Jebediah wrote:So you are willing to go even further than our scenario. Killing just two innocent people to save 3 billion is unjustifiable. You take that as a given. What on earth am I supposed to say to that? Nothing, because I don't believe you for a second. People routinely claim to believe in moral rules which their actions show they don't believe in at all.
Exactly. Instead of killing innocents to save three billion people, you could try and save the three billion people from that which is threatening to destroy them.
As far as not believing me and balking at taking a given: I don't think there is anything one can do about it. To my knowledge there isn't a very good way to disprove an overall ethical stance outside of the reductio, and that just runs us back to our starting points.
So you don't take the killing of innocents being unjustifiable as a given in some cases. Specifically, if there are more innocents that are likely to be killed by taking one action it is better to take the other action. When I run my moral calculus in choosing a proper action for myself this strikes me as an absurdity in the same way that what I've stated strikes you as an absurdity. It makes more sense, to me, to just try and stop the problem itself rather than do something that I know to be morally wrong.
The question runs back to where our moral calculus begins, or in what way we answer meta-ethical questions. Further, whilst there may be a correct answer, at present our best conclusion in ethical questioning is reached by internally weighing values and choosing one by our calculus. At least at present then, I hold both answers to be correct from the point of view of judging others.
Re, Naturalistic fallacy: My understanding of the naturalistic fallacy is the claim that the belief of a hard is/ought distinction is a fallacious belief. (Or, you can derive an ought from an is if you believe in the claim of the naturalistic fallacy) Is this your understanding?
