Can you compromise between practicality and principle?

The pacifists here have heard it time and again: “Do you have a better idea?”, “What do you propose we do?”

I wonder how we can justify our breaches in ethics in order to reach practical ends (as in saving lives), although we compromise our ethics at the same time (as in taking lives). I suppose some people can say that their ethics say that the ends can justify the means (more people since 9/11, it seems), but you still have to ask the question where the line is drawn, what constitutes an end worth making a certain sacrifice for.

As a pragmatist myself, and a cynic, I think that ethics aren’t something people make and live their life by, but rather live by and then make. People are mad and scared and they want safety for themselves and are willing to let their government bomb some people they don’t know in a far-away country. And since they know they’re ethical people they must simply tweak their moral code to justify being an accomplice (one way or the other).

What say you?

Most “breaches” as described are really conflicts between two separate calls for moral action. On the one hand taking a life is wrong. On the other hand not saving lives is wrong.

Preventing future deaths in the the world is an honorable, ethical thing to do. There’s no “tweaking of a moral code”.

Unfortunately, Eternal, I agree with you. Especially about the “they live by and then make” part.

The problem arises when people assume their “ethics” are absolute. Not only are absolute ethics a practical impossibility (they can’t be measured in nature and are societal constructs that vary from culture to culture) but attempting to follow them “absolutely” inevitably leads to injustice.

Look at our system of jurisprudence where exacerbating and mitigating factors guide the result. To follow an "absolute’ blindly effectively states that you don’t trust your own sense of judgement and reason.

Thus for the reasoned individual, no “breach” occurs, but rather an application of principle admitidly more complex than mere “rule following” so favored by the masses.

Some of us don’t mind dropping bombs and killing other people.

When I encounter a moral dilemma I realize that the problem is with the morals, not the dilemmas. That is, I have not accounted for a realistic and probable situation. I often resort to pragmatism in order to understand the situation better, and then I do indeed “tweak” the ethical code I live by in order to better account for real life. After all, isn’t that what it is for?

What what is for? Ethics? Because I don’t think so. If ethics were something you can change to account for the facts of life, who would pretend to have them? They just get in the way as it is.

Eternal,

If you cannot apply reason to your “ethical code” then all you are doing is simple “rule following.” ALL situations have mitigating or exacerbating factors that call for a reasoned approach. The mindless application of “rules” results in nothing but injustice. The simple mind yearns for black and white but such situations rarely exist.

Take killing for example. We deside that ALL killing is wrong (even state), but then a man faced with being killed himself kills, is he automatically condemned to the same sentence as one who killed for personal gain?