Re: Danger: Derrida at work

From: Gerry Quinn (gerryq_at_indigo.ie)
Date: 12/15/03 

Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 11:28:22 GMT

In article <f5dda427.0312140806.27596c59@posting.google.com>, spinoza1111@yahoo.com (Edward G. Nilges) wrote:
>gerryq@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn) wrote in message

>> Assuming the house knocked down is the one selected (otherwise the
>> control system may be at fault) there is no a priori reason to believe
>> that its destruction is irrational. Retaliation is often a rational
>> act, typically aimed at behaviour modification in the person or group
>> retaliated against.
>
>Yeah, it's really rational when you create fifty years of enemies.

If it leads to bad results overall, it's probably a bad decision.
But lots of acts create enemies without being irrational.

>If it's against international law it is irrational. The destruction of
>property in retaliation for the act of another is against
>international law and classed with the Nazis' murdering of innocents
>in retaliation for the acts of the Resistance and Maquis.

So we're leaving out cases where a house is knocked in retaliation for
the acts of its owner, are we? As for international law, I think you'll
have to explain why acting against it is irrational per se. I seem to
recall an Israeli saying at one time that while such acts were ethically
unattractive, they had a noticeable effect on the level of suicide
bombings, and if that is correct, the act is undoubtedly rational,
however much you disapprove of it. As indeed, would be Nazi reprisals,
if they tended to achieve their desired effect. Rationality and ethics
are two different concepts, as witness the failed attempts of
philosophers to derive the second from the first.

>Furthermore, it represents an irrational legal regression insofar as
>the retaliation is against a deodand, an inanimate object or person
>which in primitive law was made to stand for the perpetrator of an
>act.

Now you are stretching. For the desired effect is not, after all, to
punish the house.

>Ultimately, the Israeli practice, which has been adopted in Iraq by US
>forces, is a regression to an end point: human sacrifice, for a good
>reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all.

Now you've lost me, I'm afraid. When did we go from tanks knocking
houses to human sacrifice?

- Gerry Quinn

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