The politics of responsibility???

DeVore

responsibility is like "time" in relativity. Everyone carrys their own measurement of it.
ie: You know what you know at the time of the incident. You know if that thing is going to be used for evil. You can fool the customs people and the police and everyone else but you are still responsible and to blame.


I dont care how much money you have invested or how many people you employ... if its wrong, its wrong.

Morals are easy to have if they are never tested. Anyone who is in business for themselves will tell you that they are constant tested if they have any moral fibre in their character.

DeV.

ps: If you hadn't banned Cork I would have.

therecklessone

Originally posted by DeVore


I dont care how much money you have invested or how many people you employ... if its wrong, its wrong.

I could not agree more. Morals are morals, and questions of commerce should not change that.

And apologies Dev, I was one of the earlier posters to quote minus reference to original poster. Sorry!

Morals are morals

please realise one thing. I hear alot of morals in these boards, but i hear them in the context of how people should lead their lives. There are two types of morals. The ones we receive from society as we grow up, live, & die. And the morals we create for ourselves, taken from our own experiences.

Ask the person beside you the morals he/she has, and in all likelyhood they'll quote the morals you learnt as a child/young adult. However dig deeper, and you'll find they have "morals" that might be greatly different than yours. In fact the personal morals we have might be a complete opposite of the ones we learnt from society.

Morals will in the end be different for everyone. Personally i don't have too many morals. Some are obvious (like don't bash school kids over the heads with baseball-bats), and others are less obvious. Some people find it immoral not to help the poor. Me on the other hand couldn't really care less.

Its part and parcel to the matter of perception.

Many arms producers, and users will have their own personal morals which encourage their production/use of weapons. Often their business will be a family enterprise in which case they have family/society to thank for their morals which support their efforts.

In the end Morals are just guidelines. They don't have any real bearing on the end result. Its up to the individual whether they follow what their moral code suggests.

Morals are morals, and questions of commerce should not change that

So in the end morals are nothing, and Business is Business.

bonkey

Originally posted by klaz
Where does the responsibility lie, in these cases?

Is it important?

Surely the important question is whether or not someone should be responsible, and (therefore) whether or not the situation should change in the future.

Everyone and their aunt knows that a complete attitude and legal change in the morning wouldnt solve the problems we will face for the lax responsibility we have exercised in the past.

What is important is that we recognise that we have been lacking in our responsibility, look at how to address that issue, and then look at addressing all the issues which have arisen as a result of our laxness.

As for the Swords/bows/crossbows in Ireland. Yup - you're right - you can get a license for them. Again - so what. I can buy a massive selection of high-grade steel and tungsten kitchen knives and use those without a license.

The issue is that some responsibility has to be shown, and the level of responsibility should be proportionate to the risk and the known (or likely) level of attempted regulatory abuse.

jc


jc

therecklessone

Originally posted by klaz

So in the end morals are nothing, and Business is Business.

Slightly disturbing to think that this should be a guiding principle for the conduct of one's life.

You mention, Klaz, a distinction between private morals, and those received morals which we grow up with, and live with every day.

I agree that in the private sphere it will always be nigh on impossible to agree on morals, but then that is to be expected. I may consider it immoral to be unfaithful, you may not. Lack of agreement between two people on private morality can affect one's life greatly, but it usually remains in the private sphere.

However, public morals, society's ethical guidelines, are what help shape our lives, limiting our personal freedom to an extent, but providing some benefit to individuals in what would otherwise be a chaotic world. How can a society decide on a series of laws for instance, without reference to society's ethical framework?

That said, society is not always right. Until quite recently sexual freedom was curtailed by the criminalisation of homosexual relations, and also by the prohibition on the sale of contraceptives. Our state, representing the moral views of the majority, was plainly wrong. It may be wrong again. However, without some framework governing our lives, what are we left with? The statement that "business is business"? Great...you won't object to me standing outside a school tomorrow, handing out free heroin to kids in an effort to get them addicted to the stuff then? Its just a business strategy after all. Or how about I take pictures of abused children and sell them online to paedophiles around the globe. By all accounts its a goldmine.

Of course, that would be plainly wrong. Immoral, unethical, whatever you want to call it. I couldn't argue that my business will be "will be a family enterprise in which case have family/society to thank for [my] morals which support [my] efforts." I have borrowed a quote from you there to help make my point. Getting back to DeV's point regarding Anthrax production, its plain that for now, the production of chemical weapons is plainly for one purpose only, i.e. to inflict massive casualties. So society could decide collectively that production of chemical weapons, having no purpose other than to kill, should be outlawed. In that case, regardless of whether you, or someone else, has identified a great business opportunity in Anthrax production, society on both the national and international level would be justified in stopping you.

Apply the same principle to all matters of international trade. It's not going to be easy, I accept that. Sometimes we'll get it wrong. And sometimes, in our zeal to do the right thing, we'll only make matters worse. But here's a few things I'm sure most of us can agree on...

1. Don't sell arms or weapons grade technology to Saddam Hussein.
2. Ditto for Robert Mugabe.
3. Don't continue to pour weapons and expertise into Pakistan and India, bearing in mind just how fragile peace is in the region, and the consequences of a nuclear exchange between the two states.
4. Don't sell weapons of war to states which have been shown to use them on their own civilian population. That means when Indonesia was butchering thousands of East Timorese, the UK really should have said "no way" to the sale of Hawk fighter-bombers to Suharto's regime.

Finally, apply the same principles to everybody. Don't ignore a regimes human rights record simply because they let "us" base a few bombers in their country.