buttercat1791 on Nostr: Your elucidation of the scenario with the beggar and cigarettes brings to light ...
Your elucidation of the scenario with the beggar and cigarettes brings to light another dimension in moral questions. We can consider a moral act by the contents of the act itself and by a person's intentions in making the act. Given the addict a pack of cigarettes that will fuel his addiction and speed the decline of his health is an act that is bad in its content; it is the giving of a poison "gift." Even if the giver has good intentions, the act itself is still bad, and good intentions don't change the nature of a bad act.
To apply this to the question of self-defense, the act in question is the preservation of life, and the intention is to protect oneself rather than to do harm. Thus, the act is good (self-preservation is generally a good thing), and the intentions are good, or at least not bad (no harm is directly wished on the assailant), so the act is good. The last piece is the means by which the act is carried out. If a means of self-defense is available that does not destroy the life of the assailant, that would obviously be better, but if no other means is available, then killing the attacker would be morally justified. Again, we could probably say that it is a necessary natural evil.
We can apply similar logic to soldiers in combat. Leaving aside the question of just war for the moment, most soldiers go into battle seeking to defend their country from a perceived evil; thus they have good intentions (defense of the innocent). Very often, when battle is joined, the individual soldiers will be concerned with protecting themselves and their comrades, so again, the content of the act is preservation of life. The means used (killing enemy soldiers) are evil, but in many cases the overall act is probably still morally justified. If some of these elements were different, however, I think it would be reasonable to consider a soldier in combat to be guilty of homicide or murder, depending on circumstances. In practice, however, we tend to give soldiers a pass precisely because wars are sufficiently complex that it is impossible to analyze the contents of every individual act, and many of the soldiers themselves likely do not even understand the moral considerations of each individual act they take on the battlefield.
Do you believe that humans have free will? If so, to what extent? You appear to chalk up a lot of the bad things that happen to nature (resource scarcity) or nurture (mental illness) rather than to human will. What sorts of actions do you think individuals are responsible for?
To apply this to the question of self-defense, the act in question is the preservation of life, and the intention is to protect oneself rather than to do harm. Thus, the act is good (self-preservation is generally a good thing), and the intentions are good, or at least not bad (no harm is directly wished on the assailant), so the act is good. The last piece is the means by which the act is carried out. If a means of self-defense is available that does not destroy the life of the assailant, that would obviously be better, but if no other means is available, then killing the attacker would be morally justified. Again, we could probably say that it is a necessary natural evil.
We can apply similar logic to soldiers in combat. Leaving aside the question of just war for the moment, most soldiers go into battle seeking to defend their country from a perceived evil; thus they have good intentions (defense of the innocent). Very often, when battle is joined, the individual soldiers will be concerned with protecting themselves and their comrades, so again, the content of the act is preservation of life. The means used (killing enemy soldiers) are evil, but in many cases the overall act is probably still morally justified. If some of these elements were different, however, I think it would be reasonable to consider a soldier in combat to be guilty of homicide or murder, depending on circumstances. In practice, however, we tend to give soldiers a pass precisely because wars are sufficiently complex that it is impossible to analyze the contents of every individual act, and many of the soldiers themselves likely do not even understand the moral considerations of each individual act they take on the battlefield.
Do you believe that humans have free will? If so, to what extent? You appear to chalk up a lot of the bad things that happen to nature (resource scarcity) or nurture (mental illness) rather than to human will. What sorts of actions do you think individuals are responsible for?