The goddess Iustitia is the Roman goddess of justice (indeed the word comes from her name). If my friend is wrongly accused, and "the truth" would either be so wildly unbelievable as to destroy my credibility or otherwise be detrimental to the cause of securing justice for my friend, then my momentary dishonesty serves a greater cause.Kortney said:Bit of a contradiction there though. Unless your religion says "Never lie! Unless you believe it is right to do so!"SimuLord said:A lie by omission ("Do you remember what happened that night?" "No.") to protect a friend I believed to be wrongly accused, I would do.
Otherwise, on the witness stand as in life, I swear by the goddess Iustitia to remain ever honest in my dealings with people and the world. To lie is against my religious beliefs (and oh by the way, for all you Christians out there, yours too.)
Doesn't make much sense.
My answer was under the assumption that I was dealing with the U.S. judicial system and similar systems.Housebroken Lunatic said:You do know that sometimes in some countries people are forced into testifying in a criminal case right?TWRule said:No, I wouldn't. If I didn't want the truth to be known, I never would have agreed to a truth-telling oath in the first place. Once I'm under oath, I'm obliged to tell the truth. Even if it was to protect myself, I wouldn't lie, because I believe in the need to take responsibility for my actions.
Would it really be fair to honor an oath that you basically have been forced to take under duress?
The U.S judicial system is pretty low grade if you ask me. I mean we're talking about the same system that accepts lawsuits filed against a fast-food restaurant because some customers got their tounges burned because the food or coffee was "too hot".TWRule said:My answer was under the assumption that I was dealing with the U.S. judicial system and similar systems.
The prosecution often has a way of coercing reluctant witnesses into testifying. The "do as we tell you or we'll decide to treat you like a suspect and destroy your social life in the process" is a classic, among other used tactics.TWRule said:It depends on what you mean by "forced" - but generally I'd say it's still a choice. If there's some possible way that you didn't choose to be under the expectation of truth (like you're just put into interrogation with no oath taken) - then no I don't think you're responsible for adherence to the truth (though you are still responsible for the potential consequences of whatever you say). If you take an oath and break it, you have to take responsibility for that, though that doesn't necessarily mean submission to a corrupt power if that's where you're going with this.
I'm not sure how the significance of the average U.S. court case is relevant to my following-through with a truth-taking oath.Housebroken Lunatic said:The U.S judicial system is pretty low grade if you ask me. I mean we're talking about the same system that accepts lawsuits filed against a fast-food restaurant because some customers got their tounges burned because the food or coffee was "too hot".
"Serious business" in the U.S, "irrelevant crap" everywhere else in the world.
Coercion or not, the choice is ultimately yours whether to take the oath, and whether to break it. You have to take responsibility for your actions regardless. If you take the oath, you have to accept that breaking it may result in jail time or other consequences. If you refuse to take it, maybe the corrupt prosecutor will take action against you, but there are channels you can appeal to to deal with that sort of thing, and ultimately it's not relevant to your responsibility for your choice.And if we're talking exclusively criminal cases then you can't seriously tell me that you haven't learned of some of the coercion tricks that the prosecution use in so many instances?
The prosecution often has a way of coercing reluctant witnesses into testifying. The "do as we tell you or we'll decide to treat you like a suspect and destroy your social life in the process" is a classic, among other used tactics.
Now overall im a pretty honest person myself, and if I say im going to tell the truth then I tell the truth. But if that "promise" has been brought about by some asswipe prosecutor trying to force me into supporting his or her cause then you can be damn sure that I'll do pretty much anything I can to fuck with that prosecutors case. I'd even say that I would go on stand and then suddenly change my mind in court to damage the bastards case as much as possible out of sheer spite...
Ah ok I see. Thanks for explainingSimuLord said:The goddess Iustitia is the Roman goddess of justice (indeed the word comes from her name). If my friend is wrongly accused, and "the truth" would either be so wildly unbelievable as to destroy my credibility or otherwise be detrimental to the cause of securing justice for my friend, then my momentary dishonesty serves a greater cause.Kortney said:Bit of a contradiction there though. Unless your religion says "Never lie! Unless you believe it is right to do so!"SimuLord said:A lie by omission ("Do you remember what happened that night?" "No.") to protect a friend I believed to be wrongly accused, I would do.
Otherwise, on the witness stand as in life, I swear by the goddess Iustitia to remain ever honest in my dealings with people and the world. To lie is against my religious beliefs (and oh by the way, for all you Christians out there, yours too.)
Doesn't make much sense.
Sorry but, I have no responsibility towards a coercive "justice" system. My only responsibility is to myself and to make their struggle as fucking miserable as possible if they stoop to intimidating me into serving their cause.TWRule said:Coercion or not, the choice is ultimately yours whether to take the oath, and whether to break it. You have to take responsibility for your actions regardless. If you take the oath, you have to accept that breaking it may result in jail time or other consequences. If you refuse to take it, maybe the corrupt prosecutor will take action against you, but there are channels you can appeal to to deal with that sort of thing, and ultimately it's not relevant to your responsibility for your choice.
I didn't say you were responsible out of some sort of obligation to a state instituition. If you swear the oath, you did it, you're responsible for it. There are better ways to defeat corruption than trying to subvert it. All you're doing is soiling your own hands then.Housebroken Lunatic said:Sorry but, I have no responsibility towards a coercive "justice" system. My only responsibility is to myself and to make their struggle as fucking miserable as possible if they stoop to intimidating me into serving their cause.TWRule said:Coercion or not, the choice is ultimately yours whether to take the oath, and whether to break it. You have to take responsibility for your actions regardless. If you take the oath, you have to accept that breaking it may result in jail time or other consequences. If you refuse to take it, maybe the corrupt prosecutor will take action against you, but there are channels you can appeal to to deal with that sort of thing, and ultimately it's not relevant to your responsibility for your choice.
So according to my morals, im actually more obliged to breaking such sham oaths than to uphold them.
Then what do I have an obligation to if not myself? If I don't see any sort of obligation to the very state and institution that tries to coerce me into doing it's bidding, then the only person I have any sort of obligation to would be myself and my own interests, right?TWRule said:I didn't say you were responsible out of some sort of obligation to a state instituition.
Sorry but that's a rather naive sentiment. The system is corrupt by default, so there are no "better ways" to fight it when it gets out of line. Sabotage is the most effective tool against an overly powerful enemy.TWRule said:If you swear the oath, you did it, you're responsible for it. There are better ways to defeat corruption than trying to subvert it. All you're doing is soiling your own hands then.
Im indifferent towards others opinions as to my accountability or not. Mostly because we live in a society where people are being wrongly held accountable all the time. It's a form of oppression that you can either accept or sabotage as much as possible.TWRule said:But anyway, let's say you took the oath and then later realized you couldn't go through with it for moral reasons. You act as you do knowing that you may be punished for breaking your oath. That's the type of responsibility I was talking about. If you sabotage the trial, you can't later say "well, I had no choice but to do that - you can't hold me accountable for my actions."
You are responsible for yourself and you're responsible for the responsibility of others. That's not "honor" it's ethics. Following through fall under what should be done to ensure the most fair interactions for everyone.Housebroken Lunatic said:-snip-
I think we are talking about two different scenarios here. You mentioned a corrupt prosecutor, not an entirely corrupt system. When I said that there are other channels for dealing with the prosecutor's corruption, I assumed that there were at least some people around who were reasonable enough to hold him responsible for corruption. In the rare case that everyone around is corrupt and unreasonable from top to bottom, and the system itself is somehow unethical - then no, of course you don't need to worry about breaking some oath as much as you do making sure human rights are being upheld some way or another.Sorry but that's a rather naive sentiment. The system is corrupt by default, so there are no "better ways" to fight it when it gets out of line. Sabotage is the most effective tool against an overly powerful enemy.
Further ethical violations don't fix previous ones. If you want to encourage people to act ethically, be ethical in action yourself. It may be okay to break an oath in extreme cases if you can be sure it means protecting human freedoms in the grand scheme, but if you walked into a U.S. courtroom tomorrow and lied under oath - you're making an ethical violation, no matter who threatened you with what. That's all I'm saying.Im indifferent towards others opinions as to my accountability or not. Mostly because we live in a society where people are being wrongly held accountable all the time. It's a form of oppression that you can either accept or sabotage as much as possible.
I choose the latter option, and I choose to do it with intelligence and premeditation so that I'll be successful rather than getting caught and thus hindered from causing further sabotage.
Ethics are relative according to equally relative moral standards. They are also completely debatable. What counts as "ethical" according to a particular justice system doesn't necessarily have to resemble my own subjective kind of ethics that I ascribe to.TWRule said:You are responsible for yourself and you're responsible for the responsibility of others. That's not "honor" it's ethics. Following through fall under what should be done to ensure the most fair interactions for everyone.Housebroken Lunatic said:-snip-
I think we are talking about two different scenarios here. You mentioned a corrupt prosecutor, not an entirely corrupt system. When I said that there are other channels for dealing with the prosecutor's corruption, I assumed that there were at least some people around who were reasonable enough to hold him responsible for corruption. In the rare case that everyone around is corrupt and unreasonable from top to bottom, and the system itself is somehow unethical - then no, of course you don't need to worry about breaking some oath as much as you do making sure human rights are being upheld some way or another.Sorry but that's a rather naive sentiment. The system is corrupt by default, so there are no "better ways" to fight it when it gets out of line. Sabotage is the most effective tool against an overly powerful enemy.
Further ethical violations don't fix previous ones. If you want to encourage people to act ethically, be ethical in action yourself. It may be okay to break an oath in extreme cases if you can be sure it means protecting human freedoms in the grand scheme, but if you walked into a U.S. courtroom tomorrow and lied under oath - you're making an ethical violation, no matter who threatened you with what. That's all I'm saying.Im indifferent towards others opinions as to my accountability or not. Mostly because we live in a society where people are being wrongly held accountable all the time. It's a form of oppression that you can either accept or sabotage as much as possible.
I choose the latter option, and I choose to do it with intelligence and premeditation so that I'll be successful rather than getting caught and thus hindered from causing further sabotage.
I'm using "ethics" in the sense of the science of human freedom - in which case the main value is freedom and everything grows from that. If you believe in free will, the system I've been describing is the most self-consistent that I know of. If you don't - well then you're right, there are plenty of other systems you can come up with (though ethics would no longer be the science of human freedom but something else). Then again, if you don't believe in free will, it's sort of pointless to talk about a justice system anyway since no one could rightfully be held responsible for their actions. Morality, and actions based off of it, are indeed relative, but that is not the sort of action being discussed here. Morality and ethics are often used synonymously, but there is an important distinction we should honor.Housebroken Lunatic said:-snip-