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And if we banned thalidomide, how much would that help pregnant women with morning sickness? The fact that you're trying to prevent one kind of harm (morning si
by tripletao 4y ago
And if we banned thalidomide, how much would that help pregnant women with morning sickness? The fact that you're trying to prevent one kind of harm (morning sickness, natural-origin pandemics) doesn't excuse causing unlimited amounts of a different kind of harm (birth defects, research-origin pandemics).
The non-absurd version of this argument is that risky virological research will provide a public benefit offsetting the possible harm. None of its advocates seem able to articulate significant examples of that benefit yet, though, and even a small probability of millions of deaths is quite a lot of harm.
- ethbr0 4y agoI haven't said it excuses it: I've just said that I don't see blame as productive. Something can be morally wrong and also less important to pursue. The non-absurd version of this argument is that we can't police everything, everywhere, especially across national borders with sovereign, independent governments in power. So taking that into account, there's always going to be a fog over truth in certain places. We can spend substantial amount of effort trying to pierce that, probably fruitlessly, or we can focus that effort on things we can actually change and improve.
- ETH_start 4y ago>>The non-absurd version of this argument is that we can't police everything, everywhere, especially across national borders with sovereign, independent governments in power. By that logic, why bother trying to stop human CO2 emissions, or nuclear profileration. Afterall, controlling them requires policing phenomena that occur across international borders under the jurisdiction of numerous independent governments.