Moji Motions

Filial piety is a virtue of love and respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors, particularly within the context of Confucianism and East Asian cultures. It emphasizes the importance of honoring, obeying, and caring for one's parents and elders. Acts of filial piety include obeying one's parent's wishes, taking care of them when they are old, and working hard to provide them with material comforts, such as food, money, or pampering.

The letters of last resort contain orders on what action to take if an enemy nuclear strike has both destroyed the government and has also killed or otherwise incapacitated both the prime minister and their designated "second person" of responsibility, typically a high-ranking member of the cabinet such as the deputy prime minister or the first secretary of state. If the orders are carried out, the action taken could be the last official act of the government. For the sake of this debate, we shall assume that the two options are to retaliate with nuclear weapons, or to not retaliate. We are explicitly not considering options that foist off decision-making to another actor (like the submarine commander, or another nation).

The concept of ‘banality of evil’ claims that most perpetrators of great acts of evil are ordinary people, with no motive other than promoting their own advancement in society. Under this concept, perpetrators do not have to be "radically evil" and can be responsible for atrocities through their common acts or omissions.

(1) Phan Thanh Giản was one of the foremost mandarins of the Nguyễn court. He played a key role in negotiating the Treaty of Saigon with the French in 1862. The treaty had 12 clauses, the most important being : Art. 2- Đại Nam (the country’s name then) allows French and Spanish missionaries to preach and the Vietnamese to practice the Christian faith freely. Art. 3- Đại Nam cedes to France the three eastern provinces of Biên Hòa, Gia Định and Định Tường and the island of Poulo Condor (Côn Đảo). Art. 8- Đại Nam agrees to pay France 4 million dollars worth of silver over 10 years as war reparation. Art. 11- France will return Vĩnh Long Province to Đại Nam once the three eastern provinces have been pacified. (2) Phan Thanh Giản was later recalled to Huế to get instructions to conduct an extraordinary embassy to Paris and negotiate the return of the eastern provinces. In Paris, after intense discussions, French Minister of the Navy and the Colonies Prosper de Chasseloup-Laubat opposed the return of Cochinchina to Vietnam, and with the threat of resignation of the whole cabinet, forced Napoleon III to order the cancellation of the proposed agreement in June 1864. Thus the Saigon Treaty of 1862 remained in full effect. Because of his main role in the negotiations, Phan Thanh Giản was blamed by the Vietnamese people and the Huế Court.