Moral Complexity

Ta-Nahisi Coates is one of my regular stops on the internet. He's a blogger for The Atlantic who writes about politics, music, history, poetry, sports, whatever gets him thinking. He writes beautifully and is often thought provoking in a really good way. . . like today:

The inability of water-boarding's supporters to come out and say, "Yes it's torture, and yes it's awful, but here's why we have to do it," is the corollary of death penalty advocates who can not bring themselves to admit that innocent people will die. I don't know that I agree with Obama's predator drone strikes. But at least we don't go around pretending only "bad people" will be killed, and that there are never mistakes.

You probably can't convince me to support torture. But I don't ask for a society that does everything I think is best. I ask for a society that doesn't deceive itself. I don't think I agree with dropping the bomb on Japan. (I think it qualifies as what we, today, call terrorism.) But I get the argument. And it's important that I get the argument. It's important that I'm able to put myself in Truman's shoes, and in those shoes, not have any certain idea of what I would have done.

We need more moral complexity in our lives.