It's the easiest thing in the world to armchair-quarterback the events of the past. The real challenge is to understand why so many people felt that it was a necessary, though I'm sure as abhorrent to them as it is to you, thing to do.
The truth is that you can't say what you would have done, because you weren't there. You can guess, and of course your guess will have all the smug self-righteous moral overtones of someone who has never held life and death in his hands and had to decide.
Relatively new here (hi) and without adequate ability to warp spacetime so that I may peruse all that EY has written on this topic, but am still wondering - Why pursue the idea that morality is hardwired, or that there is an absolute code of what is right or wrong?
Thou shall not kill - well, except is someone is trying to kill you.
To be brief - it seems to me that 1) Morality exists in a social context. 2) Morality is fluid, and can change/has changed over time. 3) If there is a primary moral imperative that underlies everything we know about morality, it ...
Why not divide the pie according to who will ultimately put the pie to the best use? If X and Y intend to take a nap after eating the pie, but Z is willing to plant a tree, wouldn't the best outcome for the pie favor Z getting more?
Before you dismiss the analogy, consider this - what if the pie was $1800.00 that none of the three had earned? What if the $1800.00 had been BORROWED with a certain expectation of its utility? Should X, Y, and Z each get $600.00, even though there is no stipulation as to what each of them must DO with that money? If X intends t...
To be fair (cough), your argument that '5 people means the pie should be divided into 5 equal parts' assumes several things...
1) Each person, by virtue of merely being there, is entitled to pie.
2) Each person, by virtue of merely being there, is entitled to the same amount of pie as every other person.
While this division of the pie may be preferable for the health of the collective psyche, it is still a completely arbitrary (cough) way to divide the pie. There are several other meaningful, rational, logical ways to divide the pie. (I believe I suggested on... (read more)