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> “But they did good things too,” Ye said. That is the same exact boilerplate response we get over here by extreme right wingers (assuming non extreme right wi
by squarefoot 4y ago
> “But they did good things too,” Ye said.
That is the same exact boilerplate response we get over here by extreme right wingers (assuming non extreme right wingers do exist, which over here is not the case) when talking about the atrocities committed by the Mussolini regime: "he did good things too". Yeah sure, like conscience is something that can be recharged like a cellphone battery: "Ok, I've helped 99 old ladies to cross the road, so now I'm entitled to beat and robber the next one!".
Those people are full of shit, period.
- shadowgovt 4y agoIIUC, this example is specifically why Utilitarianism breaks down as a consistent philosophy.
- DFHippie 4y agoUtilitarianism doesn't say that you can store up moral chits and then cash them in to do some evil. It says an act should be judged by its net consequences. Basically, it says you can do some evil if, of the choice available to you in some context, it results in the most good (or the least evil, if no choice results in good). The evil in other words is inextricable from the good. It isn't just a lark you can engage in after you banked some good. Jabbing someone with a needle to administer a vaccine is allowed. Jabbing them with a needle after you gave them a cookie is not. So no, whatever you think of utilitarianism, this is not its problem.