Would you kill baby Hitler?

[OhNoYouDont]

fatslob-:O said:

OhNoYouDont said:

I'm not sure you understood me at all. Destiny is the idea that the future is concrete, static, unalterable. It's a very naive way of thinking about the Universe and its operations, especially given quantum physics and its conclusions on this topic.

Just because the world is probabilistic does not make indeterminate. The future is unknown but that does not stop it from having predetermined outcomes and that is what my idea of a destiny is ... 

The laws of this universe does not necessarily imply the exclusion of the concept of destiny like you seem to think either ...

Holy cow, you need to read a dictionary. Probabilistic and deterministic are mutually exclusive ideas. Educate yourself. Quantum physics has no current deterministic model, so yes it does preclude any notion of 'destiny'. 

OhNoYouDont said:

So your argument is that it's more beneficial for the world to have undergone Hitler than suffer racism for a few short years? Uh, good luck convincing anybody of that.

A "few short years" is a fallacious assumption on your part because you simply don't truly know how the alternative universe went ... 

Go on, try and grace everyone else in this thread about your 'absolutes' that you don't even know ...  

Shifting goal posts changes nothing. Whether it's 5 years or 500, you'd be hard=pressed to convince anybody that racism is a worse outcome than a world war.

OhNoYouDont said: 

If I were aware that this being would eventually be responsible for starting a world war, the decision is quite simple.

Your so called righteousness comes off as nothing more than purely conceited in ignorance ...

This is basic consequentialism, has nothing to do with self-righteousness.

OhNoYouDont said: 

Again, in my eyes you are perverting the inquiry. This is the question in my understanding:

Would you, knowing the results of Hitler's actions, kill him as a baby in order to prevent such actions from occurring?

Whether this entails time travel to the past (impossible) or the ability to predict the future (implausible) is not relevant. All that matters is whether you could kill a currently innocent baby to stop a future travesty.  

You seem to think that utilitarianism is the answer to everything but how do you square the fact that you're likely violating your own standards of justice by killing an innocent minor ? How does one even have a solid criteria for measuring the benefit in that ethical system ? 

Utilitarianism isn't necessarily contingent on time. Assessing Hitler's entirely life results in a net negative utility.

May as well stop responding since you have nearly nothing of value to add to this discussion ... 

I too think it's time for you to stop responding because you're intellectually bankrupt on this topic.