That’s the Übermensch morality of dictators and totalitarian regimes. The problem is that every dictator thinks of themselves as a benevolent dictator, but it turns out that they are often mistaken.
Even when there are multiple aspiring dictators, all with essentially benevolent values, conflict on who should rule can be very much destructive.
Of course this presupposes consequentialism. In deontologism morality is typically viewed as a social contract where each party has well defined responsabilities.
I don’t think it’s an accident that violent totalitarian ideologies tend to be consequentialist: these innocent heretics/Jews/bourgeois stand between us and our utopia. Kill’em all!
citations please! I doubt that most dictators think they are benevolent and are consequentialists.
Thankyou! I get tired of the whole “everybody thinks they are good” nonsense I hear all the time. I call it mind-projection. Some people just don’t care.
That’s the Übermensch morality of dictators and totalitarian regimes. The problem is that every dictator thinks of themselves as a benevolent dictator, but it turns out that they are often mistaken.
Even when there are multiple aspiring dictators, all with essentially benevolent values, conflict on who should rule can be very much destructive.
Of course this presupposes consequentialism. In deontologism morality is typically viewed as a social contract where each party has well defined responsabilities.
I don’t think it’s an accident that violent totalitarian ideologies tend to be consequentialist: these innocent heretics/Jews/bourgeois stand between us and our utopia. Kill’em all!
citations please! I doubt that most dictators think they are benevolent and are consequentialists.
I think that most dictators who make it into history books think about benevolence differently than most people.
Thankyou! I get tired of the whole “everybody thinks they are good” nonsense I hear all the time. I call it mind-projection. Some people just don’t care.