Al Gore’s guys to the rescue.
On the web site of Al Gore’s Current TV, Stephen Lewandowsky says Peter Gleick’s acts of deception and theft don’t rise to the justification of Allied deception of the Nazis in World War II or even Daniel Ellsberg’s theft of the so-called “Pentagon papers”:
… Is Gleick another Churchill or Ellsberg?
Legal issues aside, how does his subterfuge compare to the potential public good that has resulted from the documents’ release?
Many philosophers who study ethics agree that it is important to consider the consequences of one’s actions in a moral dilemma to come to an acceptable judgment. Rather than relying on moral strictures, this “consequentialist” approach argues that the morality of an action is evaluated by whether it brings about the greatest total well-being.
This reasoning is mirrored in the cognitive laboratory, where people’s responses are also often informed by the consequences associated with competing paths of action (the data are quite complex but it seems safe to conclude that most people are sensitive to weighting the outcomes of competing actions rather than being exclusively entrenched in immutable moral rules).
Does this mean there is an ethical imperative to consider Gleick to be another Daniel Ellsberg?
No…
Lewandowsky concludes his piece by stating:
It is a matter of personal moral judgment whether that public good justifies Gleick’s sting operation to obtain those revelations.
Well if “saving the planet” (versus defeating the Nazis or opposing the Vietnam War) amounts to only a matter of “personal moral judgment,” then the planet must not really be in danger after all.
You can’t take isolated sentences and then make that comparison. It’s a “Hitler ate sugar” argument.
My thoughts too Tom. This was a classic ‘fake but accurate’ instance. He steals a few real documents that have nothing notable or damning in them and then inserts a made up piece. Eric is right too in that it’s all about the purity of your intentions so the ends justify the means. Always the first resort of fascists and other control freaks.
Gleick should not be compare to Daniel Ellsberg as much as to Dan Rather.
Would Lewandowsky conclude that the moral judgment of a terrorist could justify the bombing of an abortion clinic or a church?
“this “consequentialist” approach argues that the morality of an action is evaluated by whether it brings about the greatest total well-being.” We’ve all heard this one before. The more usual formulation is, “The end justifies the means.”
Now that we know the warmists are not “entrenched in immutable moral rules” and are consequence-driven, we know that the knives are out, no holds barred.
The Unalarmer.
off topic ,
I had one wrong on the first pass and the one wrong ? I had gone back and change #3 .. I was 100% if I would have left it alone. 64 years old experience pays off.
There is an amusing quiz at: http://www.crm114.com/algore/quiz.html
Identify the author of quotes extracted from two publications:
• Al Gore – the politician who wrote Earth in Balance;
• Theodore Kaczynski – the terrorist who wrote the Unabomber Manifesto
Both share hostility against the Industrial Revolution and see the human population as a pest on the planet. Their ideas are so similar that it is hard to attribute them to one or another author. The quiz has twelve quotes and rare is the person who scores 50%.
The first one amassed a fortune of several hundred million dollars over a decade and got a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. The second one got a life sentence.