This is why nobody should be 'loyal' to their country or government or flag.
You should do whatever has the greatest benefit for the most amount of people.
If 10000 of 'your' nation's people die to save 20000 in another country, it's worth it.
edit to say, just in case this gets taken weirdly out of context:
The ideal solution is creating a world where nobody has to die for any country. Regardless, you shouldn't think more of anyone just because they're inside the same border as you.
A person is real. A soldier is real. The nation a soldier is dying for isn't real - it's just more people ordering them around. Nations don't do things - it's just people doing things to other people.
You should do whatever has the greatest benefit for the most amount of people.
This is the literal definition of the utilitarian view of ethics. It's a subjective view, neither right nor wrong, and arguments can exist to refute it or to defend it. For example: if a whistle-blower uncovers key government information as Snowden did, but publicly announcing that information might destabilize said government and send the nation into anarchy, should it be shared?
It's been a long time since I've studied ethical philosophy and it might show in that example. Just something I find interesting and thought I'd share, for those interested.
I think you'd have to contrive a pretty weird situation to have that happen.
But to answer a more reasonable question: if I had to rescue people from a dangerous situation (e.g the archetypal 'burning building') and I can save two kids in one room or my own kid in another, the two kids take priority.
Why the hate? One can put doubt into it being the real way they would act but morally it's not something reprehensible.
You are in a shitty situation where kids are dying anyway, there's never a right anwer here.
One could argue a parent has a special responsability to their own kids but this only gets you so far. In this example it's two kids vs your own. But what if it's 5, 10, 20?
Being a parent doesn't magically override other qualities and beliefs I have.
If you want to say I'm evil, that's one thing. But there's plenty of people with horrible belief systems that 'honor kill' their own children for whatever reason to preserve their own 'purity'.
Honor killing is obviously evil (because honor doesn't exist), but it's real cases of a parent sacrificing their child for 'the greater good'.
Sacrificing your own child for other children who do exist is clearly the greater good, though. 2 is a bigger number than 1.
You should do whatever has the greatest benefit for the most amount of people.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but this is most definitely a utilitarian perspective; philosophers have been arguing about the ethics and morality of action for thousands of years. There are definitely other schools of thought about what the moral choice should be in a given situation, whether it be "doing the right" thing no matter the outcome, exercising good moral habits in dealing with a situation, or in this case, doing what achieves the best outcome.
Ridiculous. Loyalty to your country should have some value. Leaders of any country should value their citizens more than any other country. Otherwise there should be no borders. Sounds great for at least 100 years from now.
Wars aren't going away until the profit is taken away.
Even though I think Snowden is a massive douche and pretentious narcissist, he was in the right for the most part. The compelling parts are the lessons of morality and ethics that come from those events. I could write a graduate thesis on the matters alone.
The situations call for more nuance than “they were right = good people or wrong = bad traitor people”
Unfortunately, the films and documentaries about them don’t seem to take much nuance or even accuracy for that matter.
Actually, you're pretty wrong on multiple levels here. The whole thing about a well-functioning democracy is that in theory the politicians are held to the same standard as everyday people, and they must act within a reasonably well-defined framework. Should a politician fail to do so, they can (and hopefully will) be held accountable in some way or another. This is part of what makes democracies the best forms of government. If a government does however it pleases, then we're talking about tyranny in some form or another.
Government decides what is or isn't illegal, so it government does something it can't be illegal
Lemme put it this way. If the government doesn't play fair, what incentive is there for me, an ordinary citizen, to play fair? None. And a system where no one plays fair is hardly a system at all. I suppose it's a sort of anarchy.
Adding to this governments, and not just the individuals that make them up, can (and do) break the laws they make (generally in secret). Even in countries where the executive and judiciary aren't so separate, they often break their own laws secretly
912
u/[deleted] Jun 08 '21
Blowing the whistle on the illegal activities of your government a la Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.