In China they had a whole philosophical conundrum about how the worst possible thing a man could ever do was act against his own father in any way, and therefore what do you do if your father is a traitor to the Emperor The answer was turn him in and immediately kill yourself
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
If you didn't, then the state had to accept your information, arrest your father, then kill you for snitching on kin That's how this works
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
why isn't the answer to not turn him in i.e., if you choose not to snitch, why isn't the fact that you couldn't snitch because he's your father a defense that shields you from personal liability for not having turned him in, if/when he's caught?
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Replying to @Random832 @BootlegGirl
Because the state has an absolute right to punish treason by any means necessary It's two competing values colliding - the Confucian ideal that the parent/child relationship is fundamentally sacred and the Legalist ideal that the state must act to preserve its own authority
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
seems like the kind of thing that could get the state into a whole lot of trouble in practice what's the penalty for being late etc plus the state could, simply, not punish the son, while still punishing the father
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Replying to @Random832 @BootlegGirl
No, then that could and would be a universal excuse A patriarch sets up a rebel movement within his whole family and everyone has to get aboard (which is, in fact, how the successful rebellions usually went)
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But the way the "paradox" is phrased it's putting the two duties on different people It's like sorry dude, yes, as a son the right thing for you to do is to obey your father without question But as an agent of the state, that means I have to kill you
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Because the state is MY father
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
ok but then why does the agent of the state have any obligation to kill him for turning his father in? not doing that would encourage people to turn in traitors, right, so why isn't that something you "must" do as well?
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Replying to @Random832 @BootlegGirl
Because the state, as everyone's father, also has the duty to enforce the general concept of loyalty to fathers
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I think to a degree you're thinking of this in too abstract and bloodless a light It's an issue of morality in the visceral sense, a traitor to one's kin was a *monster*, you were supposed to see them as tainted as though they'd had sex with an animal or something
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
ok why isn't someone who interferes with that relationship [by, say, executing someone for protecting their father] also a monster?
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Replying to @Random832 @BootlegGirl
Technically speaking, because I didn't execute him for filial piety, but for treason (which he committed because of filial piety)
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