At 11:24 AM 9/17/01 -0700, Mark Walker wrote philosophically:
>Anders claims that Robert has made an
>ethical mistake, but this is a controversial claim in ethics. Robert assumes
>a consequentialist position, i.e., he assumes that the right act here is the
>one that has the best consequence, namely, the one that saves the most lives
>in the end. Anders, as far as I can tell, expresses the deontological view
>which says that some actions are morally obligatory regardless of their
>consequences:
Mark has a point. Clearly the ethical basis of such issues needs to be
addressed; I just wish it hadn't happened in these inflamed circumstances.
I assume I'm a kind of iterated stochastic prudentialist of limited
extrapolatory capacity and skill, hence often a default deontologist until
the consequences of my default dicta are demonstrated to have worse
consequences than I at first estimated. And I think the consequences of
genociding the hapless victims of a brutal regime might just be, you know,
less than optimal, especially when such a *Dr Strangelove* military program
would confirm the direst fears of a billion or so Muslims whose suspicions
about a `crusade' against their faith and various societies was so stupidly
reinforced by President Bush's gaffe.
Damien Broderick
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