Right and wrong is determined through the benefits of one type of life against another. Living by what we today coin as "right" is more beneficial to any one man than living the "wrong" way.
Not beneficial to any one man, but beneficial to the whole only as it leads to a definite purpose. If it is only for one man, then morals still remain at their perceptual level. Now, back to the original topic, tell me why torturing prisoners to get information out of them is "wrong."
Note: Hitler did not "ditch" all morality and rationality - he merely had a different version of it than the majority of humanity and benfited from it in the short-term (hence why people followed his lead) however he eventually lost in the long term because of this postion.
He changed the ideas around, which is what counts. His followers lost faith in him because he lost the war; if he had won, they would all have followed his ethics. But I arguing against aldo's point there that these morals are "inherent" in people.
Without morality, and a sense of right and wrong, our society breaks down. At that point laws become nothing more than draconian chains around us: We no longer avoid doing something because its wrong, and rather because its illegal.
Correct, and that is exactly what is happening and will become much more pronounced in the future.
This leads to a loss of law and order because law is much easier to disreguard than one's concience.
And now tell me why it is so easy to influence masses to act like criminals rather than just having an iron fist of law enforcement.
You are attempting to argue against ideals that have kept you alive today and allow you to post the messages you post here.
I am afraid it is your postion that is futile.
I am not arguing from my own intuitive position - that is a capital mistake - but from a rational point of viewwith the objective of the whole continuing to discover knowledge.
Firstly, hitler was deranged. He was insane, and blamed his sufferings on hate figures - the Jews and Soviets. It wasn;t obvious enough for people to pick up on - but it was there. If he was 'normal', we'd have a lot more 'Hitlers'.
I doubt he would think so, and he would instead say you are insane. Who is right? Both and neither.
Secondly, he didn't convince people to disregard their morals. When Hitler came to power, Germany was in recession, and he offered them full employment - the killing of Jews came during the war, when nationalistic fervour ensured many didn't know, or chose not to believe. Some in the SS were press ganged, and terrified of their commanders, or the truly vicous ones.
You think that will account for all of it? He would not have been able to recruit the huge bands of officers. Besides, after Hitler fell, many of his previous admirers felt completely disillusioned; they said that their very minds very being controlled. Now, we extend this principle. The culture of today heavily dictates these morals, and so we all follow them without question, since we have been taught to believe that only this is right.
Suffice to say, to say that millions gave up their morals is wrong. Their morals may have been twisted by propaganda (also, the Church - traditional preserver of morality - had been outlawed), but the vast majority probably had no idea that jews, etc were being gassed.
The army officers all knew, and there were many of them. Heck, there was one incident with an SS commandant who was to oversee some medical experiments on some Jews, but when he was informed that one was actually not a Jew, he could not bring himself to do it. Just goes to show that the surrounding culture completely determines the morals, and they are thus not absolute.
Morals are essential to a group dynamic. It';s ignorant and god-damn idiotic to say otherwise - else we'd have no need for police, medical or fire sevrices (why help others?), we'd be killing each other (including babies that were too difficult to care for, or children that were irritating) without hesitation and every basic facet of human life would cease to function. no farming food for other people, no economy, etcetera. human life would cease to function, and we'd probably eventually die out. In fact, we'd probably have diead out as a nomad race, isolated and starving to death, thousands of years ago.
You are talking about things that morals
imply as a rational part of the civilization applied to certain area and then casually assuming that they must apply without exception to everything and everyone. Other conditons have changed and must be taken into account; instead, you follow it like a religion. People started helping others to get help in return, i.e. the mutual interest I spoke of earlier.
