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It might. It might not. Conventional ethics says murdering tens of thousands that did nothing knowingly wrong is a no-no. It's easy to look at that in hindsigh
by ilyt 3y ago
It might. It might not. Conventional ethics says murdering tens of thousands that did nothing knowingly wrong is a no-no.
It's easy to look at that in hindsight and go "well if we just nuked this and that the world would be a better place". Well, not for people just minding their business doing nothing wrong and unethical that just happened to be born in "wrong" country! And you couldn't know at the time whether it was right or not, just in hindsight.
- dTal 3y agoThis is more or less a large scale version of the trolley problem. I have no point to make other than to observe that the trolley problem is specifically designed to expose how "conventional ethics", as measured by people's intuition, is neither consistent nor utilitarian-optimal.
- getwiththeprog 3y agoI think the trolley problem makes it clear that there is a price to be paid for moral decisions. It is not that conventional ethics are wrong, it is that it informs us that we can make the future either way, but not both ways. The trolley problem pushes us deeper into our ethical selves, it does not prove that all ethics or decisions are wrong.