parthianshotgun

This is an interesting observation. However, it speaks more to the overall education level of the Chinese citizenry

That episode with the reformed murderer was especially hard...what a brilliant show

The hands and feet on some of them are downright disturbing. I would not want my child coloring in AI generated slop, there's something fundamentally disconcerting about that.

Wouldn't stoicism be at odds with political action? Why protest if it's all out of our hands?

How?

Can you explain the intention behind your post?

It matters for me to understand you, the other. I'm trying :p

Yes, I'm more in the continental mindset myself. To paraphrase Gene Wolfe, the meaning of life is life itself, not as a means to an end, but an end unto itself. Which is why I was originally curious about the why, assuming OP didn't take my curiosity as bad faith

Why? Is it because it's esoteric, not meant for all?

where did I say circumstances excuse bad behaviour? Morality exists I agree, and personally yes, I don't think there's a transfiguration of what morality is based entirely on circumstance. One wouldn't affect the other, and moral relativism is often just a way to do terrible things. Let's assume morality is a fixed line.

However, no matter how moral a person is, they are never perfect and they faulter. Judging a person independent of this human condition isn't fruitful, the point a person is at can shift on that fixed line. Murderers can reform and Kings can become murderers.

So we need to be vigilant of circumstances that allow for people to lean in to that corruption. A moral king isn't necessarily going to be moral forever. And unless we have purity checks, we really can't select the morals from the immorals when it comes to matters such as this. Doing so would also be pretty presumptuous too.

Now I may be misinterpreting you. And if so please correct me, maybe we actually agree (and I'm beginning to suspect we truly might) and this is just the nature of async back and forths. If so, apologies in advance.

The law does have mitigations though, like if someone has suffered severe trauma or was in an otherwise uncontrollable position that led them to make so and so actions. Same reason why children aren't morally culpable for certain things, even murder.

Doubling down is collapsing the moral landscape down to a hard and fast rules. We make moral decisions from circumstances, there are countless examples of this in psych research, like the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Now. Is that right? Is that fair? Probably not. I'd want my rulers to be good people and leave it at that, but the allure of power, the wanting of it, leads to corruption or at least gives us some indication that that abuse is possible and that we should be vigilant.

I should have added a necessary 'necessarily' to my assertion lol. Power corrupting gives you a template or heuristic to base some assumptions from. There are obviously exceptions, but we know that it's prudent to be skeptical of those in power. Not because of any tabula rasa 'take them for what they are' but because we have a countless examples of power being a corrupting force. And I don't think I've said anything about beating people up being moral. Could you explain where you may have gotten that impression?

Maybe we're getting lost in the weeds. I'm not arguing for determinism, though Robert Sapolsky certainly is if you're keen on learning more. Also my perspective doesn't justify or make a murderer moral, it just leaves room for change. I think it's fruitful to assume we're both arguing in good faith here yes?

Anyways, back to it. What I'm saying is that a kings conduct to do governance doesn't tell me about their character as a human. We all curate profiles and have different moral standards based on the situation (see spreadsheet example).

So to say that it's an entirely level playing field isn't fair to social conditions and identity. A kings conduct is instrumental, whereas personal conduct, if done with grace, is often not. Me helping you without any favour returned is by all accounts something humans value. A king helping a vassal state implies more than just a deontological 'good for the sake of good'. To realize that is to, I feel, realize that politics exist.

I feel that it's a fairly notable distinction. See the Manson trials. An individual exerting will to 'corrupt' someone helpless is markedly different than someone, through mostly their own free will, doing something terrible. Abstractly then, the thing doing the corrupting need not be a will, but can be systems too. And you might make the case that nearly everything is this way, to which I'd say..yes. Social roles and conditions can corrupt or twist our moral precepts. You wouldn't steal from someone outright, but put it behind a spreadsheet and slap some tech jargon and suddenly the prospect is tempting.

So do you think then that power doesn't corrupt?