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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| reply to Asmodeus
Re: Wow
said by Asmodeus  :a man kills a pregnant woman in a dui manslaughter case... one wrong act... the man is prosecuted (one right act) and found not guilty (one wrong act) and as he leaves court, the husband shoots him dead in an act of revenge (one right and one wrong act) and then he either kills himself afterwards (one wrong act) or is prosecuted (one right act) and found guilty (one right act and one wrong act)... so how many wrongs did it take to try and make something right...? how many wrongs had to occur for the right thing to happen...? see the pointlessness of trying to keep track of one set of behaviors to try and counteract another set... it's meaningless... the two wrongs don't make a right principle is a moralistic falsehood is just that... a falsehood... Actually, that example can be used to prove that two wrongs don't make a right. The husband who shot the DUI driver for killing his wife was committing a wrong act in order to "make right" another wrong act. However, what actually happened was another series of wrong acts (the DUI driver dying due to revenge, the husband ruining the rest of his life, etc.). Nothing was "made right" in the end. No amounts of wrong acts that the husband took would ever make everything right again. Thus two wrongs didn't make a right. (And neither would three, or four, or five, etc.)
Not to go off on a tangent, but Qumahlin was right when he noted that some countries do see two wrongs being fair. A lot of the violence in the Middle East seems to be of the "they killed someone on my side so we must kill someone on their side to make it even again" kind. The problem with that is that the side who has sustained the most recent loss will always see themselves as behind and will attempt to even the score. This will result in their target's group becoming "behind in the score" and will result in another attack. Rinse, repeat, and run around in circles for a few hundred years. | |
Asmodeus
join:2004-05-26
Spring Valley, CA
| said by Jason Levine :said by Asmodeus :a man kills a pregnant woman in a dui manslaughter case... one wrong act... the man is prosecuted (one right act) and found not guilty (one wrong act) and as he leaves court, the husband shoots him dead in an act of revenge (one right and one wrong act) and then he either kills himself afterwards (one wrong act) or is prosecuted (one right act) and found guilty (one right act and one wrong act)... so how many wrongs did it take to try and make something right...? how many wrongs had to occur for the right thing to happen...? see the pointlessness of trying to keep track of one set of behaviors to try and counteract another set... it's meaningless... the two wrongs don't make a right principle is a moralistic falsehood is just that... a falsehood... Actually, that example can be used to prove that two wrongs don't make a right. The husband who shot the DUI driver for killing his wife was committing a wrong act in order to "make right" another wrong act. However, what actually happened was another series of wrong acts (the DUI driver dying due to revenge, the husband ruining the rest of his life, etc.). Nothing was "made right" in the end. No amounts of wrong acts that the husband took would ever make everything right again. Thus two wrongs didn't make a right. (And neither would three, or four, or five, etc.) Not to go off on a tangent, but Qumahlin was right when he noted that some countries do see two wrongs being fair. A lot of the violence in the Middle East seems to be of the "they killed someone on my side so we must kill someone on their side to make it even again" kind. The problem with that is that the side who has sustained the most recent loss will always see themselves as behind and will attempt to even the score. This will result in their target's group becoming "behind in the score" and will result in another attack. Rinse, repeat, and run around in circles for a few hundred years. yeah, i suppose it could go either way... at least in my mind it is more of a philosophical case of simply dealing with reality regardless of the morality of the action... | |
Desdinova
join:2003-01-26
Gaithersburg, MD
| I dunno, I agree completely that the saying "two wrongs..." is frivolous nonsense. What's RIGHT and what's WRONG varies from one person to another and despite the delusional beliefs of many folks these values are not a chisled-in-stone and measurable constant outside of any self-referential belief system.
Let's say someone punches me over a misunderstanding but then steps back and doesn't try and escalate the violence beyond that one punch. That's one wrong act. Still, I feel wronged so I stand up and punch him back. That makes two wrong acts because neither action in any way addresses the misunderstanding that perpetuated the reduction to violence. AND YET...I'll feel pretty goddamned good after popping the bastard in the mouth after he hit me. So yeah, it WILL make it right in my book: you hit me and I hit you. We've hit a moral balance (in my head and in that situation).
If we want to take it even further, most of the legal system is based upon the idea that--from a situational standpoint--two wrongs most certainly make a right. If I rape your wife, I've committed a wrong towards her. If the state arrests me and puts me in jail, they've committed a wrong towards me (as far as I'm concerned. I certainly wouldn't choose to surrender my freedom voluntarily). Once my sentence has been served I'm released and having paid my debt to society (but surprisingly NOT to my victim as it's impossible to unrape her), all is forgiven and we're back to square one.
In other words, I hurt someone so the state hurts me back in order to teach me a lesson. The state KNOWS that their actions will cause me to suffer or they wouldn't be doing it. I'm being punished, remember? Knowingly causing someone to suffer is a wrong act, so by extraction, the legal system is the embodiment of two wrongs DO make a right.
I don't even want to go into capital punishment and how the state feels that killing one person will somehow magically fix things. Hmmm...the victims were still dead last time I checked...
And no, I'm not indicting the legal system and calling for its disassembly. What I AM saying is that the phrase in question is pointless, absurd and proven wrong constantly. THAT'S the subject I'm rambling about, so let's keep the flames to that subject and that alone, shall we? 
Okay, let the flaming begin...*grin* | |
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