happy day after veterans day. a couple of assertions: no one is a hero in virtue merely of belonging to a big organization, even a vast configuration dedicated to violence. if everybody in the military is a hero, then nidal hasan is a hero. if you are a hero you are a hero in virtue of actually taking heroic action, perfectly possible in the military context, but probably not all that frequent there or anywhere else. second, no one is fighting for our freedom unless they are actually doing things that actively preserve or expand our freedom. so if the conflict in iraq or afghanistan actually preserves or expands our freedom, then the people who are fighting in those conflicts are fighting for our freedom. if not, not. it's not a matter of what you or we can convince yourself or ourselves that you are doing, but what you are, actually, doing.

treating mere enlistment as an act of heroism or a defense of freedom is just disingenuous; all you're really trying to do is recruit.

Comments

[Federico]

sidenote question:

"you are a hero in virtue of actually taking heroic action, perfectly possible in the military context"

I was just reading a few bits about moral luck:

"The virtuous person can be preempted from any actual manifestation of virtue by uncooperative circumstance. Here is the moral hero primed for benign self-sacrifice -- prepared at any moment to leap into the raging flood to save the drowning child. But fate has cast him into an arid and remote oasis, as devoid of drowning children as Don Quixote's Spain was lacking ind damsels in distress. Of course, we would be unlikely to recognize this heroism in either sense of the term. On the one hand, we would be unlikely to learn of it. And on the other, we would -- even if evidence did come unalloyedly our way -- be ill advised to reward it in the absence of circumstances that brought it into actual operation."

So I'm wondering: when we deal with people who have performed heroic acts, are we 100% correct in calling them heroes? Put differently, do our limitations to look into people's moral character disqualify us from determining beyond moral standing? I'm tempted to say yes to this. Because we can only really look at moral records and not moral standings, we are unable to split the genuine heroes (even those who have not [yet] performed acts of heroism) from the apparent ones.

Helluva tangent, but I'd appreciate a coupla thoughts on this...
-- F

[mr.fun]

http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2009/11/11/10217