No jrbogie,

According to your argument, justification is personal. Therefore, if that is true, then Hitler was justified - because your notion does not factor into how you've set things out here.

ah ha, there it is in a nutshell. because everybody's concience is their own and unique, we hold people accountable by law. we'd need no laws if everybody's concience was the same, if everybody's moral and ethical compass was the same. hitlers acts were unconcionable to me and you but they were not unconcionable to him and his nazi followers.



it's only public in that groups of people, each with their own like minded concience, collectively decide that something is culturally correct for that society. i've not said that various groups of individuals do not share similar lines of reasoning. we have democrats and republicans, for instance; two very different groups. one made up of like minded individuals who are the polar oposits politically of the other group of like minded individuals. one of these very public groups justifies tax increases to get us out of our economic situation. the other group thinks such tax increases are not justified yet each group has a small number of individuals who disagree on the taxing ideas of the rest of the group. so it's easy to say publically that democrates are a tax and spend bunch and that republicans are a smaller government bunch and yet some members of either party advocate the oposit of their party's platform on taxes.

Here's the problem with such an approach. It necessarily ends in incoherence. A statement cannot be both true and false simultaneously. That is clearly supported by the law of non-contradiction. Therefore, the statement "Hitler was justified in his actions" is either true, false, or neither. It cannot be both. One is the negation of the other.

no, according to what you think my argument is. but that's not my argument. hitler was justified in his mind. hitler was not justified in my mind.

hitler was justified in his actions is a true statement for him. his truth. hitler was justified in his actions is a false statement for me. my untruth if you will.

The statement "Hitler was justified" is either true, false or neither. There is no 'true for you' and 'true for him'.

Truth is not subject to your belief.

truth is subjective to each individual. but we already know we disagree here.

Indeed we do. You conflate belief and truth. I make and adhere to the distinction between them. Your argument is incoherent, and I've shown why. I've nothing further until this is given it's just due.

It cannot be both. This needs further attention.

give it further attention as you wish.

I've given it all that is necessary to show the incoherence. Commit it to the flames.

as you wish. i'd never suggest such a thing about your views but then i'm not you.

Creative after reading through here I have observed that you cannot seem to separate personal justification from collective justification.

Collective justification is what we use to create punishment for those we deem wrong in our society. Personal justification is what we use for almost all actions we make that require a reason.

When one acts in such a way that it has damaging negative effects/affects upon society at large, the action best be publicly justified/justifiable, not only by the actor themself, but also by those whose lives are affected/effected.

It is not so much that I cannot(have not) draw(n) the distinction, Dragoness. Rather, what bothers me is that when I do, some things become apparent in such a way that I cannot be satisfied with the conclusions that follow. It is impossible for justification to be satisfied by personal value alone, and I'll tell you why that is the case. Justification is contingent upon personal value assessments which are contingent upon social constructs. Therefore, justification is necessarily contingent upon social constructs(public).

If we hold that self-justification constitues being justification, then it necessarily follows that Hitler was justified. Now most of us would hopefully realize that that statement cannot be true because that would mean that such behavior could be argued for being permissible. This renders non man-made behavioral law unattainable.

If one is arguing that justification is not public, then nothing contained within can necessarily depend upon a social construct or the argument is refuted. If behavioral codes are born of a group, then surely it must be necessarily social(public). Moral/ethical codes are socially created. Justification necessarily contains personal value assessments as well, some of which conflict with universal moral law and some of which do not. Value assessment is social behavior. Social is public, not private. Personal justification is entirely based in personal value assessment - most of which is social at it's roots. Society manifests social behavior laws, some of which are man-made and some of which are not.

It is impossible for justification to exist without public affairs. To claim that it is not public is to contradict known fact and common sense combined.

that's just it. hitler did not think that he was acting in a way that would have damaging negative effects upon society. in fact he felt the oposite. we could go on all day arguing whether or not republican actions or democrat actions in congress have damaging effects upon the american society at large and no two people would agree wholeheartedly. many would say that the action of the supremes in deciding roe v wade has damaging negative effects on society and many more think the decision to be completely justified.



so would you personally justify a man beating his wife in saudi arabia? there is a contigent among the society in that country, their public, that sees such an act to be justified.



but WE don't hold that self justification constitutes being justified. there is no WE in all of this. there are simply somewhat more than six billion individuals and counting on the planet each with his/her own ideas of what is and is not justified.

that is precisely why man made laws exist. so that a perp such as hitler cannot get away with his own self justification.



different societies, publics, have differing ideas on what is and is not justified. even among our own society, public, not everybody agrees. was bush justified in invading iraq? for every large group, public, you find that says he was, i'll find a very large group, public, that says he was not. so which public justification shall i find to be true justification and which false? shall i find saudi arabia's public justification, laws, of husbands beating wives justified or can i instead see that america's public justification, laws, that women are every bit the equal of men and shall be treated accordingly?



sure. so long as you accept the fact that public affairs don't always see justification the same.

Man-made laws(ethics) are prima facie evidence that the act of justification is a public/social event that depends upon public/social roots, and is therefore not personal.



QED

If justification is personal then it only follows that Hitler was justified, that Ted Bundy was justified, Charlie Manson, Jack the Ripper, etc.

Either those people are/were justified or justification is not personal.

Let's add something new to the discussion...

Does demonstrably false belief constitute adequate ground for being justified in action based upon such belief?

it was a group of individuals with like minded ideas that made the event happen. even so, once the particular law was innacted, many will see the law as unjust.



nope.

they may or may not have felt justified in their own minds. none were justified in my mind.