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Quote from: alancalverd on 11/03/2021 01:00:45No, they are irrelevant. In a war situation you have short and long term objectives and material constraints. Drones give you a previously unthinkable flexibility of who to kill and when, but don't answer any long term objectives. This was eloquently pointed out by H G Wells' The War in the Air, published in 1908, years before military aviation became practicable.I was referring to unexpected costs which only reveal right before the plan is executed, such as unaware civilians coming closer to the location. Will you proceed to execute the plan, or cancel it?
No, they are irrelevant. In a war situation you have short and long term objectives and material constraints. Drones give you a previously unthinkable flexibility of who to kill and when, but don't answer any long term objectives. This was eloquently pointed out by H G Wells' The War in the Air, published in 1908, years before military aviation became practicable.
The principle of charity means that almost any collection of words could be regarded as conveying a profound truth.
It is entirely possible that you will accept some collateral deaths if the threat or prize justifies it.
The charity principle is meant to counter a common logical fallacy, namely strawman fallacy, which presents worse interpretations of the original statements, hence easier to attack.
There is no benefit to the actor in the trolley problem. He is not in danger and has no presumed political, military or economic reason to kill anyone.
So the answer is to kill the fewest people. Retaliation is statistical.
They usually argue that we must distinguish between active killing and passive killing. The surveys shown that it's the case with a modified trolley problem which involves pushing a fat man from a bridge to stop the trolley.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 15/03/2021 04:06:25They usually argue that we must distinguish between active killing and passive killing. The surveys shown that it's the case with a modified trolley problem which involves pushing a fat man from a bridge to stop the trolley.Is there a reason it’s a fat man?
They usually argue that we must distinguish between active killing and passive killing.
The research said that the weight of the fatman is expected to be adequate to stop the trolley before hitting the victims. It may sound unrealistic, but that aside, the point remains.
Your insistence on a universal terminal goal may be selfdefeating. Suppose the UTG is maximum number of happy people. And let everyone's immediate moral goal be the same. So you are polite to a Christian you met in the street and we now have two moderately happy people. Or you slaughter a dozen Christians in the gladiatorial arena, and delight a crowd of thousands.
Your insistence to see morality from human individual's point of view makes you conclude that more inclusive moralities don't exist.