To Cyan
Cyan said:
I don’t think any “real” german would of fault for hitler. they shoudl of formed a rebellion agianst him. a person of the nation has the Responsibillity not the right to correct and help its government for the better. and the germnas of te 30’s and early 40s did not uphold thier responibilty but let hitler fo on his rampage leading to more deaths than any other man.
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, having its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. "- (i know this is american) declaration of independence
Exactly, and this is in my opinion the most interesting and difficult issue in the entire philosophy of morals and ethics ever since the birth of existentialism. In my view ethics and personal morals must rationally be understood as the personal intention to be loyal towards life and humanity, not just loyal to society. This will inevitably bring the individual moral responsibility in conflict with an immoral society.
The philosophical problem is to define exactly what constitues “loyal towards humanity” and from there deduce (develope) formalized criterias to conclude what actions are morally correct/incorrect. The theory of historism gives criticism to the idea of using such formalized criterias as measurement tolls regarding historical facts, and rejects any moral conclusive statements regarding history.
Morality however, is a social fact, - not merely a rational convention. This means that morals exist in our reality because moral thougts can be proven to have been a basic cause or reason for individual actions in many certain cases all through history. Not necessarely because these actions themself fulfills the criterias of any rational theories or “modern” moral conventions, but rather because no other rational reasons can be found concerning such “altruistic” actions (with loyalty to humanity in general rather than loyalty to any certain human beings in their environment).
In that sense it becomes an important question, not so much why so many Germans followed Hitler (or why so many jews helped killing there fellows), but rather why some people stood up in all the cases where you can find no individual and rational reasons for doing so (ie. altruistic actions with dire consequenses for yourself).
So while it is evident that moral intentions and ethics does indeed exist thereby disproving nihilism to a certain extent, - what is now left is the REAL philosophical problems of ethics: To define the human actions that are morally correct and those that are incorrect. (The American Declaration of Independence does not offer any definitive answer regarding this question).
Another big problem regarding this question seems to be, that even the right intentions, does not always lead to the actions with the best consequenses. So the “right intention” does not necessarely guarantee a “correct action”. Add to this the similar problem: The “correct action” (the action with the best consequenses) is not necessarely proof of a “right intention”.
This paradox leads to problems for the two main theoretical positions in philosophical ethics: Deontology (the correct action is always based on correct intentions) and Consequentialism (the correct action is the action with the best consequences)
                       –------------------------
After this rather abstract discussion let’s take a new look on Admiral Canaris and his Abwehr staff:
Admiral Canaris and Abwehr DID in fact stand up against the nazis, they DID rebellion against Hitler (they threw a bomb), and their actions surely DID have dire consequenses for themself (they were all executed).
So now comes the tough questions to Colonel Cool: 1. Was the Abwehr “morally correct” concerning their actions? and 2. was the abwehr “morally correct” concerning their intentions?
Regarding (1), we could more specifically ask: Should the staff at Abwehr have retired when (or soon after) Hitler came to power? Was it morally incorrect that they didn’t retire?
To be honest: I don’t know!
And thats exactly when the toughest paradox of all paradoxes hits me hard in the face: If i can not with certainty positively prove that there actions were truly altruistic or “morally correct”, how on earth can I then postulate with certainty that there intentions were “morally correct”?
To be honest: I can’t!
And now the sceptical moralist has caught me up in a trap with the question: How can I then with my full moral responsibility intact, declare my admiration for Canaris and even bring out a toast for him?
Surely I must now admit I have made a moral projection, and the only answer I can give is: I believe I did it for moral reasons.
It’s true, I don’t know if Canaris had moral intentions, I simply CHOOSE to believe so. I think that all human beings need to believe in moral ideals as facts, specially in times of cruelty. I don’t know what should keep us from barbarianism in a society of barbarians, if not our believes in morality and humanity.
So let me now clarify my statement: The “real” Germans were not the Germans who stayed loyal to Hitler, but the Germans who tried to stay loyal to the principals of humanity.
Morally we are all personally responsible for our conduct and no loyalty to authorities can ever change that. Were are humans, - not puppets!
Boy, that was a long song coming! ;-)
