The link to letters people wrote reminds me of a book I love called "Japanese death poems", basically a collection of haikus written shortly before death. Very interesting to read things written at such an important moment for people.
Thanks for this thoughtful reflection on Solzhenitsyn’s speech. I haven’t read the full text myself, but your summary makes it sound like Solzhenitsyn was urging America not to abandon its telos. He seems to see the United States not just as a global superpower, but as a moral example, a nation committed to liberty and resistance to tyranny.
What stood out in your response is the conflict between that mission and the means used to carry it out, particularly the use of conscription. There is a deep irony in a country founded on individual rights forcing its citizens to fight in the name of securing those rights for others. It raises a difficult question: can a liberal democracy pursue global justice without violating the freedoms it claims to uphold?
I am currently reading MacIntyre’s After Virtue, and I find it relevant to this problem. He critiques how modern moral reasoning has fractured into isolated parts, with utilitarian and deontological arguments pulling in different directions. We use moral language to justify or condemn, but we no longer share a coherent narrative about the good.
Both Solzhenitsyn’s moral urgency and your concern for coerced sacrifice may reflect this fragmentation. They appeal to different ethical frameworks, but neither feels fully grounded in a shared moral tradition. MacIntyre’s response, as I understand it so far, is to recover a more Aristotelian view of ethics, one based in practices, community, and the cultivation of virtue aimed at a common good.
I wonder if that framework might offer a better way to assess not only whether intervention is justified, but also what kind of people and political communities we need to be in order to act justly. Have you read MacIntyre? I would be curious to hear your thoughts, especially in relation to the questions you raised about legitimacy, sacrifice, and moral authority.
thanks for such an interesting comment! i like your point about the conflict between the mission and the means. And i have read some MacIntyre (some of AV, and more recently most of Dependent Rational Animals), but i should read some more! I like Aristotle very much, and think he is largely right on many things, but i really struggle to get past the teleological nature of virtue ethics..
If you do read more I’ll be looking forward to your comments. I do love these what I’ve been reading summaries. I wish I was able to read as much but I have been working on AV for a month and trying to understand it via chat gpt which I think you suggested using for reading for comprehension awhile back. Still slow going.
The link to letters people wrote reminds me of a book I love called "Japanese death poems", basically a collection of haikus written shortly before death. Very interesting to read things written at such an important moment for people.
Thanks for this thoughtful reflection on Solzhenitsyn’s speech. I haven’t read the full text myself, but your summary makes it sound like Solzhenitsyn was urging America not to abandon its telos. He seems to see the United States not just as a global superpower, but as a moral example, a nation committed to liberty and resistance to tyranny.
What stood out in your response is the conflict between that mission and the means used to carry it out, particularly the use of conscription. There is a deep irony in a country founded on individual rights forcing its citizens to fight in the name of securing those rights for others. It raises a difficult question: can a liberal democracy pursue global justice without violating the freedoms it claims to uphold?
I am currently reading MacIntyre’s After Virtue, and I find it relevant to this problem. He critiques how modern moral reasoning has fractured into isolated parts, with utilitarian and deontological arguments pulling in different directions. We use moral language to justify or condemn, but we no longer share a coherent narrative about the good.
Both Solzhenitsyn’s moral urgency and your concern for coerced sacrifice may reflect this fragmentation. They appeal to different ethical frameworks, but neither feels fully grounded in a shared moral tradition. MacIntyre’s response, as I understand it so far, is to recover a more Aristotelian view of ethics, one based in practices, community, and the cultivation of virtue aimed at a common good.
I wonder if that framework might offer a better way to assess not only whether intervention is justified, but also what kind of people and political communities we need to be in order to act justly. Have you read MacIntyre? I would be curious to hear your thoughts, especially in relation to the questions you raised about legitimacy, sacrifice, and moral authority.
thanks for such an interesting comment! i like your point about the conflict between the mission and the means. And i have read some MacIntyre (some of AV, and more recently most of Dependent Rational Animals), but i should read some more! I like Aristotle very much, and think he is largely right on many things, but i really struggle to get past the teleological nature of virtue ethics..
If you do read more I’ll be looking forward to your comments. I do love these what I’ve been reading summaries. I wish I was able to read as much but I have been working on AV for a month and trying to understand it via chat gpt which I think you suggested using for reading for comprehension awhile back. Still slow going.
thank you! and enjoy the rest of AV :)