The objective standard for right/wrong / good/evil upon which all moral/ethical judgments are made
They were wrong. It was not justified. Just because someone believes it doesn't make it so. Same as with scientific / historical facts. Whether they thought Lincoln was the first president or they thought it was right to fly the plane into the building. Both equally wrong.
And what if 9/11 stops the United States from starting another war in the future which would have otherwise have killed 500,000 Muslims? Would that make it right?
A net 500,000 dead increase over the number who would have died otherwise? That's a reasonable argument that might justify the 9-11 attack -- worth considering, analyzing, crunching the numbers.
However, it's not true that the 9/11 attack stopped the U.S. from doing that. I.e., it's not true that 9/11 saved a net 500,000 lives later. I.e., it's probably not true. Who knows? We don't have the absolute truth. But probably 9/11 did not reduce the future number of lives to be killed. It's highly probable it increased the future lives to be killed, but that's difficult to calculate.
We have to do our estimating, or guesstimating. So their act was wrong, based on the probabilities.
Is a US pilot dropping 60,000 pounds in 108 bombs from 20,000 feet upon a country on the other side of the world, evil? How many Americans would agree? How many Vietnamese would agree?
A similar number were killed in Korea. But millions of Koreans today are better off than they would be if we hadn't done it. It is difficult to weigh all the good vs. bad consequences, but that doesn't mean we can't know what's right/wrong in many cases. It was probably best to drop the big one on Japan, to end the war and save more lives overall. There can be disagreement, but that doesn't mean there's no true answer. Just because it's difficult to calculate the correct answer doesn't mean there is no correct answer.
And what if 9/11 stops the United States from starting another war in the future which would have otherwise have killed 500,000 Muslims?
Highly IMprobable that 9/11 did anything to reduce future lives killed. More likely increased the later number of lives to be killed. I.e., the NET number.
I noticed that you refrained from stating whether US pilot’s actions over Vietnam were evil or not. Work on those true answers…
It's difficult to calculate. Some good was produced by the U.S. action. It prevented Ho Chi Minh from ever taking complete power and imposing his land reform program, which probably would have resulted in a few million peasants being murdered, like Stalin and Mao, who were both idols of Ho Chi Minh, and whose farm program he wanted to imitate.
So if he was on a trajectory to follow their example, which he said he wanted to do, then it's a good possibility that the overal U.S. action produced a net good result.
There is an objective standard. It's because there's an objective standard that everyone agrees. The agreement is based upon the objective standard.
There is nothing that "everyone" agrees about regarding right/wrong.
Yes there is. I.e., 99% or 99.9%. That's a sufficiently-close approximation to "everyone" for this purpose.
Anyway, as you think that "there's an objective standard that everyone agrees" to, then please show us a copy of it.
An objective standard which everyone at least practices, and largely agrees to in terms of how they prove this is right and that is wrong. They probably don't like this wording, but they do calculate right/wrong in each case based on this:
Whatever produces the greatest net sum total of desire gratification in the universe, to all sentient beings -- and net sum total of pain avoidance -- is always the right course, or is a good thing to do.
Or anything preventing the above is always wrong or evil.
That's the objective standard for good and evil. And everyone follows this standard, when deciding what is right/wrong or good/evil, even if they say this is not the standard.
Shouldn't be hard at all in the modern electronic information age.
This was the standard thousands of years ago.
I'll keep asking you this now, until you either retract your silly declaration, or until you discover the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I'm beginning to see it out there.
Likewise, murder is not wrong because people believe it's wrong -- rather, people believe it's wrong because it is wrong.
Try defining some that appears to be as concrete as one can get, aka murder, so that even 98% of the people would agree with the definition, and find out just how porous your idea of objective standards are.
OK, so let's abolish all the courts and the criminal justice system and prisons and police. When you agree to that, then you can claim there is no objective standard to criminal prosecutions and punishments.
I’ve noticed that you have quite the habit of thinking about issues in binary terms; and then trying to force the person debating you into adopting your hypothetical opposite binary position. It would be like someone being silly enough to argue that since one does not worship their God, then they must worship Satan. Kind of silly isn’t it? Nothing in my comments, or I dare say any comments by others on this thread, have suggested that there are no ethical standards by which we naturally socializing humans organize ourselves. To argue against the notion of the existence of a definable objective ethical standard set, does nothing to negate belief in subjective ethical standards as established by society.
You didn't answer the question whether you favor keeping the court system, and law enforcement system.
If you favor it, then can you give a reason why?
If not, then the only answer is that we are keeping it because to abolish it and have no court system and law enforcement system would eventually lead to a net reduction in the total desire gratification and to an increase in the net total pain/suffering to all sentient beings who would be affected by abolishing it.
