Delance said:
Well, that *is* a form of moral relativism Quarto. It's evil to carpet bomb cities to terrorize civilians, but that doesn't make the Allies as *bad* as the Axis. What I was arguing all along was against moral equivalence. Confed did bad things, but was not as bad as the Empire. Blair did terrible things, but was not as evil as Tolwyn on WCIV. And so on.
Let me be very, very clear about this - it does *not* matter *who* is doing something. There is absolutely no difference between Allied carpet bombing and Axis carpet bombing - the people responsible for both commit exactly the same sin. And sure, in the greater scheme of things, when you add up all the sins, the Axis may end up higher on the Evil-o-Meter... but this is absolutely irrelevant when it comes to the assessment of
one particular action.
That's a really bad example because it doesn't apply to all cases. The justification on an action may completely change it's nature. To kill is murder, except in self-defense. This might be the case here, or not, but to just cite an example doesn’t prove anything.
I don't see how I disagreed with that. What I'm getting at, though, is that killing is killing, regardless of whether it's murder or self-defence. I'm not arguing that Confed's genocide was good (comparable to self-defence) or evil (comparable to murder). It's true that the more I think about it, the more I tend towards the "evil" option... but that's not my point here. My point is that what Confed did was genocide, regardless of whether it was good or evil. Genocide means simply people-killing - it's the bigger version of homicide. And just like there can be justifiable homicide, so there can be justifiable genocide. I can even cite some examples of it - for example, you won't find me shedding too many tears for the total obliteration of the Aztec culture. It was based on war, slavery and sacrifice, so I'd be very disturbed if the Catholic Spaniards didn't try to put an end to it, and I'm glad they did. But if somebody tells me the Spaniards essentially committed genocide by destroying the Aztec culture, I certainly won't protest.
(oh, and if you feel like comparing the Aztecs to the Kilrathi - take note of the fact that the Spanish did not destroy Tenochtitlan along with all of its inhabitants...)
In short, genocide is genocide, just like homicide is homicide. It doesn't matter what moral qualifier you put on it - it's a
technical term, not an ethical one!
No, I’m not justifying bombing Kilrah, but I can’t find any justification to not doing it, and risking the Kilrathi destroying Earth and putting the human race under the risk of enslavement and genocide.
First up, let me again underline the fact that this is a separate subject - "was it genocide"and "was it justified" are two different topics. I believe I've already said enough about the former, so now I can try to express my somewhat confused thoughts about the latter.
Let me put it this way - I sure wouldn't want to be put in a position where I have to choose whether to make this decision. It seems to me to be a classic example of morality vs. common sense ("common sense", as in, worldly logic that ignores what happens after you die), where one tells us to do one thing, while the other tells us to do the opposite.
From the point of view of common sense, the bombing of Kilrah was absolutely justified, absolutely right, and it would have been a horrible, horrible thing to *not* bomb Kilrah. It's an open and shut case - Confed as a government was responsible to its people, and only its people. Not even *one* Confed death could be justified as a way of preventing a billion Kilrathi deaths - not from this point of view, since from this common sense view, Confed is *not* resposible for the Kilrathi.
Morality, on the other hand, is measured by different standards. Let's begin by acknowledging the obvious - morality is bound together with religion. In other words, people who even question the morality of their actions believe that death is not only the end of life, but also the beginning of a much longer afterlife. That's the difference between common sense and morality - the former tells us that we're better off not killing others because we might be killed for it, while the latter tells us that we're better off not killing others because even if we get away from punishment in this life, we won't get away in the next. It's not something most people consider when discussing questions of morality - but that's mainly because people confuse common sense and morality.
Anyway... the belief in the afterlife, by further extension, means that you have to believe that there may be something *worse* than death - morality only works if it's a system of rewards and punishments, otherwise there's nothing to tell us one action is less moral than another. This forces us to conclude that in some circumstances, it's better to *die* than to commit an action that dooms you to eternal punishment. And just so we're clear, we're not talking about suicide here - we're talking about thirty men sitting in a lifeboat with no food, in the middle of the Pacific, and refusing to murder even one of themselves, even though his blood and flesh could be the difference between life and death for the other twenty-nine.
...So here's the crux of the matter. In this context, how does the murder of several billion innocent (or presumed innocent) beings on Kilrah compare with a decision to fight on to the end using moral means, even if this means the "end" will most likely be death, and not just yours but also the death of billions of Confed innocents? Personally, I don't know - as I said earlier, I'm pretty glad I've never had to make such a decision. I do, however, tend towards the view that destroying Kilrah was wrong, no matter how many Confed lives it
may have saved. Don't forget, morality also presumes the existence of some form of god or gods... so people who debate the morality of their actions *should* also be open to the idea that it's better to do the moral thing and wait for a miracle (...even if it takes a hundred years of slavery first) than to manufacture the miracle yourself using immoral means.
...And that should also make clear why most people prefer to confuse morality with common sense - even if you believe in God, it's very, very hard to believe in miracles
.
That’s because, depending on the notion of genocide, every single society in existence now or on WC would’ve been built upon genocide, directly or indirectly, because it replaced something else.
Is that a problem? I don't see anyone complaining about how uselessly broad the definition of homicide has become in light of the fact that every single person on Earth has a relative or ancestor who had been involved in a homicide. Surely you're not suggesting that if
everyone commits a particular crime, it is no longer a crime?