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Eugine_Nier comments on Rationality Quotes November 2013 - Less Wrong
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I (and James Donald) agree. Remember that the traditional ethical laws this is based on also have traditional exceptions, e.g., for punishment and war, and additional laws governing when and how those exceptions apply. The thing to remember is that you are not allowed to add to the list of exceptions as you see fit, nor are you allowed to play semantic games to expand them. In particular, no "war on poverty", or "war on cancer", even "war on terror" is pushing it.
I think you're misunderstanding me. We all know that most ethical systems think it's okay to punish criminals. I'm not referring to the fact that criminals are punished, but the fact that when we try to punish criminals we will, since no system is perfect, inevitably end up punishing some innocent people as well. Those people did nothing wrong, yet we are hurting them, and for the greater good.
This is no different from the fact that it's okay to fly planes even though some of them will inevitably crash.
Note that if a judge punishes someone who turns out to be innocent, we believe he should feel guilty about this rather then simply shrugging and saying "mistakes will happen". Similarly, if an engeneer makes a mistake than causes a plane to crash.
Just like not all people punished are guilty, not all innocent people punished are discovered; there's always going to be a certain residue of innocent people who are punished, but not discovered, with no guilty judges or anything else to make up for it. Hurting such innocent people is nevertheless an accepted part of having a penal system.