“And would that allow him to eliminate the rest of humanity for some marginal benefit to his countrymen?”
That doesn’t sound too far from the principle which many militaries throughout history and in the present follow, including what some very large factions within American politics want the military to follow.
For example, 50,000 civilians were killed in the war in Afghanistan (and that estimate is a few years old); if the Afghanistan war is justified because of 9/11, that gives a value of at least 16 Afghans per American. If we assume that the war wasn’t just barely* justified- that nobody would switch their opinion due to it being 60,000 rather than 50,000 casualties- a ratio of 20 Afghans to 1 American or probably higher seems quite reasonable. Extrapolating from that we can see that killing 6-7 Billion Afghans to save ~300 million Americans would be quite reasonable.
(if we count based on the Iraq War, it would be to save 30 million Americans)
the actual utilitarian preventative calculations are complicated here, namely because the war in Afghanistan most likely made further terrorist attacks more* likely rather than less, so I’m just assuming revenge is our utility function. I’m also not counting the American soldiers lost in Afghanistan.
Now, to clarify, if the war in Afghanistan is justified because even more Afghans would have died under Taliban rule otherwise, then that wouldn’t apply. But it seems to me that the main argument presented in favor of the war, even by liberals who support it, is over “preventing terrorism” rather than humanitarian interests, which seems to be widely appealing to the vast majority of the American public.
Obviously that’s to actually avenge or prevent the deaths of a large portion of the country, not “some marginal benefit”. Still, I don’t think it’s too far off to say that quite a few people do hold that view and would not be at all inconsistent, in that regard, in wanting General Thud to control their armed forces.
You failed to consider a combination. For instance, the main objective of the war is preventing terrorism, but the fact that the Taliban would have killed people if left in power changes it from “lots of lives lost to prevent terrorism” to “few lives lost to prevent terrorism”. Just because preventing the Taliban from killing wasn’t our main goal doesn’t mean that it can’t affect the balance in favor of the goal that we did have.
“And would that allow him to eliminate the rest of humanity for some marginal benefit to his countrymen?” That doesn’t sound too far from the principle which many militaries throughout history and in the present follow, including what some very large factions within American politics want the military to follow.
For example, 50,000 civilians were killed in the war in Afghanistan (and that estimate is a few years old); if the Afghanistan war is justified because of 9/11, that gives a value of at least 16 Afghans per American. If we assume that the war wasn’t just barely* justified- that nobody would switch their opinion due to it being 60,000 rather than 50,000 casualties- a ratio of 20 Afghans to 1 American or probably higher seems quite reasonable. Extrapolating from that we can see that killing 6-7 Billion Afghans to save ~300 million Americans would be quite reasonable. (if we count based on the Iraq War, it would be to save 30 million Americans)
the actual utilitarian preventative calculations are complicated here, namely because the war in Afghanistan most likely made further terrorist attacks more* likely rather than less, so I’m just assuming revenge is our utility function. I’m also not counting the American soldiers lost in Afghanistan.
Now, to clarify, if the war in Afghanistan is justified because even more Afghans would have died under Taliban rule otherwise, then that wouldn’t apply. But it seems to me that the main argument presented in favor of the war, even by liberals who support it, is over “preventing terrorism” rather than humanitarian interests, which seems to be widely appealing to the vast majority of the American public.
Obviously that’s to actually avenge or prevent the deaths of a large portion of the country, not “some marginal benefit”. Still, I don’t think it’s too far off to say that quite a few people do hold that view and would not be at all inconsistent, in that regard, in wanting General Thud to control their armed forces.
You failed to consider a combination. For instance, the main objective of the war is preventing terrorism, but the fact that the Taliban would have killed people if left in power changes it from “lots of lives lost to prevent terrorism” to “few lives lost to prevent terrorism”. Just because preventing the Taliban from killing wasn’t our main goal doesn’t mean that it can’t affect the balance in favor of the goal that we did have.