If you take an action that you know will result in a greater amount of death/suffering, just for the sake of your own personal dignity, do you actually deserve any dignity from that?
ie, one can rephrase the situation as “are you so selfish as to put your own personal dignity above many many human lives?” (note, I have not watched the Torchwood episodes in question, merely going at this based on the description here.)
IF fighting them or otherwise resisting is known to be futile and IF there’s sufficient reason to suspect that they will keep their word on the matter, then the question becomes “just about everyone gets killed” vs “most survive, but some number of kids get taken to suffer, well, whatever the experience of being used as a drug is. (eventual death within a human lifespan? do they remain conscious long past that? etc etc etc...)”
That doesn’t make the second option “good”, but if the choices available amount to those two options, then we need to choose one.
“Everyone gets killed, but at least we get some ‘warm fuzzies of dignity’” would actually seem to potentially be a highly immoral decision.
Having said that..… Don’t give up searching for alternatives or ways to fight the monsters-in-question that doesn’t result in automatic defeat. What’s said above applies to the pathological dilemma in the least convenient possible world where we assume there really are no plausible alternatives.
Well, sure, when you phrase it like that. But your language begs the question: it assumes that the desire for dignity/autonomy is just an impulse/fuzzy feeling, while the desire for preserving human life is an objective good that is the proper aim for all (see my other posts above). This sounds probable to be me, but it doesn’t sound obvious/ rationally derived/ etc.
I could after all, phrase it in the reverse manner. IF I assume that dignity/autonomy is objectively good:
then the question becomes “everyone preserves their objectively good dignity” vs. “just about everyone loses their dignity for destroying human autonomy, but we get that warm fuzzy feeling of saving some people.” In this situation, “Everyone loses their dignity, but at least they get to survive—in the way that any other undignified organism (an amoeba) survives” would actually seem to be a highly immoral decision.
I’m not endorsing either view, necessarily. I’m just trying to figure out how you can claim one of these views is more rational or logical than the other.
Well then… I’d say a morality that puts the dignity of a few people (the decision makers) as having more importance than, well, the lives and well being of the majority of the human race is not a very good morality.
ie, I am claiming “it seems to be that a consequence of my morality is that...”
Alternately “sure, maybe you value ‘battle of honor’ more than human lives, but then your values don’t seem to count as something I’d call morality”
Well then… I’d say a morality that puts the dignity of a few people (the decision makers) as having more importance than, well, the lives and well being of the majority of the human race is not a very good morality.
Okay. Would you say this statement is based on reason?
If you take an action that you know will result in a greater amount of death/suffering, just for the sake of your own personal dignity, do you actually deserve any dignity from that?
ie, one can rephrase the situation as “are you so selfish as to put your own personal dignity above many many human lives?” (note, I have not watched the Torchwood episodes in question, merely going at this based on the description here.)
IF fighting them or otherwise resisting is known to be futile and IF there’s sufficient reason to suspect that they will keep their word on the matter, then the question becomes “just about everyone gets killed” vs “most survive, but some number of kids get taken to suffer, well, whatever the experience of being used as a drug is. (eventual death within a human lifespan? do they remain conscious long past that? etc etc etc...)”
That doesn’t make the second option “good”, but if the choices available amount to those two options, then we need to choose one.
“Everyone gets killed, but at least we get some ‘warm fuzzies of dignity’” would actually seem to potentially be a highly immoral decision.
Having said that..… Don’t give up searching for alternatives or ways to fight the monsters-in-question that doesn’t result in automatic defeat. What’s said above applies to the pathological dilemma in the least convenient possible world where we assume there really are no plausible alternatives.
Well, sure, when you phrase it like that. But your language begs the question: it assumes that the desire for dignity/autonomy is just an impulse/fuzzy feeling, while the desire for preserving human life is an objective good that is the proper aim for all (see my other posts above). This sounds probable to be me, but it doesn’t sound obvious/ rationally derived/ etc.
I could after all, phrase it in the reverse manner. IF I assume that dignity/autonomy is objectively good:
I’m not endorsing either view, necessarily. I’m just trying to figure out how you can claim one of these views is more rational or logical than the other.
Well then… I’d say a morality that puts the dignity of a few people (the decision makers) as having more importance than, well, the lives and well being of the majority of the human race is not a very good morality.
ie, I am claiming “it seems to be that a consequence of my morality is that...”
Alternately “sure, maybe you value ‘battle of honor’ more than human lives, but then your values don’t seem to count as something I’d call morality”
Okay. Would you say this statement is based on reason?