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Well, near as I can tell...
I was drawing it from the message of 22:15 25.05.04 - where the key underlying issue is some assumptions about the nation state. They appear to be implicit in the way you are phrasing the questions.
That's about the nation state. Essentially, sdv's position is that everyone else has some sort of emotional attachment to the nation state, showing that their arguments are based on emotion rather than reason. I don't believe that there is much evidence to support this contention, but YMMV. Perhaps we are swayed by the status of the NS as the dominant form of government, although whether that remains the case is debatable...
But I agree let's pause the issue... and agree to work on the work on the basis that: "..we can identify that actions performed by transnational entities (empires and otherwise) can be morally *significant* and work from there." The main transnational code - that is the convention was created during the late 1940s and originally signed in 1950. This is critical as it is a treaty that emerges out of weakness, defeat, failure and not out of moral supeiority and purpose. In other words the 'white man's burden' is not correct given that it emerges as a consequence one European state using what were commonplace colonial tactics (perhaps) for the first time on the mainland of Europe.
This is back to the European Convention on Human Rights. sdv has taken the phrase "the White Man's Burden" a little literally here. In fact, I think one problem we are having here is that, whereas I am talking about, for example, Iraq signing up to transnational codes in order to resist imperialism, and I thought that sdv was as well, since he mooted the idea in the first place. sdv appears here to be talking exclusively and specifically about one set of transnational codes, which have only to my knowledge been applied in Europe. You see the problem.
You said: "Now, having no wish to put words in your mouth, could I assume that your position on this is one of consensuality? Where a is voluntarily submitted to for a further, emancipatory end, b is imposed? We then get onto issues like circumcision (for which see circumcision thread), and the extent to which a is the morality of the shires made acceptable through a lack of alternatives..."
What I'm not clear is how why the difference of 'by transnational entities' and 'through transnational entities' is meaningful (are you thinking in terms of utilitarian or postmodern ethical positions ? Singer or Bauman ?). Is it not sensible to assume that we exist in a moral society ? In the sense of an event being judged against a pre-established standard, the 'standard' being of course a site of struggle.
No idea here. Singer, writer of "Practical Ethics", is a utilitarian moral philosopher. Zygmunt Bauman believes that postmodern morality is a moral without absolute ethical structure. Why they are being brought in here I am not sure, but might explain subsequent confusions. I'll leave that to Deva, if I may.
The example of 'circumcision' is particularly dubious because people often confuse the empirical abuse of the child with morality and choice - in that the act of inscribing and marking the power of the parent on the child and the childs subsequent submission to society/culture, which cannot be justified ethically or politically – this is I suppose merely to repeat that the empirical facts are completely irrelevant. (Deleuze/Guattari's wonderful statement in AO about children, parents, foreman and judges springs to mind...)
Probably best to leave this one substantively in the "Circumcision" thread. I was flagging circumcision - where a transnational entity might ban as cruel or non-consensual a practice which is a part of the national (ethnic, cultural) group's culture and practice - as an area where an "altruistic" action performed by a transnational entity might straddle the position of "good" transnational entity (The UN?) and "bad" transnational entity (the American Empire?). sdv has instead presented an answer *to* the question, but I'm not sure whether that means that an imperial power is acting morally if it forbids the practice of circumcision within its field of empire, despite that field of empire being a categoric injustice, for more on which see below. AO is shorthand for "Anti-Oedipus". Not sure about the statement offhand: the best I can think of is:
In the aggregate of departure there is the boss, the foreman, the priest, the tax collector, the cop, the solider, the worker, all the machines and territorialities, all the social images of our society; but in the aggregate of destination, in the end, there is no longer anyone but daddy, mummy, and me, the despotic sign inherited by daddy, the residual territory assumed by mummy, and the divided, split, castrated ego..
sdv is very kindly assuming that we are far more familiar with the texts than, certainly,I am, which unfortunately has the no doubt unintended impact of hurling my ignorance into sharp relief. As mentioned, I would hope over time to prevail upon him to explain these things rather than simply scattering them as gifts to children, but perhaps the aim is to refresh our desire to learn...
My position is not founded on consensus – rather I understand philosophy to be an activity that is co-extensive with activity in the world itself. To rework this assuming A (morality voluntary submitted to) or B (moral positions imposed upon us), the difference is not relevant. The difference between case A and case B is only of interest if the specific moral imposition is oppressive. But note that even here it depends what the moral and ethical issue may be. Because my understanding of the realm of philosophy is co-extensive with activity in the world itself – I am including both the Human and the Non-Human as being of concern here, the Other is not restrictable to our fellow humans (assuming you are human of course). In which case an 'emancipatory end' cannot be considered as emancipatory if it is founded on the unjustified oppression and exploitation of the non-human.
Although this is answering a question I don't think I exactly asked, it is where the beef is. The problem I am having here is that previously Steve has dichotomised imperial power and the power of transnational codes and entities - identifying as a good thing the codes contained in the ECDHR, for example, while identifying empire as (absolutely) wrong. However, this is now coming up against the idea that, actually, if the result or the position is moral (however we are defining moral, which is another question), then the imposition of that result or position is also moral.
Let me clarify this: in this society legislation to stop factory farming of animals and fish, to prevent the ownership and production of SUV's are impositions that would be morally and ethically correct. Whereas the current practice of denying voting rights to non-citizins is plainly arbitrary and not morally correct.
Now, let's take this back to where this discussion began, in Iraq and the obeying of orders. Clearly, by this model, "I was only obeying orders when I drove an SUV/factory-farmed an animal/denied voting rights to a non-citizen" will be as invalid as a *moral* defence as "I was only obeying orders when I tortured that Iraqi prisoner" is invalid as a *legal* defence. And, one assumes, in a perfect world (as I tried to establish earlier) moral and legal would be the same thing, as they are in the ECDHR, and thus that the hand would close on the shoulder of the moral/legal infractor. However, then we get back to empire and transnational codes. Is "empire" just a term here for transnational enforcement we don't like, if the consent or otherwise of the individual and by extension the state is not morally significant? So, if the Iraqi nation-state, if we can hypothesise a free, independent Iraqi nation, decides that it wishes to factory-farm or indeed torture, it is the right and indeed the moral duty of those transnational entities that enforce international legality/morality to prevent that? If so, in turn, what is *immoral* about the prevention by force of the depredations of the Ba'athist regime? Is it the means by which the aim was achieved? If philosophy is "co-extensive with activity in the world itself" (and I don't think anyone is claiming otherwise...), then where is the philosophical and thus actual validity or invalidity in invading/placing under sanctions/pressuring another nation to forestall morally wrong actions, whether one is transnational entity (a) or (b)?
Or, to boil it down a little further:
When is an empire not an empire? |
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) as we are looking at it through a contemporary 'lens'.