If God took out baby Hitler...

[Angel]

If you had the ability to predict the future, whether via time travel, calculating all of the variables (like metereologists do to predict weather), or posessing foreknowledge, would you take out Hitler at his infantile age?

In other words, if you knew that Hitler would kill before he killed and he would not change his mind from this, would it be moral to take him out before he killed?

[Paradigm]

Which is exactly why I never said in this post that killing just baby Hitler would be a good thing to do. I have maintained the position that you should kill every person that encouraged the holocaust.

Ok, so you prevent the holocaust. How do you know that in the year 2525 someone won't start a nuclear war that destroys the human race and that they wouldn't have been able to do that if you hadn't saved their ancestor from dying in WWII?

He certainly did not save billions of lives anymore than every other person in history existing. Things happen, as a result we are where we are today, that doesn't make every individual in history equally responsible for the advancements made since those people existed.

Your argument for killing baby Hitler is that in the long run it will save millions of lives, but you have no way of knowing that.

My posts in this thread have been under the pretense that I would know that killing everyone that would perpetrate and/or encourage the holocaust would prevent the holocaust from occurring.

Ok, but even if you prevent the holocaust from occurring, you still have no way of knowing whether in the ultimate cosmic balance you saved more lives than you cost. All you know for sure is that you killed a bunch of babies.

What if one of the millions that Hitler killed would have sired a child who would grow up to start a nuclear war that ended the human race? What if the lessons humanity learned from the holocaust were valuable enough that we don't let it happen at a later time when it would have cost billions of lives?

You could justify any action with a what if argument. What if raping that girl will prevent her from contracting an STD from somebody else because of the fear you instilled in her. What if that family you ran over were terrorists? These what if's are meaningless.

Exactly my point. Unless you are completely omniscient, with absolute knowledge of every effect that you actions will ever have till the end of time, then you can't assess whether the ends justifies the means, since you don't know the end. Stopping the holocaust isn't an end, it's somewhere in the middle and the consequences of doing so will extend into the unforeseeable future.

Killing baby Hitler and baby Stalin and baby Chairman Mao and all the other babies you would kill is like to kill is just like raping a girl because it might prevent her from getting an STD. If you don't know for sure what the end result of your actions is, you cannot use the ends to justify the means.

Since you don't know what the ultimate result of your actions is, you can't say "Your actions are saving millions of lives" the most you can say with certainty is that your actions are taking the life of a child.

But again, my comments have been under the pretense that I did know this. And I thought the notion that I would kill everyone necessary to prevent the holocaust was a good indication that i knew what was necessary to prevent the holocaust.

Preventing the holocaust isn't enough though. You have to know that your actions will ultimately have saved lives a trillion years down the road. You would have to be completely omniscient as to not only the future as it is, but the future as it will be after you make changes.

[SailingCyclops]

In other words, if you knew that Hitler would kill before he killed and he would not change his mind from this, would it be moral to take him out before he killed?

There are too many variables in your presentation. If Hitler were murdered as a child, another would take his place. The atrocities were not the direct result of a single man, but rather the result of a social dysfunction.

I think this moral dilemma can be more easily understood if you remove the concept of evil from the equation. The question then becomes rather straight forward. Do we have the right to choose who lives and who dies? The Trolley problem thought experiment is a good example to illustrate the dilema:

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

What is the moral thing to do?

Bob

[Filthy Tugboat]

Which is exactly why I never said in this post that killing just baby Hitler would be a good thing to do. I have maintained the position that you should kill every person that encouraged the holocaust.

Ok, so you prevent the holocaust. How do you know that in the year 2525 someone won't start a nuclear war that destroys the human race and that they wouldn't have been able to do that if you hadn't saved their ancestor from dying in WWII?

I don't but if I were given the option to have the holocaust prevented or allow it to occur, I would choose the former. Either action could and probably would result in countless changes so your what if argument is meaningless, there is no substance to it, the argument isn't even supporting the idea to not prevent the holocaust, it is not taking a position at all.

He certainly did not save billions of lives anymore than every other person in history existing. Things happen, as a result we are where we are today, that doesn't make every individual in history equally responsible for the advancements made since those people existed.

Your argument for killing baby Hitler is that in the long run it will save millions of lives, but you have no way of knowing that.

My posts in this thread have been under the pretense that I would know that killing everyone that would perpetrate and/or encourage the holocaust would prevent the holocaust from occurring.

Ok, but even if you prevent the holocaust from occurring, you still have no way of knowing whether in the ultimate cosmic balance you saved more lives than you cost. All you know for sure is that you killed a bunch of babies.

And prevented a genocide from occurring, a different genocide may occur later, a genocide that has occurred since may not have occurred due to my actions, it's irrelevant. My actions would prevent the holocaust from occurring, unless you can present any reasonable argument to suggest that the negative outweighs the positive here, I don't know what you're trying to say.

What if one of the millions that Hitler killed would have sired a child who would grow up to start a nuclear war that ended the human race? What if the lessons humanity learned from the holocaust were valuable enough that we don't let it happen at a later time when it would have cost billions of lives?

You could justify any action with a what if argument. What if raping that girl will prevent her from contracting an STD from somebody else because of the fear you instilled in her. What if that family you ran over were terrorists? These what if's are meaningless.

Exactly my point. Unless you are completely omniscient, with absolute knowledge of every effect that you actions will ever have till the end of time, then you can't assess whether the ends justifies the means, since you don't know the end. Stopping the holocaust isn't an end, it's somewhere in the middle and the consequences of doing so will extend into the unforeseeable future.

Of course the holocaust is an end because an end can be the end of this sentence, right here. That was an end. Whatever THE end might be, I certainly did prevent an end with the holocaust and if the means to prevent that consisted of killing everyone who would encourage or even help perpetrate the holocaust then I believe it was justified.

Killing baby Hitler and baby Stalin and baby Chairman Mao and all the other babies you would kill is like to kill is just like raping a girl because it might prevent her from getting an STD.

There is a big difference between "knowingly preventing mass murder" and "potentially stopping a girl from having sex because she was brutally abused and now fears all men".

If you don't know for sure what the end result of your actions is, you cannot use the ends to justify the means.

I know at least one end of my actions and that is, the holocaust was prevented, that is enough for me.

Since you don't know what the ultimate result of your actions is, you can't say "Your actions are saving millions of lives" the most you can say with certainty is that your actions are taking the life of a child.

But again, my comments have been under the pretense that I did know this. And I thought the notion that I would kill everyone necessary to prevent the holocaust was a good indication that i knew what was necessary to prevent the holocaust.

Preventing the holocaust isn't enough though. You have to know that your actions will ultimately have saved lives a trillion years down the road. You would have to be completely omniscient as to not only the future as it is, but the future as it will be after you make changes.

Under this logic, anybody that isn't omniscient is doing this with every action they do and every action they don't take. We are not omniscient yet we do things or even choose not to do things that effect the future in ways we can't imagine. This is what your argument is saying. If you think it is wrong to act or even wrong to not act when you don't know the full spectrum of consequences then you are wrong in some way, then you're supporting the notion that everybody is wrong no matter what, I don't know if you think evil or not but honestly, what are you even trying to say?

[Paradigm]

What I am trying to say is that a "Greater Good" is incalculable. Killing babies is wrong. Trying to justify it with a "Greater Good" is meaningless, since you have no way of knowing whether it was really for the "Greater Good" or not.

Murdering innocent children is unjustifiable. That is what I am trying to say.

[Filthy Tugboat]

What I am trying to say is that a "Greater Good" is incalculable. Killing babies is wrong. Trying to justify it with a "Greater Good" is meaningless, since you have no way of knowing whether it was really for the "Greater Good" or not.

Murdering innocent children is unjustifiable. That is what I am trying to say.

OK, so your problem is that killing a child is wrong, what about killing those planning for the holocaust as adults? Would you have a problem with that knowing that the Holocaust would be directly prevented and that the people you killed were the ones encouraging/perpetrating genocide?