At the risk of playing to popular stereotypes, Scott Alexander’s Meditations on Moloch (2014) comes to mind:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Against that backdrop, and treating your question as literal: sounds like they’re saying it’s a classic coordination problem, with a dash of moral superiority. If we don’t, somebody else will; we’d rather it not happen at all, but if it’s going to happen, we’d rather it be us at the wheel. Because, you know. “Good guys” and all.