imajulianutter: I misread your post and my mind slipped on your name.

Sorite. Wait 'till ya get old. ;-)

According to those who know me best, my adult off spring, I am already old.

Jack Maxwell

You claim that a utilitarian morality is wrong and leads to stoping boats which you claim violates the essential inviolability that each individual essentially possesses.

Essentially I agree but I must turn your attention to the REAL problem of perception in this matter.

That is the narrow focus and blindness that our nation's constant focus on refugees and boats only near our shores - this shows bias; whilst our cultural awareness of more extreme and serious matters elsewhere such as the other 99% refugee issues goes unnoticed.

Surely this exposes at least some severe moral deficiency.

You claim to be against ‘utilitarian’ attitudes - no reason given just implied feelings.

YET what of the bizarre utilitarian approach the Left has towards the "refugee phenomenon" which Left has managed to coerce our whole nation into having by forcing our attentions exclusively onto the tiny handful that travel by boat to our shores via use of means of "moral cops", "shame tactics", "branding racist" those who disagree etc.

Nothing is mentioned of the 99% refugees waiting in squalid camps on borders of third-world nations all over world.

Surely to not help ALL equally violates this inviolability of all people.

The LEFT are extremely confused and mixed up since while they scorn as bad people any who engage in a utilitarian stance to human crisis; the Left themselves take a strong utilitarian stance in the way they approach and deal with the global refugee phenomenon by ONLY focusing on less than 1% of refugees who come by boat to our shores.

Their blindness to the other 99% is at the very real and cruel expense of those millions of persecuted people who suffer in silence are out of our western sight range.

Have you EVER considered that the "bigot" who says 'no' to more boats is in fact of the mind I have just now described.

Dear Matthew,

You say that you agree that utilitarian morality is wrong: it certainly is. Utilitarian morality is the claim that "all means justify the ends". Rather, the means are at least as important as the ends.

The foundation of morality is non-violence. While it is nice and virtuous to bring and shelter refugees from all over the world, the first and foremost precept of morality is to not harm those who arrive (or try to arrive) on their own.

If refugees are persecuted and wait in squalid camps, then it is very sad, but is the doing of others and if they drown in the ocean, then it is also very sad, but is their own doing. If however you hunt and capture them on the high seas, then forcibly turn them back or incarcerate them, then this violence you are guilty of yourself.

Yuyutsu,

Part I -

You claim “utilitarian morality is wrong” and claim "the means are at least as important as the ends”.

. . . which leads you to conclude “While it is nice and virtuous to bring and shelter refugees from all over the world, the first and foremost precept of morality is to not harm those who arrive (or try to arrive) on their own”

You claim whilst it is “very sad” that “refugees are persecuted and wait in squalid camps”, but Australia’s policy of “forcibly turn[ing]” boats “back or incarcerat[ing] them” is actions of violence which “ you are guilty of yourself”.

However, look closely at your premises Yuyutsu - YOU ARE a “utilitarian” in Moral judgements and decisions.

Take your claim that regardless of all else when Australia does engage in actions to detain, return and/or imprison people fleeing to our shores in boats that we have conducted ourselves immorally and this makes it wrong in some universal sense.

You seem to imply a kind of moral vigour which Immanuel Kant once wrote of to say that ‘certain actions are essentially immoral’ and so must never be enacted, such as for instance ‘a situation in which 4 men are abandoned in a boat at sea have no food and are lost decide that if they wish to survive they must choose 1 of the 4 do die so the other 3 have enough provisions’ a Kantian would NEVER allow such a decision but would argue for either ALL to live or ALL to die trying since NO ANY single person is more important than ANY other person.

Whereas a Utilitarian would choose to kill 1 for good of 3.

Further and to end, unless you are disagreeing that majority of the world’s refugees exist in “squalid camps” on borders of third-world nations barely being tended to, and that only 1-2% refugees are what we ever deal with and talk about as “Boat people”, then HOW do you convince yourself that this is NOT a “Utilitarian” act of moral deciding of one over another?

Part II -

HOW could we make a choice which is to deal with the “boat people” or not over and above dealing with or focusing on any other refugee masses or concerns in the world, then surely this is not a PURE, universalist moralistic, ALL GOOD absolutely (as in a Kantian sense where ALL individuals are equal) way of behaving by our government and the supporters of the action?

Surely this is instead a UTILITARIAN moral action since it allows for the decision to include factors where some groups in need are less important than others.

That is to say, the action of choosing to help the few refugees in boats near our shores at expense of most refugees globally and also at expense of trying to fix source of problem, is a very extreme type of utilitarian act. - when 1-2% is entirely focused upon at the expense and deletion from mind of other 98%.

In fact ONLY IF we attempted to approach the refugee problem from a more wide, holistic angle would that behaviour amount to the kind of moral sort you seem to indicate is what you believe is enacted in the focus on the 2% at expense of 98% - i.e. the Utilitarian action, highly calculative.

Surely this exposes at least some severe moral deficiency.

Besides, to rely your entire argument upon the premise that we should NOT EVER do HARM, so as to force us to make the "moral choice" which is you think to choose the few over the most

- let me put this to u and to anyone:

Hypothetically if these were not poor refugees but actually wealthy people from the same nations the refugees are fleeing since these "wealthy" people are the criminals who persecute them but now thru some miracle they are forced to flee . . .

. . . Would we be right to help them over helping anyone else in trouble? If so surely the bit about "Harm" you raise as your gold piece U must now see its futility.