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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
It's relevant because it shows that "morality" is a completely subjective idea. In Nazi Germany, many believed that the extermination of Jews was morally okay. Regardless of what you or I think about it, if someone else has a different set of morals, then objective morality can't be proven. It's not really much different than people's tastes in food or music. I think one thing is morally wrong, and you don't. That doesn't necessitate that either one of us be wrong. |
Well sure, ive already agreed there’s no objective basis for morality, just that there is an evolutionary one, based on species survival. I don’t see the relevance of hitler’s proclamations of group survival to my argument on the same topic, about actual group survival. |
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| srussell0018 |
The only thing I was really trying to argue was that objective morality doesn't exist. For these leaders of drug cartels, the murder of people may definitely benefit their organization. Again, different definition of what morality is for different people.
You're arguing for a general system of morals that most people follow, which is fine. That doesn't equate to murder being morally wrong for all people though, since morality is completely subjective, whether it be to the individual or to the group is a different discussion.
I, myself, tend to subscribe to the view that morality is subjective to the individual, or at least that it should be. I don't necessarily think it's morally wrong to kill someone, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go out and do it myself. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| Would your position change if god existed and he had moral laws? |
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| srussell0018 |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
Would your position change if god existed and he had moral laws? |
If I believed that there were consequences for what I do in this life that I would have to atone for in a next life, then yes I probably would change my position. |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
I'm pretty sure I never argued that there was no such thing as morality. If I did, what I meant was that there was no such thing as an objective system of morality. |
Your position is only tenable if you are arguing that there is no such thing as morality. That's the point I was trying to make. Hedging your argument with a term like objective (system of), which essentially states that all morality is subjective, actually weakens your position. Arguing that morality is little more than individualized personal beliefs concerning actions that are right and wrong has more to do with the measurement of someone's moral compass.
An individual and even a culture may have subjective systems of belief about morality which differ vastly, opposing the views of others, as to how people should be treated but the fundamentals of morality are still the same.
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
I wasn't really trying to comment on why mass-murderers commit their crimes, just using it as an example of how if they didn't think that what they were doing was morally reprehensible, they obviously have a different set of morals than you or I. |
You were using it, however, to inform your argument and the way it was used is incorrect. They very clearly understand what they're doing is wrong. They have merely formed justifications for doing it.
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
Also, when something is as pre-meditated as the Columbine shootings, I really doubt that the reason that they turned their guns on themselves was that they were so shocked by remorse. When you put someone on their knees and execute them, it's really hard for me to believe that you're going to feel bad for doing it. |
That's because you don't have an understanding for the psychology that's going on behind it. They've been stewing for days, weeks, months, or years about the wrongs they've perceived, rightly or wrongly, that have been done to them. They have engaged in elaborate fantasies and planning around the event. By the time they arrive on the scene, they're jacked on adrenaline and when they begin shooting, all of that rage, which formerly divorced them from any empathy, what-so-ever, begins to recede.
What used to be an empowering fantasy is now a grotesque reality. There really is blood on the wall. People are crying, hiding, screaming, dying, or dead. The exhilarating power the perpetrator felt at the beginning of the event is terminated. There is no more cause to fight for and the ugly truth is that the shooter knows whatever wrongs he suffered, he hasn't suffered nearly as much as what he's (and it's 99.9% male) enacted.
In your example, you noted that one of them shot someone who was kneeling. What you left out was that there was another who he let live. That's symbolic of a power/control dynamic the perpetrator was trying to achieve. It's part of his living out the fantasy. He gets to play god instead of being a powerless victim, in deciding over who lives and who dies.
The more arbitrary, the more power the perpetrator feels, but having lived out that moment comes the realization that it was fleeting and that in the end, such empowerment is also patently false if not contrived at the barrel of a gun. True omnipotence lasts forever, but what the killer realizes is his true impotence.
The anger has been discharged and with that discharge there is a distinct emptiness, for the perpetrator is far from being made whole - the true amend he'd like for his trouble at the hands of others. He hasn't even come close to addressing his actual grievances and has actually just increased the suffering of others. Where his perception of self may have been heroically enduring and powerful at the beginning of his escapade, he is now, freed from his blinding anger, an impotent hypocrite who, in his last moments, couldn't be bothered to extend others the compassion he expected from them. |
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| srussell0018 |
| quote: | Originally posted by EddieZilker
An individual and even a culture may have subjective systems of belief about morality which differ vastly, opposing the views of others, as to how people should be treated but the fundamentals of morality are still the same. |
I think that you're thinking more of a moral code than actual morality. Morality is merely a sense of values that differentiates between good (right) and bad (wrong). So yes, individuals and cultures can have different moral codes, but can also have completely different fundamentals of morality.
In its descriptive sense, morality basically is a set of values that fall within the norms of a given individual or society. That, in its own nature, makes it subjective. If morality is a set of values, clearly it is subjective. I'm not sure I really understand how you're arguing otherwise, because for morality to be objective, it would have to consist of the same values for all people.
| quote: | [b]Originally posted by EddieZilker[/b/]That's because you don't have an understanding for the psychology that's going on behind it. They've been stewing for days, weeks, months, or years about the wrongs they've perceived, rightly or wrongly, that have been done to them. They have engaged in elaborate fantasies and planning around the event. By the time they arrive on the scene, they're jacked on adrenaline and when they begin shooting, all of that rage, which formerly divorced them from any empathy, what-so-ever, begins to recede.
What used to be an empowering fantasy is now a grotesque reality. There really is blood on the wall. People are crying, hiding, screaming, dying, or dead. The exhilarating power the perpetrator felt at the beginning of the event is terminated. There is no more cause to fight for and the ugly truth is that the shooter knows whatever wrongs he suffered, he hasn't suffered nearly as much as what he's (and it's 99.9% male) enacted.
In your example, you noted that one of them shot someone who was kneeling. What you left out was that there was another who he let live. That's symbolic of a power/control dynamic the perpetrator was trying to achieve. It's part of his living out the fantasy. He gets to play god instead of being a powerless victim, in deciding over who lives and who dies.
The more arbitrary, the more power the perpetrator feels, but having lived out that moment comes the realization that it was fleeting and that in the end, such empowerment is also patently false if not contrived at the barrel of a gun. True omnipotence lasts forever, but what the killer realizes is his true impotence.
The anger has been discharged and with that discharge there is a distinct emptiness, for the perpetrator is far from being made whole - the true amend he'd like for his trouble at the hands of others. He hasn't even come close to addressing his actual grievances and has actually just increased the suffering of others. Where his perception of self may have been heroically enduring and powerful at the beginning of his escapade, he is now, freed from his blinding anger, an impotent hypocrite who, in his last moments, couldn't be bothered to extend others the compassion he expected from them. |
I'm not so sure that these studies are of that much value, if there even are extensive studies on such behavior. Any studies would necessitate a perpetrator who did not, in fact, end their own life after the deed had been done. The fact that they were unable to kill themselves, for whatever reason, seems to me to suggest that these people may be different from the ones who actually do kill themselves after they've finished.
Granted, I'm sure it is very often the case that these people do suddenly get hit with the wave of shock or disgust at what they had actually done, but with no way of studying what was going on in the head of someone who actually did take their own life at the end of their spree, the only thing that can really be surmised is what they might have thought which caused them to kill themselves. I'm not really interested in arguing about mass-murderers though, as that was not my initial intention when joining this thread, so if you want to continue on that topic, please do so with someone else. |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
I'm not so sure that these studies are of that much value, if there even are extensive studies on such behavior. Any studies would necessitate a perpetrator who did not, in fact, end their own life after the deed had been done. The fact that they were unable to kill themselves, for whatever reason, seems to me to suggest that these people may be different from the ones who actually do kill themselves after they've finished.
Granted, I'm sure it is very often the case that these people do suddenly get hit with the wave of shock or disgust at what they had actually done, but with no way of studying what was going on in the head of someone who actually did take their own life at the end of their spree, the only thing that can really be surmised is what they might have thought which caused them to kill themselves. I'm not really interested in arguing about mass-murderers though, as that was not my initial intention when joining this thread, so if you want to continue on that topic, please do so with someone else. |
You're questioning the validity of interviews that were performed by both the FBI and the Secret Service, among multiple others who have strong credentials in forensic psychology, and that, while yielded from a small population of surviving perpetrators, had multiple correlations with those who were either killed or committed suicide. Additionally, much of the information known about the psychology of these people has been gleaned from journals and suicide notes many of them authored prior to the commission of their crime. While everyone is different, it's not as though the fundamental thinking is so obscure as to defy this conjectured validity scale you're invoking to suit your argument. |
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| Lira |
| Why do I have the feeling that every thread I start either becomes a philosophical discussion or a repository of pictures with big breasted models? :p |
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| srussell0018 |
| quote: | Originally posted by EddieZilker
You're questioning the validity of interviews that were performed by both the FBI and the Secret Service, among multiple others who have strong credentials in forensic psychology, and that, while yielded from a small population of surviving perpetrators, had multiple correlations with those who were either killed or committed suicide. Additionally, much of the information known about the psychology of these people has been gleaned from journals and suicide notes many of them authored prior to the commission of their crime. While everyone is different, it's not as though the fundamental thinking is so obscure as to defy this conjectured validity scale you're invoking to suit your argument. |
I never questioned the validity of studies done on mass-murderers who were caught. It's interesting how you always twist people's arguments to make you come out "right." All I said was that interviewing mass-murderers who were caught or couldn't bring themselves to take their own life, from a psychological standpoint, is much different than people who actually did kill themselves. Additionally, journals and suicide notes do little to study what actually went on in the person's mind after they actually killed all those people.
Unless they wrote "I'm going to kill all these people, and then I'm pretty sure I'm going to feel really bad about it and have to kill myself" those suicide notes or journals don't really provide much proof in either direction as to what a mass-murderer's mind-state is after committing such a crime. |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
I never questioned the validity of studies done on mass-murderers who were caught. It's interesting how you always twist people's arguments to make you come out "right." |
The fact is that I can scarcely portray your arguments as incorrect until I've considered what's valid about them, in the first place. It's a relatively simple methodology which treats all submitted arguments as valid until or unless there is evidence which contravenes such validity. While I don't know as much as I'd like to about the topic I am speaking to, I do know more than most.
I'll submit that even though I have a better command of the English language than 65% of people who have completed graduate school with a Masters Degree (results from an actual IQ test I took when I was 24 - and I'm 41 now), you'll not find me disputing Lira's understanding of linguistics with the tactics you're ascribing to me. I'm not picking your arguments apart simply because I want to, but because I know your arguments are incorrect based upon a lot of personal research I've conducted, myself, having to do with forensic psychology.
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
All I said was that interviewing mass-murderers who were caught or couldn't bring themselves to take their own life, from a psychological standpoint, is much different than people who actually did kill themselves. Additionally, journals and suicide notes do little to study what actually went on in the person's mind after they actually killed all those people.
Unless they wrote "I'm going to kill all these people, and then I'm pretty sure I'm going to feel really bad about it and have to kill myself" those suicide notes or journals don't really provide much proof in either direction as to what a mass-murderer's mind-state is after committing such a crime. |
At best, your argument, here, is Reductio Ad Absurdium. Clearly, none of the people who commit these crimes anticipate the consequences for having done so. They're so caught up in the short-term fantasy rehearsal for their revenge, they've scarcely thought forward to the future where such a revenge may be cherished. While most, if not all, anticipate dying as a result of being shot and/or committing suicide they demonstrate little understanding that suicide/suicide-by-cop negates enjoyment of the anticipated reward, rendering such an action moot, in the first place. Suicidal ideation is simply a tool in the arsenal of justifications which allow for their action - a final ironic act of self-preservation if not salt on the wound for survivors who'd enact their own retribution, given the chance.
But that doesn't even have anything to do with the correlations I'm talking about. I'm speaking to the entire constellation of pathology with which such similarity may be demonstrated.
http://wwwedgeeffect.blogspot.com/2...ass-murder.html
| quote: | Pseudo-commando mass murders have been described as often possessing the following characteristics (Mullen, 2004):
§ Bullied or isolated as a child
§ Loners who are socially excluded and despair over feeling excluded
§ Suspicious, resentful, grudge holders
§ Obsessional or rigid traits
§ Narcissistic, grandiose traits
§ Externalizers – unable to take responsibility for their distress and place responsibility on others
§ Weapons collector, preoccupied with weapons
§ Strong feelings of persecution or mistreatment
§ World seen as rejecting, uncaring
§ Resentful with rumination on past humiliations – “collectors of injustice” (Dietz)
§ Fantasize about violent revenge
§ No significant criminal or violence history
§ No significant mental health history or serious mental illness
§ No significant substance abuse
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If one who commits suicide writes about himself in ways which indicate narcissistic and/or grandiose traits, such as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, writing samples obtained from survivors which correlate can be used to establish the validity of similarity in thinking with surviving mass murderers.
Now, just so you don't come down hard on me saying that I'm trying to twist your words around, after you click that link and scroll down to find this - I found something in your favor:
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Mass Homicide & Suicide: Deadliness & Outcome (Lester, ’05)
This study examined a nonrandom sample of 98 Lone “rampage” killers. Lester defined "deadliness" by number of victims.
In terms of deadliness, here's how the perpetrators fell out:
Most deadly: Killed by police
2nd most deadly: Committed suicide
3rd most deadly: Captured by police
Lester also found that perpetrators often showed an interest in guns, had past violence, and demonstrated paranoia or paranoid traits. Interestingly, disgruntled employees were more likely to commit suicide. |
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| srussell0018 |
I'm not even arguing about mass-murderers, as I've already stated. I used it to answer a question/comment posted by Lira, I didn't try to start a conversation about mass-murderers or how they feel about committing suicide after their crimes.
I know throwing out logical fallacies in your arguments makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but I really don't care if you need to be right. I'm not arguing about mass-murderers.
The reason Lira's arguments are compelling, and yours are not, is that often you don't provide any evidence to back up your points. Yes, you have a very strong command of the English language, your arguments are always well formulated, and you use thesaurus words, but that doesn't mean you're always right.
You keep going on and on about your personal research you've conducted, but who are you? Yeah, I may be wrong, but I'm not just going to believe whatever you say just because you say it well.
You quoted a list of behaviors/trends that were possessed by mass-murderers, and that's great, but can you provide me with some studies on the thoughts of mass-murderers right before the moment that they ended their life? Perhaps, the difference between the ones who kill themselves and the ones who don't are, wait for it, they're different. |
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