Alan Anderson signs his warmist Northfield News commentary on global warming:
Alan Anderson, a Northfield resident, is concerned for his and everyone’s grandchildren.
Having failed with their substantive arguments, climate activists often try to make warmism some sort of morality play — a shield behind which they hope to advance their junk science-fueled political agenda.
If morality is relative, then there is no standard of good or evil. Good then simply depends upon the arbitrary whim of the individual, group, or institution that defines what is good and who is able to force others to follow the dictates of that morality. In that case, cost/benefit has nothing to do with morality. There is only the will to command and control by the use of force to obtain compliance.
As a pragmatist looking at cost/benefit, how do you know that a particular thing, action, or result is a benefit? By what standard do you make that judgement?
In general, pragmatists believe the standard is whatever works. Yet, what works is dependent upon your goal. If you achieve your goal, it works. If you don’t, it didn’t work.
The question then becomes: what is it that makes your goal, if achieved, a benefit? The answer to that, is your standard of morality.
If you can’t answer that question, you can’t rationally judge the cost vs. benefit that you hold as your highest ethic. You are left with your feeling and whim being your master. Which, by the way, is exactly the same morality described in my first paragraph.
‘Morality’is and always has been relative. Mutilating the genitals of children is considered ‘moral’ in some cultures. As a devout pragmatist, I try to look at the overall cost/benefit ratio. EVERY ‘green’ program I have ever examined will increase costs over the system it is intended to replace, and with little or no tangible benefit.
Standard moral fallacy: ANY action is to be considered moral if its stated purpose is for the sacred *other* and not self. Neither the covert purpose, the action, nor the consequence of the action is to be considered part of the moral equation. The elevation to the nobility of high moral purpose is to be derived from only the uttered words “I am doing it just for them”.
Warmist hiding behind other peoples children and throwing rocks….film at 11.
Good grieve – he is DOING IT FOR THE GRAND CHILDREN
I like to think I’m on better moral ground than the warmists are, so I should be civil when they reciprocate. I guess.