Timeline for How can moral responsibility be attributed for civilian casualties in war?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
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| Sep 25 at 6:49 | comment | added | haxor789 | @DavidGudeman The problem is that your examples are so unrealistic that it's hard to even tell what point you ARE making and why for example you argue it's moral requirement to save children (esp your own) but why no other people. Like idk in the jurisdiction that I live in you'd have an obligation to help and be protected from damages that occur from that, but you'd have no obligation to get yourself in danger to kill or be killed. So It's not just about the scenario but also about the analysis and for pure fiction and logic it's too close to reality. | |
| Sep 24 at 15:38 | comment | added | David Gudeman | @haxor789, your comments about the scenarios are not relevant to the points I was making. A scenario needn't be realistic to make a point about moral issues. Such quibbling is a violation of the spirit of serious debate. As to your differing judgments, you are entitled to your opinions. | |
| Sep 24 at 13:33 | comment | added | Ian Sudbery | I'm not sure I buy the arguement that a policeman has less of a moral duty to a murder's child than a random child (i'm not sure I even really agree that they have more of a responsiblity to their own child than someone elses, though I think the instinct to protect your own child over another is understandable and forgivable). By extension, I don't agree that a solider (at least one there voluntarily) has a higher duty to their objective than the lifes of civileans of other nations (who presumably havn't). | |
| Sep 24 at 12:25 | comment | added | haxor789 | Also non-combattants are civilians. Soldiers (ought to) have literally signed up to be deployed for combat, they are armed, likely instructed and know what they are up for (you almost never can be but that's a different problem), while non-combatants are unarmed regular people who just happen to be in a war zone, most often by no choice of their own. Also what's the primary responsibility of a soldier is actually debateable, same for whether they keep their civilians safe or make their life MORE dangerous. | |
| Sep 24 at 12:19 | comment | added | haxor789 | Either way the person confronting the hostage taker is assessing the situation that was created outside of their controlle and acts upon that assessment. They might be wrong and that might be deadly, but if the hostage taker is willing to murder people including their hostages, then it's not so much about the other person and it's questionable what they could actually have done differently to prevent that. Like you can't account for randomness and irrationality or rationality that you're not aware of so their "guilt" is low regardless of whether the hostage is a child or their daughter. | |
| Sep 24 at 12:09 | comment | added | haxor789 | Your hostage situations sound like a bad horror movie rather than a realistic scenario. Like most criminals aren't pure evil and even if they are those would be the outliers not the norm so you would be justified in not expecting them to murder their hostage. Because quite frankly: That's stupid. The hostage is their life insurance with them they have something to barter, without them they are arrested for murder or killed on the spot. So even in terms of unrealistic situations you should better go with failed rescue attempt where the hostage was killed in the process. | |
| Sep 24 at 11:50 | comment | added | Olivier5 | The reason why killing enemy soldiers is morally acceptable but killing non-combatants is not, is that by definition non-combatants are not enemies, and therefore there's no good reason to kill them. I hope this clarifies. | |
| Sep 23 at 23:40 | history | answered | David Gudeman | CC BY-SA 4.0 |