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<blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 3661111" data-attributes="member: 3424">I wasn't arguing that it shouldn't be used. I was arguing that it should be applied as carefully as depriving a creature of its freedom (imprisonment) or its life (execution).Well, for one, you can't wish or miracle a free choice away. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />This may get rather complicated, so please bear with me.There are basically two schools of thought here: one school of thought believes that an evil act is an evil act, and that sometimes, all you can do is choose the lesser of two evils. From this perspective, the use of force is evil, even if it may be necessary to prevent even greater evil from happening. From this perspective, you might kill a man to stop him from burning down an orphanage, but even though you prevented the greater evil, killing him is still an evil act.The other school of thought believes that it is possible to net off the good and evil that result from your actions. From that perspective, even though killing a man is technically an evil act, killing him to prevent him from burning down an orphanage is on balance a good one.I believe that most people have moral values that are a mixture of these two systems. They do not mind committing small evils as long as the net result is good, up to a point. At the same time, they will have some lines that they will not cross, no matter how much good results from it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FireLance, post: 3661111, member: 3424"] I wasn't arguing that it shouldn't be used. I was arguing that it should be applied as carefully as depriving a creature of its freedom (imprisonment) or its life (execution). Well, for one, you can't [I]wish[/I] or [I]miracle[/I] a free choice away. :) This may get rather complicated, so please bear with me. There are basically two schools of thought here: one school of thought believes that an evil act is an evil act, and that sometimes, all you can do is choose the lesser of two evils. From this perspective, the use of force is evil, even if it may be necessary to prevent even greater evil from happening. From this perspective, you might kill a man to stop him from burning down an orphanage, but even though you prevented the greater evil, killing him is still an evil act. The other school of thought believes that it is possible to net off the good and evil that result from your actions. From that perspective, even though killing a man is technically an evil act, killing him to prevent him from burning down an orphanage is on balance a good one. I believe that most people have moral values that are a mixture of these two systems. They do not mind committing small evils as long as the net result is good, up to a point. At the same time, they will have some lines that they will not cross, no matter how much good results from it. [/QUOTE]

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