Borders Books: What a difference 5 years make

[UserGoogol]

First of all, I'd say that being brave doesn't require going above utilitarianism. It can either mean doing what is right at the sacrifice of your personal interests, (altruism) or it can mean doing what is right in opposition to your fears. Fear and logic are only dimly connected.

Furthermore, your Holocaust example can be justified through utilitarianism. By saving Jews, you are promoting the ideal of the sanctity of life, and by promoting that ideal you are indirectly saving future lives, which cancels out the lives which you are risking. With this magazine thing, the calculus is vaguer. Yes, by stocking the magazine, you are making a stand against censorship, and the principle of free speech certainly leads to a better life for people involved. However, here the payoff is much vaguer. Few would say that all books should be published by bookstores. The question, therefore, is to decide how much harm, if any, this does to free speech in the long run, and then to weigh that against how much harm it would be to publish the books.

Personally, I think the balance is in your favor, in that the harm done to Borders employees and other "people who terrorists don't like" would be pretty minimal, thus having publishing the books be the right thing. But if there was a good chance of Borders bookstores being suicide-bombed, (which there is not) it probably wouldn't be that great an idea, in that a handful of magazines isn't really worth much in a world where the same information can be found elsewhere without much difficulty.

I guess what I'm trying to say is just that Utilitarianism is pretty neat.

 

[bjb]

How about if we look at it this way? Suppose the bookstores sell the magazines and an act of violence is committed as a result. If an employee got hurt, they would be awarded a huge amount of money for being injured on the job. The employee could get a lawyer and sue the bookstore for being 'irresponsible' and selling the magazine when there was a threat (real or percieved) of violence. To me, the Borders management is more interested in protecting the company from liability than protecting their employees from physical harm.

 

[Mephisto]

How about if we look at it this way? Suppose the bookstores sell the magazines and an act of violence is committed as a result.

Well, THEN we could blame Skeptic.

 

[Skeptic]

I guess what I'm trying to say is just that Utilitarianism is pretty neat.

Well, as long as we're hijacking the thread to utilitarianism in general, I'd say it proves the opposite... the reason is not that utilitarianism is so much wrong as irrelevant: what determines if an action is brave or not has much more to do with principles, valor, overcoming fear, and so on than it has to do with any utility calculus.

At most the utiliy calculus can come in later to try and explain the intuition, but the explanation always seemed quite forced to me. I've never seen any brave person who ever acted out of concern for this-and-that principles of rule-utilitarianism as applied with such-and-such a utility calculus. It's verdoppelte Metaphysic.

Utilitarianism in its radical form--Millian act-utilitarianism--is positively corruptive to morality, since (according to Mill) we have no right to tell our neighbor not to be a scoundrel, a drunk, or a pimp, as it does not effect us directly; but we do have a right to tell him not to act bravely since such an action would affect us directly in case of retribution against him.

Any morality that permits scoundrels and forbids heroes must have something deeply wrong with it.

 

[Thanz]

But this is not surprising, since your utility calculus definition of "bravery" is actually a definition of "cowardice", since almost by definition being brave means ignoring a utility calculus of possible harm in favor of supporting a higher principle, such as the sanctity of life (in the case of the jews in WWII) or freedom of speech (in this case).

But what if you are trying to balance 2 different higher principles? Why is it "cowardice" to choose the sanctity of life over freedom of speech but "bravery" the other way around?

 

[lostnick3]

the terrorists are not going to blow up any bookstores, that would be extortion. they will probably hit a star bucks next or some other uniquely American institution. that would be terrorism.

 

[Mycroft]

Your analogies are patently ridiculous. To compare deciding whether or not to shelve a magazine to hiding Jewish refugees from the Nazis is almost humorous.

The difference is huge, but it’s only a matter of scale. The principles, unless you can demonstrate otherwise, are the same.

I'm reminded of a story in Howard Stern's book Private Parts, which I read oh-so-long-ago in high school. Somebody in a prison wood shop or something wrote to Mr. Stern, explaining that the prisoner loves Stern's show and lives to listen to it, except that lately every morning he tries having it on, the other prisoners in the shop have been violent - beating him up and then changing the radio station. The prisoner said he didn't care - he liked the Howard Stern show and was willing to endure beatings to listen to it. He wrote, asking for Stern's approval - some kind of "attaboy" or something. Stern called him stupid. A radio show is not worth your life, he said. I tend to agree.

Moral guidance from Howard Stern?

Listening to a radio station by itself is not worth getting beaten up for. What may be worth a beating is the principle that your behavior will not be influenced by the threat of violence from others. It’s very possible that if the prisoner were to give in to the demands on the radio station, that the next day the beating would have been the same, only the demand something else.

 

[Checkmite]

Your examples feature cases where the point of the "bravery" is to save lives on either a short term or long term basis, where it is at least imagined that the few lives which may be lost now is outweighed by the number of lives which will be saved later.

Are you kidding? If bravery depends solely on a numerical calculation-- numbers of live I might save vs. numbers of lives that I might lose--then bravery is virtually never justified.

Surely, the utility calculus the peasant was making--probability of saving lives by hiding a jew succesfully vs. probability of losing his family's lives by being discovered--made giving the jew to the Germans far more logical than hiding him, since the risk of discovery was high and the German punishment extremely severe. So the morally correct thing to do--if such a calculus determines when something is justified or not--was to give up the Jews.

Does this make any moral sense to you?

Decisions, decisions. Prevent your wife, two sons, two daughters, and whichever parent happens to live with you from dying, versus preventing a political prisoner from being captured. To me the answer seems fairly obvious. Do you mean to insist that it's morally reprehensible for me to choose to save 7 innocent lives when I could've only saved one innocent life? The Jewish refugee is innocent, of course, and does not deserve any punishment - but no more innocent and no less deserving than any one of my theoretical family members, to say nothing of the lot of them combined.

Let's turn this around. I want you to justify the sacrifice of my entire family - or any random 6 or 7 lives - in exchange for saving one life. What, exactly, makes the life of the one refugee more valuable than the combined lives of my hypothetical family (since the German edict places us all in the same boat)? Or to carry it further - if you were forced to make a choice to either to hide one Jewish refugee or hide an entire Jewish family, which would you choose, and why?

Here, I got a better one. Say a Nazi officer had a Jew and your 10-year-old son both in handcuffs, and you are somehow forced to decide which one will die, without any alternative choices (including some kind of macho suicide-thing). Which one would you choose, and why? Tough choice? Just keep adding family members versus the one single Jewish prisoner until the decision becomes easier. Which choice is "brave"? Which is "cowardly"?

Also, once more, if only the Germans are ruthless or evil enough, and make the number of lives lost for every hidden Jew high enough, then (on your view) it becomes morally wrong to hide the Jews.

Again, does this make any moral sense to you?

Uh, yeah. Let me guess - this makes me a Nazi sympathizer? And yes, I've stopped beating my wife.

In the Borders situation, you seem to think that the lives (theoretically) lost now is outweighed by the ability of patrons to read a magazine for a month. There's something of a difference.

No, there isn't a difference, since in both cases your calculus of utility-vs-harm has nothing to do with what bravery is.

On your utility calculus view, as long as someone is ruthless or evil enough to threathen disproportionate harm--"don't stock this magazine of I might kill you"; "don't hide the Jew or I'll kill your family"--then the utility calculus recommends cowardice, which means that your moral "logical sense" is not much more than cowardly surrender to anybody who'se a big enough bully.

But this is not surprising, since your utility calculus definition of "bravery" is actually a definition of "cowardice", since almost by definition being brave means ignoring a utility calculus of possible harm in favor of supporting a higher principle, such as the sanctity of life (in the case of the jews in WWII) or freedom of speech (in this case).

Does the sanctity of life not apply to my hypothetical family for some reason? Besides, your labelling of the decision "cowardice" is simply an appeal to emotion. The proper neutral term would be "prudence".

Stern called him stupid. A radio show is not worth your life, he said. I tend to agree.

Ah, yes. Well, if that moral beacon, Howard Stern, says so, it must be true!

Well I will agree that in most respects Stern is a tasteless buffoon. Every once in a while, though, he might get something right. This situation simply reminded me of one of those times.

 

[Checkmite]

The difference is huge, but it’s only a matter of scale. The principles, unless you can demonstrate otherwise, are the same.



Moral guidance from Howard Stern?

Listening to a radio station by itself is not worth getting beaten up for. What may be worth a beating is the principle that your behavior will not be influenced by the threat of violence from others. It’s very possible that if the prisoner were to give in to the demands on the radio station, that the next day the beating would have been the same, only the demand something else.

And it's also equally very possible that the next day absolutely nothing would've happened. But it's certain that if the prisoner had not given into the demand, the beating would've been the same.

 

[Mephisto]

the terrorists are not going to blow up any bookstores, that would be extortion. they will probably hit a star bucks next or some other uniquely American institution. that would be terrorism.

I was in Italy on the first day of this war, and before the week was over a McDonald's in Rome was trashed. My wife and son recently returned from Spring Break in Paris and the rioters also trashed a McDonalds there. So, just stay away from McDonald's when abroad and Denny's when in California and Border Bookstores when the carry the cartoon.

 

[Skeptic]

Decisions, decisions. Prevent your wife, two sons, two daughters, and whichever parent happens to live with you from dying, versus preventing a political prisoner from being captured. To me the answer seems fairly obvious. Do you mean to insist that it's morally reprehensible for me to choose to save 7 innocent lives when I could've only saved one innocent life?

So you would have been one of those who turned in the jews? Well, luckily for some of my relatives, they decided to hide with someone a bit different than you.

Indeed, they hid with some reckless, irresponsible fool who believed--for some unfathomable reason--that handing over innocent people for certain death to is wrong in itself, and should not be done out of principle, even if one risks awful punishment for not doing it. He apparently decided, that despite the risk of him suffering great evil from the Nazis if discovered, he will not, he could not, assist them in their evil by turning in innocent people to certain death.

Ah, if only you were there to instruct him how stupid and immoral he is.

Since you have no higher moral judge than the utility calculus, since no moral principle (including something as basic as "thou shall not kill innocents") has any independent validity in your eyes, you really have no morality at all. We established that you would turn in the jews and surrender to Islamist censorship; you would also, with the same argument, betray your friends, run from the battle, let your wife be raped, and in general do anything dishonorable, cowardly, and evil--if only someone bullies you enough to make the calculus come out right.

I can just see you, shivering under the bed: "Look, honey, the rapist is a big guy with a gun. My logical calculation tells me that if I come and help you, I might get hurt, and it's likely that you will still be raped anyway. So will you stop this infernal screaming 'Help, Joshua!' already? What right to you have to put me at risk as well for no good reason?! He might discover I'm at home if you keep this up! THINK OF THE UTILITY CALCULUS!!!"

 

[Mephisto]

So you would have been one of those who turned in the jews? Well, luckily for some of my relatives, they decided to hide with someone a bit different than you.

Well, at the risk of my own family, I would have hidden your family, but not because they're Jews. People simply need to stop and think about what it feels like to be a victim of racism, religious persecution, cultural cleansing or tribal genocide to understand the desperation of the unlucky chosen ones.

Of course, you probably DON'T like the notion that I would just as easily hide a Palestinian family from the Israelis.

I can just see you, shivering under the bed: "Look, honey, the rapist is a big guy with a gun. My logical calculation tells me that if I come and help you, I might get hurt, and it's likely that you will still be raped anyway. So will you stop this infernal screaming 'Help, Joshua!' already?

Bad analogy as it reminds me of a joke:

Three heavily armed men break into a home and hold the couple there hostage in their bedroom. One of the men produces a piece of chalk, and drawing a circle in the corner, puts a gun to the head of the husband and tell him, "if you move out of this circle, I will kill you!" The husband stands in the circle the entire time his wife is raped. After the men leave, the husband is still in the corner . . . giggling.

His wife angrily asks, "What the Hell can possibily be so funny, our home has been broken into by three armed men, your life was threatened and I was brutally raped?"

And the husband answers: "Yeah, but while they were busy with you, I stepped out of the circle three times!"

 

[Checkmite]

Decisions, decisions. Prevent your wife, two sons, two daughters, and whichever parent happens to live with you from dying, versus preventing a political prisoner from being captured. To me the answer seems fairly obvious. Do you mean to insist that it's morally reprehensible for me to choose to save 7 innocent lives when I could've only saved one innocent life?

So you would have been one of those who turned in the jews? Well, luckily for some of my relatives, they decided to hide with someone a bit different than you.

Turned in? No. There's nothing to stop me from helping to find someone else to hide the refugee. But I must save as many lives as I can when given a choice. Saving life is important - the more the merrier.

Indeed, they hid with some reckless, irresponsible fool who believed--for some unfathomable reason--that handing over innocent people for certain death to is wrong in itself, and should not be done out of principle, even if one risks awful punishment for not doing it. He apparently decided, that despite the risk of him suffering great evil from the Nazis if discovered, he will not, he could not, assist them in their evil by turning in innocent people to certain death.

Perhaps it was with a single person, who decided that hiding them was right. That would indeed be bravery - foregoing personal risk in order to save a life. Or perhaps they hid with a couple, who were both intelligent enough to understand what they were doing and together made a decision to help. That would also be brave. That's individuals, deciding for themselves. However, lording over a family who is either ignorant of the risks, or pointedly unwilling to take those risks, and forcing them to take those risks anyway, is not bravery, it's reckless tyranny.

Since you have no higher moral judge than the utility calculus...

...unfounded. Dude, you've given me a single scenario. You can't make a judgement from that...

...since no moral principle (including something as basic as "thou shall not kill innocents") has any independent validity in your eyes...

...also unfounded. Saving 6 innocent lives is more important than saving 1 innocent life...

...you really have no morality at all. We established that you would turn in the jews

(no, you didn't)

and surrender to Islamist censorship

Personally, I wouldn't. I'm just saying that I couldn't force other unwilling people to not-surrender with me. They have their own choice.

you would also, with the same argument, betray your friends, run from the battle, let your wife be raped, and in general do anything dishonorable, cowardly, and evil--if only someone bullies you enough to make the calculus come out right.

No, no, and no. In those cases, I'm only dealing with my own life and safety. Those things I could easily disregard for some greater good.

I can just see you, shivering under the bed: "Look, honey, the rapist is a big guy with a gun. My logical calculation tells me that if I come and help you, I might get hurt, and it's likely that you will still be raped anyway. So will you stop this infernal screaming 'Help, Joshua!' already? What right to you have to put me at risk as well for no good reason?! He might discover I'm at home if you keep this up! THINK OF THE UTILITY CALCULUS!!!"

Non-sequiter. Are you finished flinging your over-emotional straw? This silly and insulting example neither equates with the "hiding the jew" example, nor does it accurately describe my position or anything I've said in my own defense.

 

[BPSCG]

Interesting; Borders, Waldenbooks, Amazon, Barnes and Noble all carry Robert Spencer's, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades).

Unlike several of the the cartoons, this book really is an attack on Islam and Muhammad. You'd think it would drive Muslims into a homicidal rage, yet none of these stores have any problem carrying it.

 

[Mephisto]

Interesting; Borders, Waldenbooks, Amazon, Barnes and Noble all carry Robert Spencer's, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades).

Unlike several of the the cartoons, this book really is an attack on Islam and Muhammad. You'd think it would drive Muslims into a homicidal rage, yet none of these stores have any problem carrying it.

Interesting indeed!

Apparently none of these book stores are cowards. They apparently just don't want to deal with the controversy while it's still fresh. Besides, NOT stocking books with cartoons offensive to people doesn't stop anyone from purchasing them via mail-order or online.

 

[Checkmite]

Indeed; I'm becoming more convinced that this is just a "pre-empt a boycott"-esque move rather than some "protect from terrorism" measure.

 

[Tony]

If mega-corporations don't dare stand up to the Islamists, who does?

Wow.

 

[Tony]

Just keep adding family members versus the one single Jewish prisoner until the decision becomes easier. Which choice is "brave"? Which is "cowardly"?

Simple. The "brave" decision is the one Skeptic would make. The "cowardly" decision is the one a democrat would make. See how that works?

 

[Skeptic]

Turned in? No. There's nothing to stop me from helping to find someone else to hide the refugee.

Oh, I see. So you're perfectly permitted to find some other sucker to be brave, as long as you act in the "logical and rational" cowardly way.

But why would anybody else agree to hide the jew in question? By your own logic, they all should refuse to hide him just as much as you do.

Perhaps it was with a single person, who decided that hiding them was right. That would indeed be bravery - foregoing personal risk in order to save a life.

Nope. Needless to say, like most peasants in Poland with a farm, of course he had a family with children: that's how life was then for 90%+ of the rural population.

What a maroon! What an irresponsible idiot! Right? What a pity you weren't there to explain to him how stupid he is.

This silly and insulting example neither equates with the "hiding the jew" example, nor does it accurately describe my position or anything I've said in my own defense.

It has everything to do both with that example and with the Borders' example. You support cowardice by telling us that real bravery is only justified if it can save or help more people than it might hurt. This is why you support surrendering to Islamists and Nazis as the "logical" thing to do.

So why won't you support surrendering to rapists as well? In my example, confronting the rapist would almost certainly NOT save more people than it might hurt; if anything, it's pretty certain to do the opposite. So according to your logic, you shouldn't do it because it wouldn't be brave, just stupid and reckless. Give me ONE good reason, according to your own logic, as to why you would interfere with the rape.

Apparently none of the bookstores are cowards

Not quite; they won't stock the cartoons because Islamists reacted violently to them, and will stock "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" because Islamists didn't react violently to it.

Perhaps the Islamist reaction is irrational, but clearly it's the degree of violence (or "controversy", as you euphemistically call it) that influenced Borders' decision. If tomorrow Islamists riot against "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam", Borders' will take it off the shelves in a second.

 

[Mycroft]

Well, at the risk of my own family, I would have hidden your family, but not because they're Jews.

That's a bizarre way to phrase it. Did Skeptic or anyone else say or imply that Jews were hidden for any reason other than because in that era and in that part of the world they were facing extreme persecution?

Of course, you probably DON'T like the notion that I would just as easily hide a Palestinian family from the Israelis.

Are Palestinians being sent to concentration camps?