How to unlock a jealous heart

[thewishfire]

I recently read a story that was... it was all about the ethics of influencing how people think. Like, if you had the power to change someone's thoughts, to make them behave and even feel a different way, would that be ethical

Comments

[strivinghigher]

This is a tangent, but some of the myriad definitions of justice do require punishment. Some of them don't, which means the definition is vague, and perhaps it's not a terribly useful word if we can't be sure whether it does or not. In fact, I'd almost say-- and I apologise to Flay, because I know he likes the word so much-- I'd almost say it's a dangerous word because it encourages people to conflate "moral righteousness" with "appropriate punishment".

In order to cover all cases, instead of the way you put it, I might say that justice is not the only right in this world.

[thewishfire]

I admit, I don't know very much about justice.... Thank you for that clarity. I guess my feeling was, since people say justice is a good thing, and Flay seems to think it is, and everything... the idea that it would involve punishment seems wrong to me. But I guess maybe it's just that the word means a lot of things, and what Flay means by it isn't necessarily what other people mean by it.... I guess it is difficult to use a word, if it's like that.

And that's a really nice statement.... I like that. I mean, no offence to Flay either, but I believe in greater things than justice, too.

[strivinghigher]

Words can be difficult, yes. The problem is that so much of our language was created by a society with beliefs that conflict, even contradict-- including words for which we have only positive associations, and which are never treated as having potential down-sides or negative repercussions.

One problem I imagine is that if people praise, honour, argue for or approve of justice while meaning "moral righteousness", others who hear them may think that by "justice" they mean "punishment". And those people wouldn't be incorrect, either, because that is one of the things that justice means. Further, the ambiguity sweeps the whole matter of what should be done under the table; it's more useful as a weasel-word to excuse a decision than it is useful to help anyone sort out what's actually right. Nobody will ever question whether "justice" is a good thing, because our associations are universally positive, so it makes a good excuse to call an action "justice"-- but since the definition of "justice" really is so vague, you can call a lot of

[thewishfire]

She says some good things, when I don't hear them. I guess I'm used to hearing her simply making humour, though I know she's much more than that. It would be nice to hear some of her deeper thoughts someday.

Nobody will ever question whether "justice" is a good thing, because our associations are universally positive

I see... when someone says "it's justice", it's hard to reject the idea because you don't want to be against justice, right? That just sounds wrong.... I guess now that you mention it, there are other words like that, too, sort of. Like freedom... no one ever wants to say they're against freedom, because that sounds like you support slavery and things, but there's some stuff you don't want to be free from-- like your friends, or oxygen unless you're doing it for the experience and you don't really need it anyway, or the bonds of life that hold everything together.... Sometimes, it might be important to be against freedom, because freedom from the wrong thing might actually really harm you. And sometimes, I guess, it