In the case of "saving 500 lives, but doing it via torture," there's not only the inherent wickedness in torturing someone, but (on a more pragmatic level) consequences this has for future moral decisions.
E.g.: "We tortured that guy last time. Why can't we do it now?" "If you're willing to torture to save 500 lives, why not 100? 10? 1?" "Country X *TORTURES!* They are evil! Death to Country X!" "Well, YOUR guys torture to get information, so we're fully justified in doing the same."
And so on. Some of those consequences are more direct than others. (For instance, in instance #3, it could well be that the speaker would eventually get around to screaming, "Death to Country X!" whether this had happened or not.) But in any case, there are various "moral absolutes" that some people follow, and then along comes someone who observes, "But if we broke that moral absolute, we could save someone, and saving someone is imperative, so this moral absolute is a hindrance." But once you break those barriers, it becomes a lot easier to break them in the future. All you need to do is do a bit of rationalization and justification, and there you go. Eventually the prohibition becomes meaningless.
In the short term, strict adherence to a particular rule could result in unfortunate consequences ... but sometimes the *breaking* of that rule could have far greater (if not immediately obvious) ones.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 04:46 pm (UTC)E.g.: "We tortured that guy last time. Why can't we do it now?" "If you're willing to torture to save 500 lives, why not 100? 10? 1?" "Country X *TORTURES!* They are evil! Death to Country X!" "Well, YOUR guys torture to get information, so we're fully justified in doing the same."
And so on. Some of those consequences are more direct than others. (For instance, in instance #3, it could well be that the speaker would eventually get around to screaming, "Death to Country X!" whether this had happened or not.) But in any case, there are various "moral absolutes" that some people follow, and then along comes someone who observes, "But if we broke that moral absolute, we could save someone, and saving someone is imperative, so this moral absolute is a hindrance." But once you break those barriers, it becomes a lot easier to break them in the future. All you need to do is do a bit of rationalization and justification, and there you go. Eventually the prohibition becomes meaningless.
In the short term, strict adherence to a particular rule could result in unfortunate consequences ... but sometimes the *breaking* of that rule could have far greater (if not immediately obvious) ones.