Author Archives: Editors

‘The Hidden Connection Between Morality And Language’ By Cody Delistraty

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Tragedy can strike us any time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make the best of it. When Frank’s dog was struck and killed by a car in front of his house, he grew curious what Fido might taste like. So he cooked him up and ate him for dinner. It was a harmless decision, but, nonetheless, some people would consider it immoral. Or take incest. A brother, who’s using a condom, and his sister, who’s on birth control, decide to have sex. They enjoy it but keep it a secret and don’t do it again. Is their action morally wrong? If they’re both consenting adults and not hurting anyone, can one legitimately criticize their moral judgment?

Janet Geipel of the University of Trento in Italy posed fictional scenarios like these to German-, Italian-, and English-speaking college students in each student’s native language and in a second language that they spoke almost fluently. What Geipel found in her July 2015 study is that “the use of a foreign language, as opposed to a native language, elicited less harsh moral judgments.” She concluded that a distance is created between emotional and moral topics when speaking in a second language.

 

People are more likely to act less emotionally and more rationally when speaking their second language, according to Geipel. Nelson Mandela seemed to have understood this dynamic decades ago when he said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

The distinction is an important one: If moral decisions are contingent on the language in which they are posed then the decisions of people who must work in a foreign language on a daily basis—immigrants, international corporations, international institutions—would need to be reevaluated. Whether it’s Goldman Sachs in Paris or the United Nations in Burma, decisions made by people speaking their non-native languages appear to be less concerned with morality and more concerned with rationality and utilitarianism. Click link for full article.

http://nautil.us/blog/the-hidden-connection-between-morality-and-language

posted by f. sheikh

India-nuclear-for-china-not-pakistan/

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Subject: A visitor of ValueWalk shared an article with you.

I read this article and found it very interesting, thought you 
would enjoy. The article is called India Targeted China With Nuclear Program, Not Pakistan and is located at
http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/08/india-nuclear-for-china-not-pakistan/

It is an different slant on the conventional views about the regionand worth a read.
Editor

 

Hate Crimes In Israel

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Although one may argue that hate crimes against Palestinians is nothing new, but recent hate crimes in Israel against Palestinians and its own minority has taken a more menace turn. Mr. Netanyahu is doing for Israel what General Zia did for Pakistan. With Mr. Netanyahu’ blessings the ultra orthodox are gaining strength and moderates are dwindling. This trend is also affecting the political discourse in USA where Mr. Netanyahu is openly leading the Republican party in opposition of Iranian nuclear deal. The article below in NYT describes the disheartening response from liberals in Israel against recent hate crimes. ( F. Sheikh)

TEL AVIV — “This isn’t everyone,” my son said Saturday as we stood on the steps of the Tel Aviv City Hall, in Rabin Square. “There are more people coming, right?”

It was already 9 p.m., an hour and a half past the official opening of the anti-violence, anti-incitement demonstration. He’s not even 10 yet, but he’s already seen that square full of people demonstrating for less important causes and he’s sure that, as in every good Western, the cavalry is on the way, that tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of citizens horrified by the terrible events that occurred in Israel this week will be thronging the square. How is it possible that fewer people would come to demonstrate against the murder of children and innocent people than to demonstrate against the high cost of housing or the halt to building in the settlements?

The next day, Sunday, the newspapers reported that there were “thousands of demonstrators,” the word “thousands” designed only to conceal the empty spaces in the square. Skilled photo editors produced pictures for the front pages that made the relatively small crowd appear huge. That sad effort to enlarge the size of the demonstration was not a result of hidden political motives, but of a collective sense of shame.

Because the embarrassing truth is that a demonstration against two hate crimes — the firebombing on Friday of a home in a Palestinian village, which killed an 18-month-old boy, and the stabbing of six marchers on Saturday in Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade, including a 16-year-old girl who later died of her injuries — did not get many people out of their homes, definitely not in this especially hot, humid August. And that truth is not a pleasant one for anybody.

I’m old enough to remember Rabin Square, when it was still called the Kings of Israel Square, full of demonstrators on many occasions. I remember, as a teenager, hundreds of thousands of people railing against the Lebanon War after the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 and a crowd so full of hope at the demonstration for the peace agreement, after which Yitzhak Rabin was murdered in 1995. I remember it full of men in their knitted skullcaps demonstrating against the disengagement, and the eager young people singing at the demonstration for social justice. But today it’s half-empty. Where are all the people who filled it then?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/opinion/do-israelis-still-care-about-justice.html?ref=international

MASTER AND SLAVE

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Master and Slave:

According to Hegel, each possesses half of freedom: power to exercise it, and insight into its value. As a paradigm of this relationship he took the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius and the slave philosopher Epictetus who taught him to be free.

Page 212 THE OXFORD ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY edited by ANTHONY KENNY

Epictetus (c. AD 55-135) The most influential teacher of Stoicism of his time, Epictetus was born a slave in Asia Minor. He was given his freedom around the year 68, but was banished from Rome by Diocletian around 90. He was lame for much of his life. It is known that he was extremely popular, respected, and lived a life of utmost simplicity, in accordance with Stoic doctrine. His teachings or Discourses include an emphasis on submissiveness, humility, and charity, but also upon the ability and duty of a person to mould his or her character in the effort to achieve self-government and independence of external circumstance. [THE OXFORD DISCTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY]

Note: Philosophy encourages you to acquire freedom thru intellectual empowerment. All organized religions impose limitations on human intellectual freedom. All organized religions ostracize free thinkers.

Posted by:  nSalik (Noor Salik)