Then Utilitarianism is a meaningless philosophy, because if it is impossible to determine whether or not one's actions cause happiness, then there is no objective way to implement moral decision making. It is decisively amoral.

Besides, the pursuit of "Justice" in the case of Alex doesn't necessarily cause more happiness, as it does present a tremendous amount of suffering. That is the problem with Utilitarian thinking, that happiness is created by any number of criteria, and that destructive elements of it are considered good.

Yes, essentially utilitarianism doesn't really help you making everyday-decisions... For me it's simply a definition what is right. Of course I would have to be all-knowing and god-like being in order to act morally right, but having defined "causing as great happiness as possible" as ones goal has other implications, one of them being that justice is nothing one should try to achieve (if it in itself doesn't create more happiness, which I doubt it does in many cases).

Basically, with utilitarianism you can never formulate any principles on how you should act in some given situation, e.g. driving while being drunk might actually, although it's not probable, save someones life, etc...

EDIT: Actually, I think that if everyone would try and cause as great happiness as possible, without any principles on how one should act in some given situation, it would also create more happiness, because humans are highly sociable animals, and we do know quite alot about other people's feelings, etc... although of course there are some extreme cases where this is not true.

I think every philosophy that states some rules on how one can decide whether it's morally right to act in some way or not (like Kant's philosophy, etc..) can never lead to as great happiness as people trying to achieve it by actually *thinking*.

The thing is, I could probably program my computer to apply the "Categoric Imperative" of Kant to actions, but I think that's one thing that distinguishes humans from computers, that we can think about *the consequences* of our actions. And if we try to achieve "great happiness" as the consequence of our actions, I think we will be quite successful.

Like, 2/3 of this thread is not about Milosevic.

How 'bout that guys name, huh? Slobodan? What do you think they called him in grammar school? Slo? Slobo? Lobo? Dan? Bodan?

Guy's got a thousand nicknames.

Yeah, unfortunately you can't do that or else it would have to be major overkill.

I fear that this will have some severe consequences for the so-called hunt for Mladic and Karadzic. Serbia hasn't been cooperating very well, and now that their former president died in a foreign cell, they'll use that as an excuse to stop searching for the last two suspects, since they don't want them to die in a cell. Although nothing's sure yet, since the EU is putting more and more pressure on Serbia, threatening to halt the EU-membership.

As for Milosevic, it seems that he was taking some other medicines, that cancelled the medicines he was taking for his heart and blood pressure. who gave them to him? Did he knew what they were doing, and did he want to commit suicide in the longer run, or was it just to have an excuse to go to Russia for medical treatment?

I'm still puzzling over people's outrage that he dared to die in prison. He was removed from power, was constantly reminded of his crimes, and died alone in a little jail cell. A fitting end to his life, I think.

They were just going to put him to death anyway. Who cares if he kicked off early? Justice was served the moment they took him into custody and threw him in his cell. The people who are incensed that they didn't get a chance to finish his trial and face punishment don't really want justice, they want revenge. People seem to have the two concepts mixed up in their heads.

He couldn't have been put to death, the max punishment for the Yugoslavia court is a life long sentence. People are disappointed because, even though they knew that he would be found guilty, the court didn't get a chance to actually say that he was one of the biggest criminals of the Balkan Wars. Some would rather see him rot away in prison for at least 20 years, than see him death, because it would be the easy way out.

I 'd say that this will have no consequences at all. The "search" for Karadzic and Mladic is nothing more than a joke. And there has been no evidence that tose guys are in Serbia at all since it is presumed that they are still in the Serbian part of Bosnia where they can roam almost freely. Both have many supporters.
Since Karadzic and Mladic are moving through Bosian territory, Serbia can do nothing. Del Ponte is just discracing herself, since she is too incompetent. Mlaic and Karadzic are hiding in an area which isn't even bigger than Maryland and she wasn't able to find them for almost 11 years! It is almost as embarrassing as the "search" for Bin Laden.

It it not HER job to be looking for them, but it's the job of the new serbian government. And even if Mladic and Karadzic are on Bosnian territory, Serbia had plenty of chances of catching them on Serbian territory, it just wasn't possible for them with an unstable government and a higly independant army which still looks up to those two.

What then is her job? Sitting around in the Hague and crying about what nasty boys those Serbs and Croats are?
It seems as it is her job to find those two, since the Serbs have no interest in handing them over. For now Serbia is rather hunting for Karic.
Lets imagine following situation:
The EU tells Serbia to arrest them and hand over to the Hague and then they would have an EU membership. But what guarante would Serbia have that the EU keeps her promise? And so instead of letting Serbia joning in, they let her rather to rot. And so this is one of the reasons why Serbia thinks that it would be better not to trust them and keep the "heroes" in the homeland and since many Serbs see Karadzic and Mladic as their heroes.

It's her job to prepare a case against them, not to organize the search herself, she's only a prosecutor. The reason she's so prominent in the entire search, is ony to put more and more pressure on Serbia and Croatia. She doesn't have the authority to do more.

It's understandable that Serbia is suspicious, and fearing that the EU will break it's promise, but I don't think that it'll happen now. The EU desperately needs to get a positive image, after the mess with the constitution, and if they even try to break one of their promises with Serbia, the public opinion in other countries will only realize that the EU wants to stay an elite club. It's in the EU's best interest to be able to keep that promise.