As a preface, moral consequentialism is the ideology that (usually long-term) consequences of an action(s), is more important than the very short-term/immediate results of an action. However, that's not what most people interpret "moral consequentialism" as being; they narrowly interpret it as forcefully hurting someone(s) in order to help other(s). That being said, which of the following two major national decisions is "more" consequentialist, in your subjective interpretation? A. Welfarism; taking money from (mostly rich) people and giving it to (mostly poor) people, to help said poor people get back on their feet..or maybe to stay in that position forever. Or, B. Bombing Japan in 1945; murdering many people to prevent many more people from dying in a war with Japan. This question is especially interesting to me because most people that would support A., would not support B. And, most people that would support B., would not support A. (It's the whole "military vs. welfare" debate).
If welfare is used to keep people dependent then its by far the worse of the two. B is bad also because we had other reasons for doing it other than just avoiding a land invasion.
If the actual only reason was to avoid a land invasion/more deaths, would it not be that bad to murder however many people died due to that A-bomb, and cause the cancerous/deformation-inducing mutations (that lasted for many years after 1945) that it resulted in?
Truth is, both military-ish and welfare-ish people are, no matter how much they try to deny it, consequentialists/collectivists. However, military-ish people are more likely to be right-wing, and right-wingers are more likely to consider themselves moral absolutists/deontologists rather than consequentialists/collectivists.
No for this reason. The Japanese attacked us first. We did not bring this war to their doorstep first. That justifies, to me, the use of the Atomic weapons. Our other choice was to starve them out which would have caused more death or to firebomb their cities. They would not give us an unconditional surrender so they forced our hand.
But to even make these comments you have to be a major collectivist or at least a major consequentialist/moral relativist; there were many individuals who were entirely innocent who died and/or had their lives ruined in Japan due to the A-bomb. I'm not talking about how good of an idea the A-bomb was, I'm talking about what kind of consequentialist/collectivist mindset is required to think it was a good idea. I'm not saying it was good or bad.
A) You are basically stealing somebody's property, which if you've read any "moral" things, is wrong. B) You are wiping out an infinite number of lives, one of those lives could of created a cure for cancer.
The consequences were worse had we not used the A-Bomb. The Japanese left us little choice unless you are advocating that we just left them alone.
But that doesn't answer my question; I'm not asking how "bad" they were, I'm asking how CONSEQUENTIALIST they are relative to each other..in your interpretation. Do you know what "moral consequentialism" is?
So, it was indeed extremely collectivist/consequentialist of an idea to bomb Japan? My question is which is relatively "more" consequentialist/collectivist, in the OP. The idea of this thread has nothing to do with how "good" or "bad" those things are/were.
Yes. In the OP I should have also mentioned collectivism. I wanted to know which is more collectivist/consequentialist; basically, aggressive "protective" militarism or welfarism
Welfare is far worse if it keeps people dependent. It is a form of slavery that lasts generations. At least those who still suffer from radiation at least can have independence. I would rather be born with deformities and have freedom than to become a slave to the state with no hope of it.
But this has nothing to do with "good vs. bad", it has to do with "which is more consequentialist/collectivist". But just to play devil's advocate, no one is "forced" to be on welfare..even if people are forced to pay for it. And if you were disintegrated by the heat of a nuclear explosion, you would not be able to even say these things.
One could reduce this discussion to "which is more morally consequentialist, institutionalized murder/extreme physical violation or institutionalized theft", but that arguably wouldn't be quite specific enough.
I support both. The second is more consequentialist, however. War in and of itself would fit the consequentialist definition.
I'd have to say B. was more consequentialist (since it's direct literal murder and physical deformation of people and their families, meant to salvage the same thing happening to a supposedly/feared greater number of people), but which is "worse" (or.."better") is entirely subjective.
