[Kilroy_x]

Originally Posted by devonin

The killer is responsible for killing the pacifist. The pacifist is responsible for choosing to stand there and be killed.

OK. But from that, how does the statement "Anything the killer does with the pacifist's former property is legitimate" follow?

That doesn't imply that I have to take an equal amount of responsibility for each thing though. I have more responsibility for the content of this post than I do for the genocide in Darfur, and unless there was a reasonable way for me to know in advance that the genocide in darfur was coming, while I could say that I bear some responsibility for the ongoing consequences (Because I could, in fact, take steps to affect them) I would definately say I bear -less- responsibility for the act itself.

Why is this relevant? Posting here has no moral character. Taking action to prevent genocide in Darfur or, according to you, enabling it by not taking action, both have moral character.

Sure should. I'm well aware of the consequences of my position.

Then what are you doing about it, and how is it optimal?

You said "So then, can you explain to me why you think moderating a forum on FFR is superior for the world to, say, signing up with the peace corp?" And my response was "Of course not, that's a ridiculous claim to try and back up, and I never once made such a claim, so saying 'explain why I think X' when I never said "I think 'X'"

Wow, you don't understand how examples work. The point is that you need to provide a justification for your actions given all possible actions which shows that no possible actions would be superior to take. All that matters for the example to work is for the first piece of the comparison to be some action which you do take, and the second part to be some action you don't.

I'm not telling you that at all. It seems to me that for a person to know precisely the full extent of their skills and attributes, know the best way they ought to be applied, and then spend their entire life doing nothing but applying those skills in the best way possible, they'd have to be pretty close to being without flaw, and entirely self-sacrificing.

Where does -precisely- come in? Part of your skills and attributes is your ability to gauge your own skills and attributes. So the question is, knowing yourself to the best of your ability, knowing the details of the world to the best of your ability, and possessing the moral intuition that you do, can you tell me that you think what you are doing now is the best thing you can imagine doing?

I'm perfectly willing to admit that there are more optimal ways I could be living from a "make the world a better place" standpoint, but as I'm just as flawed as everyone else, no, my actions are not entirely optimal.

Imperfection is beside the point. If there are ways which you know of that you could better be of service to the world and you aren't doing them, you are a hypocrite. There's always the unknown. Your commitment to a superior state of ontology ends at the limits of your epistemology, but it is still actual.

That only has to be true if I intend to actively take the moral high ground and accuse other people of failing to live their lives properly.

... I'm amazed by the proximity of this and the next sentence, because they're very revealing taken together. Yes, hypocrisy tends to prevent a person from taking the moral high ground. Generally hypocrisy is undesired by itself though.

I can suggest that I consider a system optimal, and not currently be following that system. We do that all the time. We know what an optimal diet would be, and we still eat junk food. Doesn't make the diet less optimal.

If a person has made a commitment to an optimal diet and fails to meet it, they are internally inconsistent- i.e., hypocrites. The issue isn't just that you consider something optimal, it's that you consider inaction action, so you take partial responsibility for everything suboptimal.

Maybe the plain vanilla terms are preventing this from sinking in. You are saying that you consider yourself personally responsible, in some measure, for every preventable death, rape, and theft in the world. You are saying that you know of a way that would result in some finite amount less of these things, but choose not to follow this way. You are saying that whatever is not prevented by you, can be blamed on you.

So, how on earth do you claim to have a clean moral slate?

The whole point, as I mentioned above, is that while distasteful and potentially dangerous, it is still a view held by a fairly large number of people. So whether it is or isn't valid, it is still worth being described, and objected to, and reasoned against, for the same reason that while we may never convince a racist that their view is absurd, it is still worth it to spell out publically all the obvious objections to the practice.

I would rather argue with a real racist. The possibility that a real racist might be watching me argue with a fake one is neither particularly tangible nor unproblematic.