I'm with you on this ... there's sovreignty and there's humanity, and they are on different maps :-)
A country that decides that it is ok to have sausages that are less than 75% meat and chocolate and icecream that contain vegetable fat is not a case for sending in an army (well, depends on the chocolate!).
A country that decides it is ok to kill every baby darker than a certain skin tone, that's different.
And then you get the problem ... where is the moral dividing line? If a country seriously believes that life begins at conception sees a neighbouring country practicing abortion (and so, by country A's morals, is killing thousands of human lives) is it ok for Country A to invade Country B?
The first part of any genocide is declaring that some people aren't human (or aren't fully human) and that their lives are worth less than the killing groups. Whether this is done on race, skin tone, relgious belief or intelligence (and does eugenics like the forced sterilization practiced in Sweden in the first half of the 20th century on the mentally subnormal count?)
What about if country A sees women being badly treated, beaten and deprived of education and rights? Is it ok to stand by?
I am not looking for actual answers, I am merely raising the obvious point that as soon as you say it is ok to interfere in another country's affairs for a really good reason, then that opens the floodgates for people to decide their reason is really good. (e.g. to bring democracy, to bring education and sanitation, to bring "freedom", to stop the world being flooded with opium, to bring the "blessing of Christianity to the savages" etc. etc.)
Rwanda was terrible; Kosova, Bosnia the Kurds, and so many other situations equally so ... DR Congo and Zimbabwe ... where is it ok to go in, and what are acceptable justifications?
I can't answer that aside from the "if I point at it and say I think it's valid, then it's valid" level of decision making.
And then you get the problem ... where is the moral dividing line? Well, as morals are inherently subjective/intersubjective I'd say that there very much isn't a line, there's a great big blurry grey area.
If a country seriously believes that life begins at conception sees a neighbouring country practicing abortion (and so, by country A's morals, is killing thousands of human lives) is it ok for Country A to invade Country B?
Ok by who's standards?
I can't answer that aside from the "if I point at it and say I think it's valid, then it's valid" level of decision making. Me either. I'm ok with that though.
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A country that decides that it is ok to have sausages that are less than 75% meat and chocolate and icecream that contain vegetable fat is not a case for sending in an army (well, depends on the chocolate!).
A country that decides it is ok to kill every baby darker than a certain skin tone, that's different.
And then you get the problem ... where is the moral dividing line? If a country seriously believes that life begins at conception sees a neighbouring country practicing abortion (and so, by country A's morals, is killing thousands of human lives) is it ok for Country A to invade Country B?
The first part of any genocide is declaring that some people aren't human (or aren't fully human) and that their lives are worth less than the killing groups. Whether this is done on race, skin tone, relgious belief or intelligence (and does eugenics like the forced sterilization practiced in Sweden in the first half of the 20th century on the mentally subnormal count?)
What about if country A sees women being badly treated, beaten and deprived of education and rights? Is it ok to stand by?
I am not looking for actual answers, I am merely raising the obvious point that as soon as you say it is ok to interfere in another country's affairs for a really good reason, then that opens the floodgates for people to decide their reason is really good. (e.g. to bring democracy, to bring education and sanitation, to bring "freedom", to stop the world being flooded with opium, to bring the "blessing of Christianity to the savages" etc. etc.)
Rwanda was terrible; Kosova, Bosnia the Kurds, and so many other situations equally so ... DR Congo and Zimbabwe ... where is it ok to go in, and what are acceptable justifications?
I can't answer that aside from the "if I point at it and say I think it's valid, then it's valid" level of decision making.
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http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/three-worlds-collide.html
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http://syndicated.livejournal.com/andyduckerlinks/608861.html
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Well, as morals are inherently subjective/intersubjective I'd say that there very much isn't a line, there's a great big blurry grey area.
If a country seriously believes that life begins at conception sees a neighbouring country practicing abortion (and so, by country A's morals, is killing thousands of human lives) is it ok for Country A to invade Country B?
Ok by who's standards?
I can't answer that aside from the "if I point at it and say I think it's valid, then it's valid" level of decision making.
Me either. I'm ok with that though.