12-05-2004, 04:59 PM | #221 | |
avocatus diaboli
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Quote:
To pull this back OT, does anyone believe, however, that the same argument could be used defending the orcs?
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12-05-2004, 05:01 PM | #222 |
Warrior of the House of Hador
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Well the orcs didn't know any other way of living. They were bred being taught to kill men and elves. Just as elves and men were bred being taught to kill orcs.
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Then Huor spoke and said: "Yet if it stands but a little while, then out of your house shall come the hope of Elves and Men. This I say to you, lord, with the eyes of death: though we part here for ever, and I shall not look on your white walls again, from you and me a new star shall arise. Farewell!" The Silmarillion, Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Page 230 Last edited by Telcontar_Dunedain : 12-05-2004 at 05:02 PM. |
12-05-2004, 05:03 PM | #223 | |
avocatus diaboli
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Quote:
[edited] You edited. Is this about to return to the "who is really evil?" debate? TD, were orcs bred to kill other orcs too, do you think? Because this happened a lot.
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12-05-2004, 05:06 PM | #224 |
Warrior of the House of Hador
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No, but were elves bred to kill other elves, because this happend, and so did men vs men.
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Then Huor spoke and said: "Yet if it stands but a little while, then out of your house shall come the hope of Elves and Men. This I say to you, lord, with the eyes of death: though we part here for ever, and I shall not look on your white walls again, from you and me a new star shall arise. Farewell!" The Silmarillion, Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Page 230 |
12-05-2004, 06:57 PM | #225 |
Swan-Knight of Dol Amroth
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The Orcs were bred to be the army of Morgoth and then Sauron. Men and Elves were not 'bred' to be anything but free with the imperative to defend themselves against Orcs, evil Men or Elves, or anything else that attacked them. The case of comparing Orcs against Southern Secessionists and even members of the Wehrmacht (the German army as opposed to the SS units) and the German navy is that there was chivalrous and civilised behavior by members of all those forces, and whoever has heard anything good done by Orcs? Or the SS?
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12-06-2004, 10:43 AM | #226 |
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"Goodness is weakness, pleasantness is poisonous, serenity is mediocrity and kindness is for losers. The best reason for committing loathsome and detestable acts — and let's face it, I am considered something of an expert in this field — is purely for the their own sake. Monetary gain is all very well, but it dilutes the taste of wickedness to a lower level that is obtainable by almost anyone with an overdeveloped sense of avarice. True and baseless evil is as rare as the purest good.
- Acheron Hades, "Degeneracy for Pleasure and Profit" " Did anyone note besides myself ( and Attalus and Wayfarer, I am sure) the logical inconsistency revealed by this argument? While alleging not to enjoy evil for money and to pursue "the taste for wickedness", the true reality of the nature of evil as not-self-existent is revealed. AH seeks wickedness for pleasure. Pleasure is a good. In his case a much perverted good, a barely recognizable good, but a good. As Screwtape observed to Wormwood, the Enemy has never made one single pleasure, they all must be twisted before they are of any use!
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
12-07-2004, 03:43 PM | #227 |
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What exactly is evil? Can it be summed up so simply as evil people do so and so and good people do so and so? I'll illustrate my point with an example...
If an elf left a microphone by his fortress and a goose walked towards it and honked into the microphone, the sound would be amplified. Now, let's say that another elf hears the sound and gos deaf, so loud the goose's honk would be... Now, is that goose evil? |
12-07-2004, 03:55 PM | #228 | |
avocatus diaboli
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That is the saddest analogy I've ever heard, Finrod.
Quote:
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12-07-2004, 04:31 PM | #229 | |
The Insufferable
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Quote:
Evil
Hmm. 'Morally Bad'. Well, 'Bad' is, more or less, a state of being 'worse than'. Bad
Well... Def 2 is redundant (We're trying to figure out what 'evil' means, so using a circular definition doesn't help), and Def 4 isn't strictly correct usage. Defs 7, 9, 13, and 14, and possibly 12, don't really apply to Evil, so those can be dropped. And 15 is right out of the running. Okay... So
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Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned Last edited by Wayfarer : 12-07-2004 at 04:45 PM. |
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12-07-2004, 04:39 PM | #230 | |
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Quote:
Morality
Am I mistaken in that Morality (def. 2) is what we are mostly dealing with here? [edited] hehe... we posted at the same time.
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Neil Gaiman Last edited by Elemmírë : 12-07-2004 at 04:40 PM. |
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12-07-2004, 05:03 PM | #231 |
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Heh. Yeah... I was in the process of editing.
Anyway. You more or less sum up morality, but my dictionary has a few meanings that are slightly different, which I think bear looking at: A) Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary. Under this definition, Morality is defined as being exclusively in reference to human action and character, which means that things like geese and guns and heart attacks can never be considered immoral (and hence, can't be evil). Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty. B) Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation. C) Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty. Both of these define morality based on what is felt. I bring these up because I think it's important to note that this doesn't cover what we're talking about. As I went over with the earlier discussion of Evil, definition based on feelings are... not so useful. That said, I would say that you are right to assume that def 2 is the most commonly used - however, I hesitate at saying it is the most important. Really, I think that sense 2 almost grows out of definitions 1 and A, and is really a way of trying to categorize what is morally right under those definitions. A particular system of right conduct is nescessarily derived from ideas and judgements about the goodness and badness of particular actions.
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12-07-2004, 05:12 PM | #232 | |
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Quote:
But we've come to our first dilemma: we need dictionary definitions to agree on what words mean sometimes, but are we not relying too heavily on them? As seen here, the definitions don't always add up correctly. I will agree with you. Morality is only used in references to humans (outside of Disney films, of course ) The idea of something existing only for humans brings us to an interesting question (in my mind, at least): Somewhat Off Topic compared to what we were doing before, but food for thought all the same: Does evil and morality exist because we name it? Or do we name it because it exists? That sounds almost like a Nietzsche quote...
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12-07-2004, 07:23 PM | #233 |
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Not Nietzsche... another famous author whose name and work I can't recall at the moment. Err... Was it Kant? In his Critiques of Pure Reason? Might have been.
I'll have more to say later. :P
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12-07-2004, 07:25 PM | #234 |
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Nah. Nietzsche had something like that too... It was the sentence structure that reminded me of it: "Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or is God merely a mistake of man's?" Simply the idea of who created who... Interesting, I think.
My question still stands, though. I'll be around....Not like I have homework....well, homework that I plan on doing before 2am...
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Neil Gaiman Last edited by Elemmírë : 12-07-2004 at 07:26 PM. |
12-07-2004, 07:30 PM | #235 | |
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Quote:
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12-07-2004, 07:33 PM | #236 |
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Would you like fries with that?
mmm... sorry. Wrong thread.
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12-07-2004, 08:26 PM | #237 |
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I agree with Wayfarer that morality is concerned solely with human (and by extension, Elves, Dwarves, Maia, etc.) since we are fallen creatures and geese and bears are not. We also are concerned with right action and animals are simply concerned with self-interest, except for the odd case of dogs. Anything that a Man does knowingly to another of the Children (remember, this is about evil in Middle-earth) who is innocent of aggression or dangerous behavior does evil behavior. Hence, war has always been known to have an evil component, regardless of the intent of the commanders or rulers.
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"What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions are not beyond conjecture." - Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial. |
12-07-2004, 10:27 PM | #238 | |
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*cracks knuckles*
Allright then. Now appearing live on Entmoot, for only the three-thousand-seven-hundred-and-twenty-second time ever, showing for a limited time only, not available without a reservation, we present to you -drumroll please... *drumroll* Wayfarer Answers the Deep Questions of Life! This product not approved by the FDA. Truthfullness of Answers not guarateed under law. dissatisfaction not covered under warranty. Void where Prohibited. Now, let's see what we have today, shall we? Ellemire, you sent in: Quote:
*puts on a blue wizard hat* Well now, Wayfarer, that really is a ticklish question. Kind of a 'chicken and the egg', problem, you see. Now, some people would say that, unless a human can give a name to a concept, they can't really understand it. The answer I'd have to give is: Naming the concept doesn't cause it to exist, because humans lack true creative power. We just don't have the ability to bring something new into existance - the most we can ever manage is to shuffle around already existing things. Naming a concept does aid in understanding it, but there's no way to name a concept that doesn't exist.\ I think.
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Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned Last edited by Wayfarer : 12-08-2004 at 12:55 AM. |
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12-07-2004, 10:34 PM | #239 | |
avocatus diaboli
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Besides that... wow...that made my day, Wayfarer. Thank you. My bad mood just evaporated completely. I have to get over this laughing fit before I can respond... You can expect more... when I come back... btw... That post was just saved on my hard drive.
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Neil Gaiman Last edited by Elemmírë : 12-07-2004 at 10:36 PM. |
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12-07-2004, 11:49 PM | #240 | |
The Insufferable
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Quote:
Nyah!
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