(March 12, 2014 at 1:58 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: I really liked his thinking but there are exceptions to his rule. For example in the movie "Terminator 2", Sarah Conner went on a mission to murder Miles Bennet Dyson before he could invent the AI chip that would lead to the creation of Skynet. Were she to succeed, she would be murdering an innocent man (Dyson had no idea the monster he was going to create as he had commercial applications in mind). However, her action might avert the war, save three billion lives as well as human civilization.
Is murdering one innocent man to save human civilization and three billion lives a bargain? Strictly using Bentham's model, I can't see how the answer wouldn't be "yes" and yet I would have a problem with this.
Morality is a complex issue but that doesn't mean we don't try to understand it nor does it necessarily mean anything goes. Neither is it necessary nor helpful to have some deity do the thinking for us.
Terminator 2 is an interesting example, because not only was killing him unnecessary (he understood perfectly well what was going on after Arnold showed his cybernetic arm), but it wouldn't have even worked, hence why they had to go and blow up the Cyberdyne building immediately thereafter; Dyson's work could have been taken up by others (indeed, was, according to the sequels I hate and refuse to acknowledge as canon).
And yet, without Arnold's presence, Sarah had no way to convince Dyson of what his work was going to lead to, so on her own, she had no other legitimate option but to try to kill him.
Ultimately, does "her heart was in the right place" morally justify gunning down an innocent man in cold blood?
