Mmm, that's a good point.

Potentially - If people know you're going to play according to a higher rule or purpose, rather than following feelings, then how much are they going to trust that you're really going to exercise that rule on their behalf?

It'd be like the old argument that people should be allowed to kidnap people off the streets and take their organs - because when you average it out any individual is more likely to need an organ than be the one kidnapped so it's the better gamble for everyone to make. But we don't really imagine it that way, we all see ourselves being the ones dragged off the street and cut up, or that people with unpopular political opinions would be the ones... You can't trust someone who'd come up with that sort of system not to be playing a different game because they've already shown you can't trust their compassionate feelings to work as bounds on their actions. Maybe any friendship they express means as little to them as the poor guy they just butchered.

I wonder how much of it is a trust problem though, and how you'd resolve that. It seems to me that if you knew someone really well, or they didn't seem to be grasping power, they could get away with being ruthless. People seem almost to gloat about how ruthless specops folks and the like are.