A million dollars is a lot more zero-sum than not killing someone—if I give you a million dollars I lose a million dollars. To make the analogy more accurate, you’d need to stipulate that Joe will kill me if I don’t kill him.
Also, I don’t think it’s fair to ignore the fact that for most people, not killing someone is vastly easier to do at non-self-destructive costs. I appreciate that this is a quantitative argument rather than a categorical counterargument, but if we have atheists who base their sense of morality on a vague consequentialism that they can’t quite fully articulate, that’s still no worse than Robertson’s (presumed) divine command theory, and they should be able to make such such arguments without being accused of hypocrisy for not also advocating actions that would score much worse under their vague consequentialism.
you’d need to stipulate that Joe will kill me if I don’t kill him.
And note that many (most?) people and many (most?) legal systems do in fact hold that in such situations (war, self-defence) you are entitled to kill Joe.
A million dollars is a lot more zero-sum than not killing someone—if I give you a million dollars I lose a million dollars. To make the analogy more accurate, you’d need to stipulate that Joe will kill me if I don’t kill him.
No, just that you’ll get some benefit from killing him, e.g., you get to have sex with his wife.
A million dollars is a lot more zero-sum than not killing someone—if I give you a million dollars I lose a million dollars. To make the analogy more accurate, you’d need to stipulate that Joe will kill me if I don’t kill him.
Also, I don’t think it’s fair to ignore the fact that for most people, not killing someone is vastly easier to do at non-self-destructive costs. I appreciate that this is a quantitative argument rather than a categorical counterargument, but if we have atheists who base their sense of morality on a vague consequentialism that they can’t quite fully articulate, that’s still no worse than Robertson’s (presumed) divine command theory, and they should be able to make such such arguments without being accused of hypocrisy for not also advocating actions that would score much worse under their vague consequentialism.
And note that many (most?) people and many (most?) legal systems do in fact hold that in such situations (war, self-defence) you are entitled to kill Joe.
No, just that you’ll get some benefit from killing him, e.g., you get to have sex with his wife.