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My main issue with your logic is less whether it makes sense or not and more that, in practice, it tends to be self-serving. Somehow, people tend to only apply it when doing the “minor” harm benefits them. Humans, myself included, are remarkable good at rationalizing their behavior.

Your logic doesn't hold up well to simple escalation logic.

Company A founds itself on doing 0 harm to Area X. Competitor B shows up and starts finding success doing 10 harm to Area X, so Company A makes a "moral" decision: If we do 9 harm to Area X, we are preventing 1 entire harm. Isn't that real value? then Company C shows up and starts finding success doing 100 harm to Area X, so Company A changes it's moral stance to "unless we do 99 harm to Area X ..."

I know an old lady who swallowed a fly kind of logic going on here.

I mean, your proposed logic seems to be quite consistent from a basic game theory perspective. Defecting in a prisoners dilemma and races to the bottom are both well observed phenomena.

We have 10,000+ years of human civilization at this point. There must be some other active ethical maxim operating other than "choose the lesser of two evils" to explain why there is so much cooperation amongst humans. Evidence is not on the side of the preeminence of races to the bottom.

You should investigate the repeated prisoners dilemma.

> You should investigate the repeated prisoners dilemma.

Well aware. Obviously, the entirety of human civilization is a bit more complicated than a prisoners dilemma, iterated or not. Yet prisoners dilemma's and races to the bottom still exist, and it makes no sense to argue against them in the abstract.

I think we are very disconnected on the topic of conversation here. Somehow you've confabulated my point with an attack on the prisoners dilemma or races to the bottom?

The person I was responding to made the point that if you want to minimize evil in the world, sometimes you have to add evil to a lesser degree. As in my example, if I do 9 points of evil but prevent 10 points of evil then according to OP I've added value to the world in the form of the 1 point of evil I have reduced.

I responded that this can lead to an escalation trap. This assumes that we would all prefer less evil in the world, right? So how do we get out of the escalation trap? Repeated application of the maxim "always do a bit less evil than the worst possible competitor" will not lead to a minimization of evil overall, only a creeping increase in the total amount of evil in the world.

How are you equating this to me arguing against the existence of races to the bottom?

> then Company C shows up and starts finding success doing 100 harm to Area X, so Company A changes it's moral stance to "unless we do 99 harm to Area X ..."

I mean yes this is technically possible. But I think in many cases, especially "winner-take-all" markets like online search engines, social networks, etc., you don't get this large number of repeated threats. Fending off a competitor or two might be enough. And just as it's possible for there to be some advantage that opens from doing 99 harm to Area X, it's also possible that it never happens.

But also, let's pretend the hypothetical you say _did_ happen?

What should occur? Should the company just NOT do 99 harm to Area X and instead allow 100? If so, why? Unless you break the hypothetical by adding some alternative option C, as much as we don't like the preventative-99 option, it's still better than the allowing-100 option.

> Unless you break the hypothetical by adding some alternative option C

That is kind of the point, isn't it? That my hypothetical scenario isn't realistic.

Let's imagine two worlds. A world where individuals refuse the false dichotomy and search for option C. And the world where someone accepts the false dichotomy and justifies evil.

I would argue that anyone that advocates for the justification of evil is actually using motivated reasoning. It breaks my original premise "Company A founds itself on doing 0 harm to Area X". Clearly they didn't and their embracing of evil shows that their principles mean nothing.

As a moral test, ask yourself: If I said "you must kill 99 people otherwise I will kill 100", would you feel morally justified to kill those 99 people? If your answer is "yes", then you are manipulable by those who want you to commit evil on their behalf. They don't have to commit any murders, just convince you that you have no other choice.

Sometimes being evil will make you win - but only what money can buy.