Comment by chroma | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chroma | Hacker News Reader

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I'm also not sure what sort of violence the author would classify as not motivated by morality. From the article:

> ISIL members believe they are morally justified and obligated to commit acts of terror, while US soldiers accept some loss of civilian lives to achieve the deaths of those terrorists. In all of these scenarios, the violent act is perceived by the perpetrator as virtuous.

In the case of ISIS, the author is correct. They really do believe their actions are an unqualified good. But I seriously doubt that drone pilots in US military feel the same way. They may know where a terrorist leader is, but not be able to isolate him from innocents. In other words, if they had more accurate weaponry and better information, they would harm fewer innocent people. Sadly, current bombs and armies are crude tools. In contrast, lack of ability is the only thing stopping ISIS from killing more innocent people.

I think the author is confused because the term "morality" covers everything from self-defense to religious fanaticism. There's practically nothing it can't explain.

Well, pure self-interest would probably fall outside of morality, but one could make an argument that many conscriped ISIS fighters, US soldiers, and perhaps US leaders are acting out of self-interest.

I think things could get a bit ambiguous when you consider something like the Stalinist purges. Those would seem to be an intersection of self-interest and self-righteousness. Although their morality was not theistic, they clearly believed that they must prevail over those who had wronged them.

Self-interest is not a well defined concept. The notion of self is not somehow objective or immutable. Describing someone's self-interest is just another framework for describing the same underlying system that morality and all that is trying to describe. There is a bit of circularity when one tries to make self-interest an essential feature of brains:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism#Circulari...

In cases like extreme nationalism, the zealot has essentialized the nation-state into their identity and is thus acting in their 'self-interest'. If one defines self-interest as interest in the health and reproduction of the body, then humans are emphatically not drive solely by self-interest.

Why was this down-voted? The parent makes an excellent point that self-interest relies on a moral judgement about who the "self" is.

> but not able to isolate uim from innocents

I often wonder what's the internal thinking of professional- and military-trained people. It could be closer to "I don't know whether they are guilty, but this is just my job" or "Precision destruction is a notch better than bombing a whole city like UK did in 1944 to win the war". Or "There isn't a right or wrong, but I'm on the US side, which has determined that this is "our" truth".

> In other words, if they had more accurate weaponry and better information, they would harm fewer innocent people.

That already exists. You could send someone to assassinate that single person. So yeah, some soldier would have to risk their life (kinda what the profession is about), but the innocent civilians won't have to pay with their lives.

Also, using the same logic, if a few serial killers are hiding somewhere in an apartment complex, why doesn't the government bomb the neighborhood?

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