Originally Posted by Logic

His comment could also be interpreted as a critique of passing judgment on the beliefs and actions of other cultures, when we ourselves still have quite a few draconian correctional procedures (in the US anyway, I don't know much about everywhere else).

Originally Posted by Logic

I don't disagree, but I think it's important to clarify whose core interests you are standing up for. Are you intervening in another culture because you think they are backwards, uncivilized, primitive, or wrong for ideological reasons (in this case you are just ethnocentrically imposing your own core interests and beliefs, the interests are not mutual, and we can easily look to history for examples of this), or because you are actually motivated by mutual interests, the maintenance of the collective, greater good (history also has examples of this).

Originally Posted by Logic

No, they are fundamentally different - like I said, I think the invasion of Iraq is an example the US imposing self interest (although one false rationalization was that it was for mutual interest), while intervening in the Rwandan genocide, which the US did not do, would have been for mutual interest (true compassion doesn't have any economic incentives - probably why it did not happen).

Yes, those are both part of the first type of intervention that I outlined in the earlier post.

No, there are 2 ways about it. You can allow people to have freedom of thought and belief , while still intervene when their actions endanger others.

So, tying it back to the Iran thing, the execution should be condemned or even stopped because it is a public health issue, not because it manifests "uncivilized beliefs." It is hypocritical and contradictory to impose ethics on others.

This type of thinking is exactly what we are criticizing about the Iranian govt. and the Nazis. That somehow you are born into the culture with the one correct, universal understanding of reality, whose methods of reasoning and acting have generated in you the perfect understanding of the common good, and that you have the authority to force that on others.

because all we have is our own understanding of what the public good really is.

Originally Posted by Logic

Since there is no way to get a hold on objective truth, how exactly do you determine when to take an action, specifically an act of war or military intervention (since that's what a lot of our examples have been about)? You are saying there are gradations of objectivity ("as objective as possible"), so how do you know when your perspective is objective enough to warrant the violence of warfare?

So I think we actually agree in general, but I'm trying to look at specifically how we decide our reasoning is sufficient.

Not to change the topic too much, but consider this. Hypothetically, what if this is what the woman to be executed believed? Would that change anything? If she really believed her execution was in her best interest, does that affect the responsibilities others might have to "save" her - because in this case, to her, what others might perceive as saving, she would see as condemning to eternal damnation.