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To: r9etb
suppose that you have a choice of blowing yourself up and killing somebody like Hitler, thereby saving millions. Would that suicide bombing be evil?

Please see your remarks regarding item 4 in post 83 ...

4. And, in fact, a lethargic indifference to ethics, a hopelessly cynical amorality -- since his questions involve situations which he is not likely ever to encounter, which bear no relation to the actual problems of his own life and thus leave him to live without any moral principles whatever

... and then reconsider your own comment to that item 4 ...

"Huh. I wonder what dark recess of Rand's mind that crawled out of?"

As a direct answer to the ethical question you ask, the answer is yes because there are better ways to rid the world of dictators.

92 posted on 12/19/2003 7:24:39 AM PST by thinktwice (America is truly blessed ... with George W. Bush as President..)
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To: thinktwice
As a direct answer to the ethical question you ask, the answer is yes because there are better ways to rid the world of dictators.

What are they? And when you say there are "better" ways, please note that you've merely taken a utilitarian, and therefore relativist, approach to the problem.

... and then reconsider your own comment to that item 4 ...

What's to reconsider? I see no "lethargic indifference to ethics" in the situation I presented to you -- which is reminiscent of the bomb attempt against Hitler in 1944. Or, if you like, we can replace the "suicide bombing" example for a "Hamas suicide assault on an Israeli settlement" -- is a suicide assault always evil? Well, in such cases we must consider the fellow who gives up his life in battle to save the others in his unit: would that make him evil, too?

97 posted on 12/19/2003 7:52:01 AM PST by r9etb
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