via reasoning about it. Whether abortion is immoral and allowable, immoral and unallowable, moral and unobligatory, or moral and obligatory, isn’t really the point. It will be one of those four cases, and it will be that regardless of your opinions about it.
If morality was not a thing that existed outside of one’s self, there would be no purpose in using reasoning to attempt to persuade one’s opposition. After all, the fundamental nature of morality would be subjective. There is no reason outside of one’s self at all!
The fact that you presented an inductive logical case about the morality of abortion shows you implicitly believe morality exists outside yourself, i.e. is objective, not subjective, and can be discovered through reason.
Indeed, everything you have said indicates you believe morality is “whatever the government says it is”, despite explicitly saying the seperation of legality and morality were “all points [you] agreed with”. Funny how what one professes and what one indicates can be wildly divergent.
You have also claimed morality is subjective, but insist that a society devolving into anarchy is somehow “bad”, rather than just “it depends on the preference of the people”.
It seems like you want it both ways, morality is objective when you want it, and subjective when you want it.
Why would you bother trying to persuade anyone, as you pointed out there would be no one with the authority to judge what was moral or not and anyone could thus claim that their way was the moral way.
If you cannot apply of ethical thought to specific laws then ethical thought isn’t really relevant – so either you say that there is an absolute moral ethics or there is not in which case it will be up to man (i.e. usually the government) to interpret what they believe the laws should be according to their interpretation of ‘morality’.
Or to put it in a different way – if it is as you claim it is as clear as math – then you have to be able to apply this objective science to just some of the morally issues we face.
And for the record I claim that moral is not objective, but there are issues which a majority of us may regard as fairly clear – which is a completely different position.
If there is no one with the authority to judge then I can break whatever laws I find bad – and you have to prove to me that they are not or let me go free – as you advocated for the priest.
“Why would you bother trying to persuade anyone when you can’t make your arguments an appeal to authority?” maybe, just maybe, because reason, logos, is not ethos?
Yes, anyone can claim whatever they want. You are also free to claim the earth is flat. You aren’t likely to convince anyone. “Why would you bother trying to persuade anyone that the earth isn’t flat when there is no authority to judge whether it is flat or not?”
Let us have Thomas Moore answer:
Anyone can claim anything they want. That doesn’t mean we must believe them. I can call dunces dunces without permission from any authority.
Indeed, I can apply ethics to laws, and this is what I’m doing, saying Ukrainian law is unethical, and this is what you’ve objected to. It is up to you to prove that ethics is irrelevant, not me.
yes, and I’ve made my position on this topic quite clear.
THAT is an absolutely nonsensical statement. If morality does not exist, then there is no “interpretation of morality”, kinda like there isn’t any need to skin jackalopes, on account of the fact that jackalopes don’t exist. You don’t “believe the laws should be” anything if the very concept of “should” and “shouldn’t” refers to something that doesn’t exist.
If objective morality does not exist, we don’t conclude that governments and their actions are “good”. We conclude that nothing is either good or bad. The Ukrainian priests couldn’t have possibly done anything “bad” enough to “justify” the government’s response, because “badness” and “justification” don’t exist. They’re just pretend made up words, like jackalope. For that matter, there’s nothing “bad” about Russia invading Ukraine, nothing “bad” about Putin killing journalists, nothing “bad” about rape or pedophilia, nothing “bad” about anarchy.
actually, the one does not follow from the other. It is a provable fact that there is more truth than can be derived logically (see Godel’s incompleteness theorem). But to the extent that somethings are logically knowable, yes, you can “apply objective science” to it. But that is tautological, as “objective science” and “logically derivable” are in this case synonymous. You might as well be saying the logically derivable is logically derivable.
But I fail to see how this is a point in your mind. I think you misunderstood an earlier comment of mine, that it’s specific application to an ethical question is irrelevant. I didn’t say that it was irrelevant whether it could be applied on not. Whether reason can be applied to ethics is both obviously correct and incredibly relevant. What is irrelevant is the conclusions the pursuit of reason brings us to. Whatever the conclusions are, we used reason to reach them, and that implies morality is objective.
It may be a different position, but it is a nonsensical position. This is like claiming “Hey, I don’t think math is an objective field of study, but also, there are some mathematical questions which a majority of us may regard as fairly clear”.
It begs the question, what is fairly clear about it? if ethics is not objective, there is nothing for our opinions to be “fairly clear” about!
That’s a dumb standard I never advocated for. If you rob me, I don’t have any obligation to prove to you that your actions are in the wrong. I am ethically justified in using physical force to detain you and restore the stolen goods. I have no obligation to let you go free.
What I advocated for the priest is not that the Ukrainian government first justify their arrest. I advocated that the Ukrainian government not arrest him in the first place because it is an immoral law. Whether they explain their reasoning or not is irrelevant. The only relevant thing is whether the law is ethical. If it is unethical, then it cannot be correctly derived from reason, so any explanation must be inherently wrong. If it is ethical, it can be derived from reason, but it doesn’t follow that this derivation must be given. This is a ridiculous rule you made up because you thought it would make my position look bad. But it doesn’t, because that’s not my position, it’s your imagination.
I would not according to you there is no one with the authority to judge that is the point, if there is no one to be the arbiter of what is a good or a bad law then no one needs to convince any one – they can all individually claim that they have decided that the laws they broke were bad.
Only you have also said that there would be no one to judge and no one to codify the moral ethics which like Math would be objective – yet you could not explain how the moral/ethics would apply to the first dilemma I could present you with.
If the moral/ethics is like math then there will have to be mathematicians or here moral/ethics philosophers to find it and reason out how it is the be implemented in laws – and then some one to judge – otherwise there is as i pointed out no reason for me to persuade anyone as I can claim to be like the priest and be guilty only of breaking a bad law for which I should face no penalties.
Yeah, so? what’s your point? who cares if morons can claim moronic things? Ethical actors can still retaliate.
wrong again. I would not, because it is irrelevant to the discussion. Whatever the conclusion is, the fact that it is a conclusion rather than a decision implies morality is objective. Why do you keep dodging? can’t you attack the argument head on?
there are, and they are called ethicists.
yes, yes correct, you’ve almost got it.
NO! NO NO NO NO NO! How can you be so clueless? Is there a central command, a judge in mathematics? Is there someone who definitively declares what mathematics are good and which are wrong? NO! People’s arguments stand or fall on their own merits. If someone makes a bad argument, it does not convince.
That you can claim something false is irrelevant. Are you likely to persuade anyone? If your claim is true, you are likely to persuade, if it is false, not so much. Really, why are you so concerned that stupid people may claim stupid things?
Lets go back to the priest. Do you think it is ethical to kidnap people who say things you don’t like? perhaps your neighbor. Can you make a cogent argument as to why the priest has done something wrong that isn’t an appeal to authority? (specifically the authority of the Ukrainian government)?
It is easy to make appeals to authority. It is hard to make arguments that stand on their own.
How can ethical actors retaliate – are you not then now exactly describing the anarchy I said you risked?
If there is a conclusion then present it, because the interesting part is what follows i.e. the debate over which of the objective moral ‘laws’ trump other objective moral ‘laws’ – and when – you weasel out of addressing the clear indication that there are dilemmas because it does not fit the narrative that there is an objective moral stance.
So there are what effectively corresponds to law makers – and just to be clear you do know that ethicists disagree on many things (like e.g. abortion) and that they disagree on the idea that there is objective morals!?
Only I knew that ethicists disagree and that they would therefore not provide basis for a clear legal foundation for any state or many laws.
My claim is that morals is not like math and that there are far more dilemmas in ethics than in math – and again if there is no one to judge then I can always claim that I murdered some person because I felt threatened by that person – you seem to live in a different idealistic world from the rest of us.
I fail to see why ethical retaliation leads to anarchy, except when the government does it. Do you not see how this is circular reasoning? If you define anarchy as “when people act rather than government”, and you say “anarchy is bad”, then you aren’t “concluding” that government is always ethical, you are defining government is always ethical.
The alternative view is that ethicality and legality are distinct orthogonal dimensions. Governments can be either ethical or unethical. Counter government can be either ethical or unethical. Rather than defining government as good, one has to actually argue why it is good. And it may be, and often is the case that some government is good. But you have to make that argument. You can’t just assume because it is government it is good, and if it is not government, then it is bad.
No, because ethicists do not claim to have the right to force others to accept their conclusions. People accept or reject their conclusions based on their reasoning, so it is not analogous to law makers.
So? mathematicians disagree on many things too. Does that mean we can’t use it?
When the cult of Pythagoras was presented with the proof that irrational numbers existed, it was such heresy, they killed Hippasus of Metapontum. georg cantor was very harshly criticized for his “cancerous” transfinite numbers. What is more controversial than John conway’s Free will theorem? Mathematics is very much a field of disagreement.
but even so, the fact that there is more or less disagreement in a field does not imply the field is therefore subjective. That’s a completely foundationless assertion. I wouldn’t care if mathematicians always agreed 1005, and ethicists were at each other’s throats, it does not imply the field is subjective.
First, whether there are more dilemmas in ethics does not imply in any way that the field is subjective. That’s an implication you made up and does not correspond to reality.
Second, you are again using reasoning, implying there is a “thing” to be reasoned about. Whether morality is subjective or objective is itself an objective question!
in our government dominated world, you can still claim this. There is nothing the government can do to stop you from falsely claiming self defense. So this isn’t really an argument at all because there is no difference between the two cases.
Ah, I’m “unrealistic”. It’s just “unrealistic” to think that rape and theft are objectively wrong. Really, just anything should go because it’s idealistic to think some things that do happen ought not happen.
You’re again confusing what is with what ought to be. I couldn’t care less if the world were twice or thrice or a million times as violent or degenerate as they are now. What is cannot define or imply what ought to be. Even if murder were the most common thing in the world, yet murder would still be wrong.
If there is no one to judge then each man is left to interpret the laws as he sees them and to violate the ones he thinks bad. If others ethically retaliates then others again will see their acts as bad and ethically retaliate against them and so on and so forth. That is how anarchy starts – the issue is that you have assigned no one to judge other than the individuals and left the laws fairly unclear as defined (only) by moral philosophers.
I’m concluding that governments which enjoys the support of their electorates have the authority to make the laws, subject to approval from the Judiciary, and to provide for the enforcement of the laws through the police.
That does not imply that what they decide is ethical – unfortunately – just that it meets with the approval of the electorates. It is far from a perfect system, but so far better systems have failed to prevail.
to whom does one make those arguments – there is no one to judge if your arguments are sound and thus if you are ‘justified’ in disregarding the laws.
As stated I do not, I only make the argument that if it is a government democratically elected and acting according to the constitution then anyone disregarding the laws that the government has decided upon is in opposition to the electorate – they may have a good cause, if so they may try their luck at the next election, but breaking the law is probably a bad start of such a campaign.
I agree with you that ethicists make no such claim, which then leads us to the situation where there are no agreed upon laws or morals – these are left up to the individual observers as you put it people can accept of reject – and that is anarchy.
I see little purpose in debating a very abstract science like math when debating a sociological topic like morals, ethics or laws.
But with much less dramatic consequences for the wider society when they do disagree – as the thing they decide about does not govern how everyone else is supposed to interact – as laws do – I know that you can mention many examples of math having influence on our daily lives but few of them at the level of making it legal or illegal to kill an other human.
It rather does if those disagreements can not be resolved – there cannot be an objective truth if it cannot be decided upon – or to put it a different way even in math there is not always an objective truth: see Gödel’s incompleteness theorems
The way I use anarchy is to reflect the situation where each man decides on the law he thinks applies or should govern the society – and when you state that the ones who can debate the what is moral or ethics do not need to agree and that no one can judge if a particular action was in violation of the law (or if the law was bad) – then that sound very much like this kind of anarchy.
That I say we can debate morality does not imply that morality is objective or subjective, just that we can debate it, as in we could debate morals of abortion without me agreeing to there being an objective truthful answer to the question.
nuns?
Maybe?…
Bit of an existential crisis in Ukraine right now, so yeah some of the normal rules of democracies maybe a little bit suspended. Meanwhile over in Russia a man was arrested because his grade school daughter drew an antiwar drawing with crayons.
“Pavel is suspected of justifying Russia’s invasion, which is a criminal offense in Ukraine.”
“The law could make it a crime to simply call the war a “war” — the Kremlin says it is a “special military operation” — on social media or in a news article or broadcast.”
Two peas in a pod.
It is beyond me how “right wing” thinkers can view themselves as being pro-religion with the stance some of them take on war.
To be clear, I am very much a right winger. I’m just less inconsistent.
See what we get for our taxes? Again, I say this is not the business of the American people, but unfortunately the uniparty makes it their business and we pay for it in blood and taxes. If those two countries want to fight it out? let them.
You know your on the right path when along the way you start arresting priests. Is that a war crime or just something extremely nafarious? Maybe Zelensky will do a bit of a jig to celebrate?
He’s a beast; https://youtu.be/UkmI1BHAr8I