Quote:
|
Originally Posted by politicophile
It's easy to say that, but someone who actually lived by this maxim would be terribly immoral from my perspective. This strikes me as a sort of high horse mentality where one refuses to compromise one's ideals regardless of the consequences. While this might be admirable when it comes to things like peer pressure, I would say that a person who is unwilling to violate their ideals (let's say a prohibition against killing people) in order to save the human race is downright evil.
How many lives is one's principle worth? Why, why is murdering one person worse than allowing large numbers of people to die? Does it come down to vanity?
|
Principles are all one has when it comes down to it. Valuing the survival of the human race is also a principle. Some people may not hold it in as high esteem as that of not killing a person directly, and therefore would avoid it.
__________________
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato
|