Re: Was Hitler Evil?

[Matthew Hodgetts <matthew.hodgetts@gmail.com>]

Whilst it might well be correct to say that most people in history and today have been doing what they thought was 'the right thing,' I don't think that this entails that there is no moral difference between two people so long as both are doing what they think is 'the right thing.' It seems to me that acting due to your actions falling under some label of 'the right thing' is likely to mean that you are really acting in accordance with the moral tradition you live in. Moral traditions obviously vary from one person to another and from one culture to another, thus allowing one moral tradition to seem reprehensible from the point of view of another.

 

I'm assuming some degree of realism in ethics here, (i.e. that there is something more going on than just moral traditions), but there does appear to be a moral distinction to be made between A who feels that it is acceptable to use violence only when all other means of self-defence have failed, and B who feels that it is appropriate to use any form of violence (including torture) to acheive the aims and satisfy the interests of his people whenever he wants to. Doubtless both A and B will view their actions as morally justified, ( i.e. from within their moral tradition), but this doesn't show that B isn't actually being objectively immoral, just because he doesn't think he is. The complete lack of value he places upon those from other cultures and traditions, and his willingness to inflict terrible violence in furtherance of even minor aims would seem to me to mark him out as immoral, even if B himself disagrees with me.

 

Whilst this line of argument makes a lot of sense to me, and hopefully others as well, it is still open for anti-realists (and other realists, I suppose) to claim that what I have actually done is just criticise B for failing to observe my moral tradition. My claims to objectivity are as worthless as his claims to objectivity.

 

Matt.