: Oops, sorry about the previous (blank) post. My bad.
: Okay, here's one of the most common criticisms of
: Utilitarianism: Say you have a group of sadistic
: guards torturing a prisoner. If their total pleasure
: outweighs his pain, does that make their action good?
Thank you for pointing out the obvious flaw before this theory burned in to my brain. Sadisism is bad. Period. No questions about it.
: I thought you were the one who was saying just a little
: while ago that it was good to destroy that which is
: evil? Surely if everything in your path is evil, that
: would mean it would be good to destroy it?
In theory, maybe. In reality I think you found out why I don't like violence verus nonviolence debates...I believe that sometimes its needed but I always hate it.
: So, by your
: evil-is-based-on-actions-rather-than-intentions
: theory, you would be evil if you were to (say) slip on
: a banana skin causing you to fly head-first into a
: button that, when pressed, would cause multiple nukes
: to be launched at strategic targets across the world.
: You wouldn't have meant to cause worldwide nuclear
: war, and you'd probably be extremely sorry that you
: had, but, by that theory, you would still be
: irredeemably evil. Right?
I'm sure my theory has just died now. What I mean when I say evil is based on actions is that, if you do something irredeemably evil for a "good cause" its irredeemably evil regardless of the cause. I believe in the "Save the innocent before slaying the guilty" principle...in a sort unforgiving kind of way.
Say you kill a hundred people. Ten of them deserved to die. Ten deserved some moderate punishment. Ten deserve little or no punishment. The other 70 are perfectly innocent, as much as anyone is.
I'm going to be damning you to hell for that deed.
: Okay, I know it's a very exrememe and rather silly
: example, but the point behind it stands: you can't
: call someone evil for an action or result that they
: never intended.
I'm not going to argue with that.
: And exactly how do you "know" that Bungie
: didn't intend for the Dark (or at least some elements
: of it) to be morally ambiguous?
I don't...but I'm assuming they didn't. If bungie e-mails me and tells me they did, I'll change my mind.
: Boo!
: More philosophy!
: Martel.
Just out curiousity, although I probably don't have any real right to ask this, how old are you guys?
Not many people I know, if any would want to continue to discuss this. (of course, when you're 16 that doesn't say much).
It's really interesting to discuss this, as I think it shows a real insight (if you look carefully) in to what we think.
Seraph
