This thread is based on a quote and a personal philosophy that I follow (I made the quote.)
For every greater good there is an even greater sacrifice.
Do you agree or disagree? There is a similar thread to this (Kill One to save Five?) but I'm asking if you think that the sacrifice is greater than the "great good," or the other way around.
There is no Greater Good. It's all perception. There is no good or evil, only what is benificial to you. So when you say that there is a sacrifice for the greater good, there is only sacrifice.
Now, work is defined as displacement of mass. If you have to DO something to GET something, then everything is a sacrifice. Energy is stored until it is expended, transfered, or changed.
The truth is that usually the most important thing is to protect the majority, but if there is to save someone important (a great scientist) then the majority loses and the person who should be saved is the individual
This quite reminds me of the US's only war crime, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We did whats best for the US and possibly the world but we killed more innocents then we lost in our entire fight against them. But as Talo said, there is no good or evil. Only the people that perceive them. Al Qeida would think ramming some planes into some buildings was the best thing in the history of humanity, while the west will hang the perpetrators for it. It's easy to misinterpret both, though.
But what if the greater good is not to great? Kill one to save five? Lets say VoteSocialist that you are the one. Is it worth killing you to save five?
What I mean by this is that when someone says "We're doing this for the greater good," what if they're going to kill thousands, millions? And I think communism needs to die with all of those people in VoteSocialist's post.
In any case, the sacrifice is like the darkness before the dawn. Afterwards, something good happens, usually. Like WW2. We dropped the bomb to keep from losing the war, that's the great good. However, is that not to say we lost or morality in creating a weapon of mass destruction?
Like WW2. We dropped the bomb to keep from losing the war, that's the great good. However, is that not to say we lost or morality in creating a weapon of mass destruction?
The bomb was not dropped because they were afraid of losing the war. An Allied victory was inevitable at that stage; Truman was likely thinking on ending the war while minimizing allied casualties, and in that, his plan was a success. It's not 'greater' good either - it's good for the United States & it's citizens, definitely not the citizens of Japan, espescially seeing as the target was not military in nature, but civilian.
I don't feel that such philosophy is as widely applicable as others; as such I am not be inclined to agree.
Well would you rather have many people live in happiness with a few people not, or would you rather few people living in happiness and many people not just because some people didn't make some sacrifices for the greater good of everyone?
