More evidence that rights-based ethical systems have flawed foundations.

[richardhutnik]

gergroy said:

richardhutnik said:

 

This view, which looks like it resolves all sorts of conflicts, ends up missing a lot.  This view would end up saying the only issue with the Hunger Games (the games in the book) is that the participants in the games didn't volunteer to go there.  If they had volunteered, then the entire thing would be ok.  There is nothing unethical about people fighting to the death for fame and glory, so long as they freely choose to do so.  The bigger picture of a system that seems incredibly cruel is that you have no basis for saying it is wrong, if you merely reduce it to one of choice.  And even in that world, the people in it choose to end up being entered in more.  They can choose to be complaint.  People can also choose to not watch.  The entire system could go down, if people choose.  So, in light of choice, you can't even argue that the games are wrong, because people choose to be compliant with it.

 

First of all, Have you actually read the book Hunger Games?  Because it doesn't seem like you have a very good understanding of it.  First of all, they don't choose to watch it, they are forced to watch it under threat of death.  Also, they are forced to enter their name in more than once if they actually want to eat.  I mean, obviously the series ends with the people choosing to rise up and rebel, but I think they do that so that they can have the choice, not in spite of it.  

Also, if they had volunteered to fight to the death for fame and glory, how exactly is that different from somebody joining the military today?  People do volunteer to fight and die today and nobody looks at a soldiers death and says, that was unethical of him to volunteer and do that.  

There are individuals that choose to enter the military, because they see no economic opportunity available to them.  The pick what they see as the lesser evil.  Pretty much you see this happen.  As economic times get worse, people are more willing to join the military out of necessity:

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,204238,00.html

 

In regards to choose to watch or not, a lot of choices in life come down to deciding not to die or not.  People will feel compelled to pick a poorer choice over death.  What the discussion here has come down to is enshrining choice above everything else.  People will argue here that so long as I personally choose to do something, it makes it ok, so long as I don't interfere with other choices.  And it was a focus on liberty above every other value that will pop up in rights-based ethics system.  What you see in this is a blind spot to situations where someone could intervene to enable a person to not make a bad choice, but they don't.  By saying ethics is simply a case of not punching people's in the nose, it fails to address actual issues that could reduce what other values systems would see as evil.