tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5688599.post111837541711843153..comments2023-10-12T04:54:05.108-07:00Comments on Deep Freeze 9: Horrible dilemmasJP (Pierre) de Vrieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02311009024575927588noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5688599.post-1120769020191113652005-07-07T13:43:00.000-07:002005-07-07T13:43:00.000-07:00Glad to see someone else thinking about "moral cal...Glad to see someone else thinking about "moral calculus" -- a big topic on my mind since the leadup to the invasion of Iraq. Isn't it odd, though, that if moral dilemmas face us constantly, so little of our public discourse or cultural patterns acknowledge directly the reality of moral dilemmas. <BR/><BR/>Committed politics, it seems to me, is the art of pretending that moral dilemmas don't actually exist. How rare the politician who would say the truth: "We don't know what the moral outcome of our actions will be or how to measure it. No matter where we go and what we do, it will be in some way evil. We are just going on by gut as to which direction will yield the minimal overall evil. We could be desperately wrong." <BR/><BR/>[Although the latest Atlantic Monthly included an interview with Paul Wolfowitz in which he said essentially that.]<BR/><BR/>A freeing reality, in a way. Faced with the forced-suicide-bomber dilemma, one makes a choice, aware that the ultimate outcome is unknown. <BR/><BR/>I wonder what a public politics based on explicit acknowledgement of the reality of moral dilemmas would be like?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com