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I think what the GP was getting at is that they're both actions that are (in the mind of the person executing the action in question) necessary to achieve the desired effect. If you think that it is absolutely necessary to stop the knife-wielding attacker then you'll take any action necessary to do so. That shooting him in the leg was enough doesn't mean you wouldn't have gone further. If you think there's an international Jewish conspiracy that must be stopped you'll also take any action necessary to do so.

The difference in scale is, I think, irrelevant. Under no circumstances would someone need to kill millions of people to stop a single stabber. At that point you're arguing the analogy, not the argument.

>The difference in scale is, I think, irrelevant. Under no circumstances would someone need to kill millions of people to stop a single stabber. At that point you're arguing the analogy, not the argument.

The argument is made in the form of an analogy though. And what's more the parent insists that the main difference is "scale".

I don't think the main difference is scale. I think the difference is one is a legitimate action in defense, and the other is not.

That's objectively so, regarless of if Hitler believed in a conspiracy or not.

And even if he did legitimately believe in a Jewish conspiracy, still killing non-participating Jews (like babies and regular folk) would not be in defence even then, it would be proactive. One could legitimately believe a whole class of people are in a vast conspiracy, and still find killing them that way abhorent and not wanting to do it.

That would be like the cop killing a guy who thinks might attack someone with a knife in the future, or who thinks their kid will.

What exactly makes an action a "legitimate action in defense?" John T Williams had a knife, but I'm not sure his killing was legitimate.

(a) It being in defence

(b) The force used being proportionate to the danger

In that case John wasn't attacking anyone at the monent, so no defence. The 4 shots are also way disrpoportionate to the non-danger. And they came within 5 seconds of ordering to drop his knife, which again is not enough time to react (also assuming he could hear it).

In this case the shooting is more of an illegitimate action of offense.

Note that police doesn't just do actions for defence, but also e.g. to enforce some law. But the shooting, 4 times, lethally, of someone away from you, carrying a knife, within 5 seconds of you having told them to drop it, is not justified even under this context. At least it wouldn't be acceptable in any civilized country.

> As for being "factually wrong", Hitler could just as well be equally vicious while being factually correct. Saying "I know Jews are not pulling the strings, but I want to blame and exterminate them anyway because I want to use them as scapegoats" would be factually correct, yet the deeds would be no less evil.

That's a better point. One would have to dig deeper in order to find the factually incorrect idea in this scenario.

It's all about the goal. If the goal was to improve Germany this stance you cited would clearly make him again incorrect about the facts, as the extermination of the Jews hurt Germany.

If the goal was to gobble up power and riches for himself and his cronies, then he was factually incorrect about how powerful the allies were, as that clearly backfired pretty damn badly on him.

I don't see how you can get to any position where Hitler isn't monstrously wrong about something very fundamental. You can be as cynical as you'd like, but at the end he killed himself in a bunker. Clearly that was not his goal!

But even if Hitler hadn't underestimated the Soviet Union, or if exterminating the Jews had been an actual way to improve Germany, the Holocaust still would have been an evil act.

I mean.. sure. He did try other solutions too like deporting them all. Just that no country would take them. But that's another story.

So... that's OK then..?

Nope. But I think we should all be aware that the anti-semitism was super high at the time in surrounding countries too, that's why he couldn't deport them.

What does the prevailing anti-semitism at the time have to do with anything?

Let me restate: Hitler would have been wrong about genocide even if it had led to a German utopia. It didn't, but even if it had, genocide is still wrong. There is no world where gassing children, or shooting women holding their kids, is justifiable. Even if this somehow magically leads to an utopia. Some means can never be justified; this is one of them.

Hitler's error wasn't that he underestimated the Soviet Union or that Germany ended up in ruins and he had to commit suicide: his error was conducting genocide.

Well I think my point is that the reason he ended up at genocide was logical given the underlying beliefs. His core belief wasn't about genocide, that was downstream from the basic mistake.

Like Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Hitler believed absurdities. The atrocities flowed downstream like water flowing down a hill.

Pol Pot and Mao also committed genocide, but they did it by incompetence of a very different sort. I am saying there's a unifying model where we can understand all of these.

I'll grant you this: everyone believes themselves the heroes of their own story. Hitler didn't believe himself a villain; he believed himself a hero.

But the moral cannot ever be "according to his underlying beliefs, genocide was logical", or "genocide was wrong because ultimately it didn't help Germany achieve its goals". You can understand why he thought genocide was the right course of action -- understanding people from history should never be taboo -- but you cannot ever justify it as logically consistent.

Genocide is always wrong. It's so wrong, it should make anyone stop whenever their thoughts lead down this road. It's the definitive no-no of means, the means that can never be justified by any ends.

Hitler may have been wrong about many things, and even right about some, but genocide is definitely always wrong, and we can say that he was a morally broken person because of it.

> but you cannot ever justify it as logically consistent

I don't understand where "justify" came from. It WAS logically consistent. But that's 100% irrelevant. Logic based on faulty assumptions is worthless, this is just "garbage in, garbage out". There is absolutely no morals to be had from garbage assumptions.

> Genocide is always wrong.

I don't think that's correct. Now, it has always been wrong HISTORICALLY, but saying that it is logically impossible to even imagine a science fiction scenario where it's the lesser evil just means you have a lack of imagination.

> but genocide is definitely always wrong, and we can say that he was a morally broken person because of it.

Again I disagree. The immorality of genocide flows downstream from my morals, it's not an axiom. I don't like the long-list-of-axioms family of morality. It doesn't scale, and it can't handle future situations. We need something much more stable than a long list of past mistakes. We need to understand what caused those mistakes, but even more important we need clear and practical rules about how to avoid that entire class of mistakes, including future similar mistakes that we have not made yet.

> It WAS logically consistent. But that's 100% irrelevant. Logic based on faulty assumptions is worthless, this is just "garbage in, garbage out". There is absolutely no morals to be had from garbage assumptions.

Hard disagree. That's a utilitarian mindset. Morals is relevant regardless of whether the assumptions are faulty.

Even if Hitler had been right, and genociding Jews and Slavs truly was what would bring Germany up, even then, he would have been morally wrong.

You're begging the question here: the ends definitely do NOT justify the means in the case of genocide. That's it. Hitler was a morally bankrupt man not because of his flawed assumptions (we do agree they were flawed) but because he decided genocide was acceptable. Nothing else matters. Genocide is always wrong.

> The immorality of genocide flows downstream from my morals, it's not an axiom

Inasmuch as we are humans and there's no such thing as objective fact, but you're saying is trivially true but also too abstract.

For humans, genocide of other humans is always wrong. Don't sci-fi me, don't insult my intelligence. I have no failure of imagination: there is simply no future scenario where genocide or rape is acceptable, ever.

Genocide is always wrong. Survival at all costs -- say, by murdering children -- is unacceptable. No future scifi scenario you can think of will make it acceptable. It's ok to lose -- not you, humanity I mean -- if we reach such a dead-end where the only possible "solution" is genocide. It's ok to say "we cannot solve this problem, we cannot follow this abhorrent path".

"Your morals, axioms, etc": as I said, I've little patience for moral relativism as an argument for this kind of debates.

> Hard disagree. That's a utilitarian mindset.

You misunderstood. I'm just saying that you cannot make good conclusions from bad assumptions. That's not a utilitarian mindset, that's just basic logic.

> Morals is relevant regardless of whether the assumptions are faulty.

That makes no sense. If your underlying beliefs are wrong you will commit atrocities. If you truly believe that a baby that grows up to be a Christian (or whatever) will be tortured in hell for all eternity, then it is an infinite good to kill that baby before that happens. This is what happens with bad assumptions. This isn't a hypothetical example btw, this is what real people believe TODAY.

> Inasmuch as we are humans and there's no such thing as objective fact,

Well that's just false.

> you're saying is trivially true but also too abstract.

Too abstract... for what?

> Don't sci-fi me, don't insult my intelligence.

That makes no sense. You are now using hysterical and emotional language because you are failing to be convincing with logic. That's not me insulting your intelligence, that's YOU insulting your own intelligence.

> I've little patience for moral relativism as an argument for this kind of debates.

There we agree 100%. I'm not arguing moral relativism at all. In fact quite the opposite. YOU argued moral relativism above with "no such thing as objective fact".

> if we reach such a dead-end where the only possible "solution" is genocide. It's ok to say "we cannot solve this problem, we cannot follow this abhorrent path".

That makes no logical sense. "Let all humans die, because we cannot follow this abhorrent path" is to trade genocide for extinction. Which is the same as trading 1 genocide against ALL genocides at the same time.

This is the point of thought experiments: to really test your logic to the extreme and see if it still makes sense. Your axiomatic approach does not survive this test, as you clearly demonstrate.

> You misunderstood. I'm just saying that you cannot make good conclusions from bad assumptions. That's not a utilitarian mindset, that's just basic logic.

No, I understood you just fine. What you're saying is a form of the utilitarian view, "if the assumptions were good..." (or "this was bad because the assumptions were bad"), and I'm contradicting you: the assumptions don't matter, because genocide is always wrong. Argue all you want about logic, but genocide is always wrong.

> That makes no sense

[blah blah]

> That makes no logical sense. "Let all humans die, because we cannot follow this abhorrent path" is to trade genocide for extinction. Which is the same as trading 1 genocide against ALL genocides at the same time.

Extinction is not the same as genocide. The rest of your argument falls apart, but it was never all that solid or logical to begin with.

Best not proceed down this road: I find your attempts at "logic" silly, and this will inevitably devolve into a flamewar (I'm already witnessing some of your debate tactics, and I can't say I'm impressed).

Let's stop here.

Your killing babies point demonstrates a common error with this kind of debate: there are a ton of steps you could take to stop a baby growing up Christian before you jump straight to killing it. A lot of them are also probably abhorrent like but might be better than killing.

I forgot about this part of your comment, and it's important:

> We need to understand what caused those mistakes, but even more important we need clear and practical rules about how to avoid that entire class of mistakes, including future similar mistakes that we have not made yet

Fully agreed! I think it's worth debating what led Hitler down this path, and how he could convince people of its righteousness. To be clear, I'm not arguing against debating this. It's important, like you said, to get rid of whole classes of colossal mistakes (another example would be: "in order to prevent genocide, we need to commit genocide first!" -- the root problem is still genocide). Understanding dictators, torturers, flawed political systems is always important and valid.

What I'm arguing, plain and simple, is that whenever anyone decides genocide is the solution, that is in itself a moral failure and a horrific mistake, regardless of any other considerations. There may be other mistakes (like waging war against the Soviet Union, or failing to consider the industrial might of the USA, or even failing to understand the logistics of protracted war), but even without those mistakes, genocide was still an a priori moral failure.

>There is no world where gassing children, or shooting women holding their kids, is justifiable.

That's a moral statement, so it depends on your society's morality. You'd be surprised how many societies found such acts justifiable, and you'd be the 'crazy one out' for considering otherwise. In ancient times few would bat an eye, and most would cheer for the succesful extermination of enemies.

Let's not even go that far back in time. There were societies considering slavery justifiable. Or seggregation. Or taking native populations land by force. Or colonizing Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

I'm from Latin America and I'm well aware of how it was colonized.

In a sense, moral relativism allows for everything. It would allow, for example, situations where it's ok to rape and murder children, for example (dress it as a religious ritual, or whatever).

This however holds no truck with me. Segregation was bad. Slavery is bad. Rape is always bad. Genocide is always bad. It's ok to study cultures where mass rape or genocide was acceptable, while also understanding it's abhorrent. Let me be clear that I think it's ok to study and understand cultures who consider genocide acceptable, but genocide itself is never justified.

More importantly, Hitler lived in an era when genocide wasn't acceptable. He created a microclimate where Nazi leadership convinced others it was acceptable (within the inner circle they were plain about it, but outside of it they used euphemism because they knew people would recoil otherwise), but it wasn't acceptable in the Western world, so he doesn't even have that excuse.

This has the corollary that in the future, some acceptable practice today will likely be seen as horrendous, and I'm fine with that. But, again, we're talking genocide here, to put things into perspective.

Most of the Jews the Nazis killed weren't from Germany. Hitler invaded other countries and then enacted the Holocaust in them (well, not just the Holocaust: Slavs were also a favorite target of his).

> Hitler could just as well be equally vicious while being factually correct

I think that it would be impossible for him to become equally powerful if he did not lied however.

Probably, but "factually correct" here is with regard to his inner beliefs, not if he said truth of lies. After all every politician lies.

Hitler lied including with "regard to his inner beliefs". He told lies he knew full well were lies. He also contradicted himself quite a lot, directly, which just one more data point towards "he knew he was lying". He gave instructions to people under him that amounted to "lie about this thing, because it is strategical".

> After all every politician lies.

There are massive differences in how much politicians lies. Some of them lie more, others less. There are massive differences in topics politicians lie about. Lying about liking a musical piece for example is not the same as lying about planned policies.