Symmetry and Dirty Hands Sample Clauses

Symmetry and Dirty Hands. Symmetry seems especially plausible in cases where the stakes are very high, and the moral pressures are serious. Take the TBS. Xxxx has an obligation to protect the innocent lives under her rule from terrorist attack. Eschewing the chance to do something that is so clearly a lesser evil (as the traditional formulations of TBS assume, though both assumptions can be questioned) to save those lives can plausibly be described as dirtying. It satisfies all three of the criteria outlined previously. A morally significant responsibility has gone unfulfilled, and obligations to one’s citizens have gone unmet. Xxxx has failed in the duties that she accepted, and a moral remainder and need for accountability arises. As Xxxxxx (2011) has argued, even if we believe that the ATC-justified option is to not torture, dirt can arise from prioritising the culpable terrorist’s right not to be tortured over the right to life of countless innocents. An asymmetrical view, in contrast, requires “some act of moral compartmentalisation in which [the agent] detaches her conscious decision to choose one course of action over another (e.g. not torturing) from the consequences of that decision (e.g. the death of innocents)” (Xxxx, 2019a: 11). This compartmentalisation is “both unlikely and undesirable”, failing to capture the causal role our decisions have and the unavoidable repercussions on innocence and integrity that come from DH dilemmas. We cannot fully grasp the stakes entailed by DH scenarios unless we acknowledge the moral stakes and the moral duties that go unfulfilled and violated on both sides of the conflict. If one side did not inflict dirt, then we would not be in the realm of choosing lesser evils. The asymmetrical view might have greater purchase as a phenomenological explanation, particularly in cases where external immorality is the igniting factor. Return to the TBS for a moment. Xxxx xxx more pointedly feel the dirt that comes from authorising torture. Xxxx’s causal role in authorising torture is a direct causal role and what it says about her character (that she is not the unequivocal opponent of torture that she imagined herself to be) is clear. The dirt that comes from letting the bombs go off is, in contrast, a more distant dirt. The abject immorality and principal responsibility, after all, lies with the terrorist. Yet Xxxx can prevent those xxxxx and has a duty to do so. In Xxxx’s case I ultimately believe that the symmetrical view best captures the phenome...