i can't even guess as to why they went quiet. not one guess at all. we will never know.
edit: well they're not quiet now once they get called out
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Ummm....yes! Of course I would make that compromise! If I have a choice between they both die or one dies, of course I'm taking the choice where one lives!
What wouldn't I be willing to compromise on? Nothing. If I have a choice between bad and worse, I'm taking bad, what kind of lunatic would intentionally choose worse?
Yep, thats one of the classic criticism of utilitarian philosophy: it doesnt take into consideration if the actions being evaluated are evil or not. From a certain point of view I'm sure killing anyone can be made to be a good trade compared to some other greater evil, but you're supposed to just line up behind defeating evil and be done with it. Utilitarianism is taught almost solely to be mocked in philosophy class, same as solopsism.
Ironically it was only the college educated who are likely tro be exposed to these ideas, and they are primarily on the utilitarian side of the argument this time.
Makes no sense. I think they just werent paying attention in philo 101. They missed out on ethics 301 as well.
Exactly. Hell, you can go full Godwin if you want. The Holocaust itself was justified on utilitarian grounds.
"I'm sorry, times are tough, and we just can't afford to keep the disabled around anymore. Tough decisions must be made..."
"Those political prisoners we've sent to camps? Yes, it is an unfortunate violation of rights, but their ideas are so dangerous, and so harmful, that we really have no choice if we want to save society."
"The Jews? Well you see, history is never-ending contest between racial groups, simple Darwinian evolution. And having weak genes in our country harms our ability to survive. So unfortunately, we have to do what we have to do. It's for the greater good."
A whole lot of SS troops went to the gallows believing they did nothing wrong.
And Hell, from a purely utilitarian perspective, I can't even say for certain the Nazis were wrong. In theory, in a long enough timescale, could we not actually avert net suffering by committing an omni-genocide? Select one ethic group from a hat. Everybody else goes to the camps.
Sure, we kill 90% of the Earth's population now, but think of the long term. First, with such a reduced population, global warming is stopped in its tracks. Same with most other environmental problems. But the best result? The end of racism! Can't have racism if there's only one racial group. So sure, we sacrifice 90% of the human population today, but in exchange we've eliminated all racial hatred and violence, from now until the end of time! We sacrifice 7 billion humans today, but we probably save trillions on a long enough timescale.
From a purely utilitarian perspective, we should probably select one ethic group by random and just kill everyone else. In the long term, it will reduce net human suffering.
Where this analogy falls apart is in the implicit assumption that this is just a one-off situation. (I mean, most people only have two parents.)
What happens when it's an iterative phenomenon? (Politics is an ongoing thing.) Then, the situation in the analogy turns into the classic "negotiating with terrorists" scenario. The received wisdom is that one should never negotiate with terrorists, because once they learn that terrorism works they'll do it again.
Maybe make it cousins. Do you choose the option whereby two cousins die, or just one. What if choosing just one now increases the danger of more dying later?
The vast majority of people would choose worse, at least in some situations.
Philosopher Bernard Williams proposed this thought experiment: suppose someone has rounded up a group of 20 innocent people, and says that he will kill all of them, unless you agree to kill one, in which case he'll let the rest go. Act Utilitarianism would suggest that it is not only morally permissible, but morally obligatory to comply, which Williams saw as absurd. As an addendum, suppose the person then orders you to round up another 20 people so he can repeat the experiment with someone else, and if you don't, he'll have his men kill 40 instead. Congratulations, your "lesser-evilist" ideology now has you working for a psychopath and recruiting more people to work for him too.
Even the trolley problem, which liberals love to trot out to justify their positions, is not nearly as clear cut as they try to pretend it is. A follow up to the trolley problem is, is it ethical to kill an innocent person in order to harvest their organs in order to give five people lifesaving transplants? The overwhelming majority of people say no.
Act Utilitarianism is something that seems intuitive at first glance, but is very difficult to actually defend under scrutiny, and there are many, many alternative moral frameworks that reject its assumptions and conclusions. Liberals don't seem to realize that this framework they treat as absolute and objective - that you would have to be a "lunatic" to reject - is actually a specific ideology, and one that's not particularly popular or robust.
The trolley problem is clearly not clear cut at all, that's what makes it interesting. This, of course, is lost on the Dunning-Kruger crowd.
You seem to be missing the whole point. Maybe go calm down and stop calling people names.
Well, add another layer of complexity. The lesser of two evil guy wants to be picked. But instead of offering anything, he really wants to kill one of your parents and banks on your choice. He could of guaranteed getting picked by saying he'd kill none of your parents. But he does wanna kill one of them and gambled on you picking the lesser evil.
Didn't happen, and you think it's somehow the person making the impossible choice wrongly than the ones making the choices.
Thank you for your time.
There's no need for extra complexity, both of your parents are getting killed now.
And heres the thing. In the moment, I can wish we could make that "lesser evil" choice. It sucks, but i voted kamela myself. But now that it has failed, you would rather blame the people who couldn't bring themselves to make that difficult decision instead of the campaign for not being fucking evil, even if lesser. Like, do you get where my frustration comes from? I'm on here arguing with a liberal about how its actually the fault of random leftists and people unable to make that impossible decision when we both acknowledge the campaign actively ran on "I'm still gonna do a genocide, cant stop me" and you think thats just cool?
Once again, mid vote I can get your stance. But it didnt work! What are you doing now? What are you hoping to gain by swinging on people like me who are just BEGGING YOU to support a democratic party that'll say "no evil" next time instead of "Wittle bit of evil". Seriously? Are you just pissed beyond any actual care for the people who are about to be targeted by this regime? You wouldn't rather talk with people like me on ways to resist and damage the ability for this regime to do the evil we both hate?
Once again. I can get your frustration, but from my perspective you are still trying to juice a campaign strategy that failed. It didnt work. Lesser evil DID NOT WORK. WHY DO YOU KEEP WANTING TO DEFEND SOMETHING THAT DIDNT DO THE ONE THING IT WAS SUPPOSED TO. WHY DONT YOU WANNA TRY SOMETHING NEW?!?!
Are you saying that Biden is more progressive then Harris? Because he won that campaign virtually the same way.
Covid. Do you want me to elaborate?
Well thats one way of getting boomers out of politics so they stop messing everything up, and christmas presents will be cheaper with fewer gifts to buy.
However you cut it it's one parent or two. One parent is always better than two.
I thought you were joking but from the pattern of your other comments I see you actually beleive this. How about a third option, when someone threatens to kill your parents, you kill them instead of making a deal with them on who they murder? Did you even think about that possibility?
Seems like you choose to put yourself in a trolley problem, rather than life actually putting you in one.
Except it didn't work. Polled the entire American population and was found that it don't work. Would you like to try that again next election or do something different this time? Cause right now you seem like you reeeeeeally wanna try the same thing again next time. Hell, throw some extra bacon on the grill. You gonna sacrifice trans people next? Gay marriage? Cmon bubby. What's the next sacrifice and I am curious when you pick one that includes you
You guys have sacrificed trans people and probably gay marriage by electing Trump. Its a stupid argument when those things are literally already under attack by the guy you let win.
You guys already have picked one that includes all of you. An anti vaccer in charge of your health.
Things are 100% going to be worse for Gaza under Trump. You didn't win anything by electing him.
You guys fucked it so bad it's literally unbelievable. You got tricked by the don't vote against trump propaganda campaign and can't even see it.
Assuming things is bad for conversation like this so let me be clear that I voted Kamala
So take all your insults and pack it back up and try again. My argument is that it is ultimately kamalas fault for not giving the left anything to vote for. I wish we could have lesser eviled here but ultimately it's the Dems fault for choosing to be a little evil when they could of easily of chosen no evil and won.
I blame the organization and organizers of the campaign for thinking they could gamble on this by remaining pro genocide and failing.
I blame the organization who was told clearer than any election that people will not vote for them on this one issue, concede or lose, and they as the decision makers chose lose
please consider editing the personal attacks out of this comment so the mods don’t remove it. :) your perspective is important and i don’t want it silenced for breaking rule 1
I felt against it when writing it and I appreciate you being the voice to back me off the angry ledge. I will remove it.