Morality is either an absolute measure, or useless as a metric. What is pragmatic shifts with circumstances, and is by necessity far more complex then the knee-jerks and gut-feelings of morality. This is why pragmatism should always outweigh moral considerations, because it considers benefits and consequences rather than dictating a rigid, context-less course of action based on principles.
Principles can consider context, benefits, and consequences. In fact, the pragmatic principles you're exhibiting right now
are part of a moral framework. Don't pretend that morality/ethics can't consider circumstances or incorporate practical concerns just because your own cognitive dissonance (or whatever is going on in your head) prevents you from reconciling your bizarre, absolutist "morality" with the way the real world functions.
If your "morality" is so hypersimplistic and black-and-white that it cannot possibly account for the majority of real-life scenarios and has to be discarded in favor of some ill-defined "practical" system (FYI, what's "practical" depends on what you're actually trying to accomplish, which in turn depends on what you think is "right" in the first place), then there's a problem, as most of us have probably learned to move on from that sort of grade-school hideously absolutist morality that we learn as small children.
You make it sound like infinite punishment is morally justified for even the most minor of crimes. If I kick someone in the shin out of anger, I'm violating his rights; do I deserve to get put down for that too?
Anger is an impairment. Someone acting out of anger will necessarily be acting irrationally in all the but the rarest of circumstances. While they are still accountable for their actions, it is a mitigating factor that says the right thing to do would usually be to provide treatment or a lessened penalty, except for the more egregious examples. It's a great deal different than putting a gun to someone's head and demanding money or kicking down someone's door to steal their TV in cold blood.
Okay, so... what if I didn't do it out of anger? What if I was just being a jerk? Why doesn't that deserve maximum possible punishment? And why does stealing someone's TV deserve maximum punishment when there are far worse crimes?
Seriously, talking about "stealing [a] TV in cold blood" and acting like it deserves the death penalty says to me that your priorities are
extremely out of whack. If your fucking TV means so much to you that you equate stealing it with first-degree murder (and then some), then you need to reexamine your life.
Funny how this discussion came about through making an example for why what is "morally" right is not always the best course of action, in the context that it might not be the wisest decision to set a precedent of confiscating the assets of deposed dictators, since it means they have all the more to lose if they lose power, and will thus be more willing to engage in more brutal repression of their citizens if they detect a whiff of revolutionary sentiment...
Then it
isn't morally right because of that potential outcome. It's not "morally right but still wrong"; it's just
wrong (if you buy that argument in the first place).
"Morality" doesn't mean being able to come up with a perfect solution to everything. It also doesn't mean coming up with solutions that are benevolent in the short-term even if they're malevolent in the long-term. Sometimes it means short-term harm for long-term gain (or for lesser long-term harm).
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Topic: Egypt and the world and Libya - Now without Ukraine! (Read 373489 times)