I think the current moral question society is wrestling with is along those lines. Something to the effect of, how removed from the outcome of a decision does one need to be in order to absolve themselves of responsibility for that outcome? Essentially, why is it OK for a CEO or a President to cause thousands of deaths by signing a piece of paper but not OK for that same person to go out and shoot those thousand people one at a time? The outcome is the same there’s just more obfuscation along the way in the first case. The greed motivation seems to be the difference. The CEO isn’t usually killing people because he wants them dead, he’s doing it because he views them as acceptable casualties in his quest to make money.
Charlie Kirk is a great example of that phenomenon as well. He may not have directly shot anybody but he undoubtedly influenced people towards doing exactly that. To what degree should he bear the blame for their actions? He certainly didn’t do it in complete ignorance of the possibility that people could die but does the separation from the actual crime make his actions morally acceptable? Does it make any difference if his motivations were money and power as opposed to bigotry and hatred?
To me, diffuse harm is very obviously just as bad, but it is more difficult to quantify and fix. Furthermore, these types of harms are not comparable to a mass shooter where the danger is ended by killing or capturing them. The harms are produced by systems. Does killing Charlie Kirk end the harms he committed or will the billionaires propping him up simply replace him with another identical mouthpiece?
Individual assassinations don’t usually solve systemic problems.
I think the current moral question society is wrestling with is along those lines. Something to the effect of, how removed from the outcome of a decision does one need to be in order to absolve themselves of responsibility for that outcome? Essentially, why is it OK for a CEO or a President to cause thousands of deaths by signing a piece of paper but not OK for that same person to go out and shoot those thousand people one at a time? The outcome is the same there’s just more obfuscation along the way in the first case. The greed motivation seems to be the difference. The CEO isn’t usually killing people because he wants them dead, he’s doing it because he views them as acceptable casualties in his quest to make money.
Charlie Kirk is a great example of that phenomenon as well. He may not have directly shot anybody but he undoubtedly influenced people towards doing exactly that. To what degree should he bear the blame for their actions? He certainly didn’t do it in complete ignorance of the possibility that people could die but does the separation from the actual crime make his actions morally acceptable? Does it make any difference if his motivations were money and power as opposed to bigotry and hatred?
To me, diffuse harm is very obviously just as bad, but it is more difficult to quantify and fix. Furthermore, these types of harms are not comparable to a mass shooter where the danger is ended by killing or capturing them. The harms are produced by systems. Does killing Charlie Kirk end the harms he committed or will the billionaires propping him up simply replace him with another identical mouthpiece?
Individual assassinations don’t usually solve systemic problems.