Dostoyevsky lived before the baby hitler question. If you knew without a shadow of a doubt a child would become the a very evil person, is it more ethical to kill the child now and spare the suffering of those later, or not kill the currently innocent child but condemn the others. A child does not deserve to suffer for the same reasons an adult does not deserve to suffer. No one inherently deserves to suffer and have evil happen. However, free will can lead to suffering and oppression.
Dostoyevski would argue that having the child suffer so that everyone could go to heaven is wrong. Even if the child, the child’s mother and the “free will” person that caused the suffering all hug and apologize and forgive in heaven, it’s still not worth it.
Being an absolutist is all fine and dandy (for example it makes philosophical debate much quicker) right up until you actually apply it to real life, at which point it becomes untenable.
It’s like the problem with the first law of robotics (I know they were intentionally designed not to work, but they are a useful framework by which to think about things).
A robot must not harm a human, or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm - so robot could not use violence to stop a terrorist attack because doing so would require it to harm a human, yet at the same time not stopping the terrorist attack would cause other humans to come to harm. There is no solution to the problem given the input limitations.
Any intellectually honest approach to philosophy has to recognize that every situation is unique. What you need is a moral framework that allows you to adapt to a situation without having to resort to absolutism (like the laws of robotics). You might as well have the philosophy of just not doing anything ever, and you would have exactly the same result.
Given that we may very soon actually have robots and AI this is a more important question than ever before and I really don’t think it’s been given any attention.
Absolutism is a fine theoretical stance, but breaks down immediately when faced with real situations. Furthermore, someone with such an absolute stance will not make the effort to have a real debate and possibly change their stance, ergo it is not worth engaging with.
Dostoyevsky lived before the baby hitler question. If you knew without a shadow of a doubt a child would become the a very evil person, is it more ethical to kill the child now and spare the suffering of those later, or not kill the currently innocent child but condemn the others. A child does not deserve to suffer for the same reasons an adult does not deserve to suffer. No one inherently deserves to suffer and have evil happen. However, free will can lead to suffering and oppression.
Dostoyevski would argue that having the child suffer so that everyone could go to heaven is wrong. Even if the child, the child’s mother and the “free will” person that caused the suffering all hug and apologize and forgive in heaven, it’s still not worth it.
Being an absolutist is all fine and dandy (for example it makes philosophical debate much quicker) right up until you actually apply it to real life, at which point it becomes untenable.
It’s like the problem with the first law of robotics (I know they were intentionally designed not to work, but they are a useful framework by which to think about things).
A robot must not harm a human, or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm - so robot could not use violence to stop a terrorist attack because doing so would require it to harm a human, yet at the same time not stopping the terrorist attack would cause other humans to come to harm. There is no solution to the problem given the input limitations.
Any intellectually honest approach to philosophy has to recognize that every situation is unique. What you need is a moral framework that allows you to adapt to a situation without having to resort to absolutism (like the laws of robotics). You might as well have the philosophy of just not doing anything ever, and you would have exactly the same result.
Given that we may very soon actually have robots and AI this is a more important question than ever before and I really don’t think it’s been given any attention.
Absolutism is a fine theoretical stance, but breaks down immediately when faced with real situations. Furthermore, someone with such an absolute stance will not make the effort to have a real debate and possibly change their stance, ergo it is not worth engaging with.