I’m quite aware of the moral dimension. It seems to boil down to this: “amoral pragmatism” versus “muddled idealism”.

The discussion we’re having is an example of the tension between deontological ethics and teleological or consequential ethics (read Kurt Vonnegut’s “All the King’s Horses”).

A consequentialist (me) thinks that the rightness of an action (ie. the intra-Korea summit) is determined by the results of that action. It’s another way of saying “the ends justify the means”. A deontologist (you) thinks that the action itself determines the rightness or wrongness. The intra-Korea summit is wrong because it involves wheeling and dealing with an evil dictator and fails to press the issue of human rights (which an adherent of Kant would identify easily as a “categorical imperative”.)

Personally, to be quite frank, I’m not absolutely sure which way of thinking is really right. But we try to do the best we can, right?

The problem with your deontology is that there is an inherent paradox. In order to fulfill the moral demands of observing the categorical imperative of human rights, it involves taking actions (sanction or war) that is much worse than simply ignoring human rights. We know from past experience that sanction has little effect on North Korea. The common people bear the brunt of the hardship while the elite and the military still get their supplies via the Chinese black market. In any case, human rights are being violated anyway. Abstractions such as free speech or whatever matter very, very little when you are starving to death. Ben Franklin’s “give me liberty or give me death” and “those who seek security over freedom deserve neither freedom nor security” were merely snappy propaganda slogans to rally well-fed, 18th century white American property owners to rebel against taxation from the British Empire. They are not “universal truths” which apply to modern Korea’s own peculiar circumstances.

Consequentialism suffers from no such inner conflict. And while the future results of present-day reconciliatory efforts by the SK gov is still undetermined, the outcomes of a deontological approach to NK is well-established and known from past experience.

The primary responsibility of the SK GOV, as a government, is promoting the welfare, security, and interests of SK and the Korean peninsula. Their job is to work hard to set up conditions such that it is most conducive for NK to tilt in a favorable direction.

My biggest objection to the naysayers is that they are all criticism, puffed up on self-righteousness, but offer no viable alternatives or solution.

Pie in the sky. This summit will lead to unification? And who says that the alternative is war? Many of us who oppose this farce would be much happier if the South actually expected and demanded something in return for all the free goodies it gives the North. That’s why we say this stuff is appeasement, because the South gets little or nothing in return for the billions it funnels to KJI.

However, I find your assertion that it is unwanted foreign meddling mildly galling inasmuch as the problem is already international in nature. Refugees are spilling into third countries, western states have been threatened by the DPRK’s nuclear weapons and are paying the bribes for KJI to dismantle them. Like it or not, the international community has a huge role to play and as such I think Dr. V serves a useful role in keeping this much ignored facet of DPRK activity in the spotlight.

It is much better to have a peaceful process which will lead to unification in the future than to have violent war which will get a lot of people killed on both side of Korea.

What most of the people, especially some of the westerners and their activists, don’t understand is that the people in the north and south are both Koreans. All they see is bad bad communist people north, good good democratic people south and lets have them fight and kill each other.

So the answer to the issue of human rights in North Korea is to sanction North Korea, not engage in dialogue with them, and just be enemies? Well, that’s the way it’s been for more than 50 years and guess what? That didnt exactly help the human rights situation either.

Human rights is only one piece of a complicated picture. It doesnt exist in a vacuum, either. Read Fareed Zacharias. The existence of human rights requires a supporting infrastruture of civil institutions and a constitutional, liberal democracy, which takes years to develop. In order for anything like that to happen in a place like North Korea, the FIRST thing that MUST happen, way before anything else, is a glasnost-like detente between NK and the rest of the world. This is what many social-conscience fools like this fellow dont realize, that in order for human rights to grow in despotic regions, other things have to happen first. I have been saying this for years: reconciliation give hope to the possibility of human rights in the future. But without, you get neither human rights nor anything else.

I believe it is far better to engage in dialogue with North Korea than not. Hawks like to call this appeasement. They really need to stop making tired analogies between WW2 and today’s realities.

This doctor and his antics represents what has been the bane of modern Korean history: intrusive, unwanted foreign meddling in Korean affairs. He may be motivated by genuine emotional passion but it really doesnt help anything except cause trouble.

I’d be the first to admit that the intra-Korea summit is not without serious flaws. However, The primary motive of the SK government is to secure peace, security on the Korean peninsula and to introduce economic reforms to NK. Foreign, especially American, interests are loathe to see reconciliation whereby NK is no longer an enemy. I’d let thinkers figure out why that may be so.

Obviously, SOMEONE in authority wants him to be here — maybe because he is not afraid to do what many others here are afraid to do?

Foreigners have been doing the heavy lifting of everything considered even remotely controversial in Korea for more than a hundred years - and then getting cold-shouldered by their Korean “sponsors” when they manage to get their own snouts in the trough. As Richardson notes, it’s shameful.

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2004/.....oooorbert/