First: you can find people who are violently against almost any given field of endeavor. The general policy that you should not try to assassinate CEOs of companies that do something you are against seems a lot more reliable than allowing people to do so. If you don’t think PETA should fund assassinations of meat farmers, you should not support this scheme.
From a strictly practical point of view: The cost of hiring bodyguards is at a quick googling topped out at around 80 thousand a year. The lowest paid tobacco executive from a similarly weak google search earns 3.7 million a year. He could hire ten bodyguards and still have 2.9 million dollars a year. I certainly wouldn’t want to risk prison and death for the possible chance of simply making CEOs hire some bodyguards. How many successful assassinations take place each year? What’s the base rate for success?
Finally,as NancyLebovitz said in a comment: This totally ignores the benefits of tobacco. How do you measure the difference between a life that is 13 years shorter due to tobacco use, but 20 percent better? The reason we don’t outlaw cars is because we think the benefits are well worth the costs, but no one ever seems to try to actually measure either one in this sort of dialog. You’re proposing a unilateral campaign to wipe out something that over a billion people actually want to do. If you want to talk about taking extreme actions from a strict utilitarian perspective you have to actually DO THE MATH.
First: you can find people who are violently against almost any given field of endeavor. The general policy that you should not try to assassinate CEOs of companies that do something you are against seems a lot more reliable than allowing people to do so. If you don’t think PETA should fund assassinations of meat farmers, you should not support this scheme.
From a strictly practical point of view: The cost of hiring bodyguards is at a quick googling topped out at around 80 thousand a year. The lowest paid tobacco executive from a similarly weak google search earns 3.7 million a year. He could hire ten bodyguards and still have 2.9 million dollars a year. I certainly wouldn’t want to risk prison and death for the possible chance of simply making CEOs hire some bodyguards. How many successful assassinations take place each year? What’s the base rate for success?
Finally,as NancyLebovitz said in a comment: This totally ignores the benefits of tobacco. How do you measure the difference between a life that is 13 years shorter due to tobacco use, but 20 percent better? The reason we don’t outlaw cars is because we think the benefits are well worth the costs, but no one ever seems to try to actually measure either one in this sort of dialog. You’re proposing a unilateral campaign to wipe out something that over a billion people actually want to do. If you want to talk about taking extreme actions from a strict utilitarian perspective you have to actually DO THE MATH.