I just discovered this, and I'm quite conflicted about it:
[I sympathise with the sentiment](https://pixelfed.de/p/tripu/257292372667404288), but:
1. Hybrids and electrics too? Sure, they _still_ pollute. But what doesn't!? Your bicycle pollutes. Electric cars pollute significantly less than equivalent dinosaur-juice-based ones. Electric cars are still quite expensive and some (many?) people make that effort out of concern for the environment. Do they (we) deserve to be punished, too?
1. Isn't this going too far? It's bordering on vandalism. One thing is to put a leaflet on the windscreen, or approach the a driver to start a conversation — a very different thing is to _completely disable a vehicle_. BTW, doesn't the recovery vehicle that will have to be summoned to tow the SUV pollute a ton, too?
1. This kind of actions across the board are always tricky: you just _don't know_ the owners of that car, nor their circumstances. I can think of a few scenarios where an SUV parked on a city street at a given point in time makes sense and is justified.
@tripu "Bordering on vandalism"? It's straight-on vandalism! If you allow it just because the vandals feel justified then what happens when others use the same excuse for causes you might not agree with so much?
> _“If you allow it just because the vandals feel justified then what happens when others use the same excuse for causes you might not agree with so much?”_
Yup. That's the conundrum of civil disobedience and other forms of strictly illegal activism. It's not particular to this case, though — rather a generic philosophical question.
I'll go out on a limb and bet that _you_ disobey _some_ law(s) that some people (even _most_ people) are just 😉
@tripu I think the concept of "victimless crime" is key here. You may break a law you consider unjust, but you shouldn't be causing harm to somebody else or their property, as is the case here.
Yes, I like that and use that rule most of the time 👍
Again, I just suspect that _sometimes_ it's justified to damage _some kinds_ of property _a little bit_ for a greater good, depending on many circumstances… 🤷
Again, I totally get that, and sympathise with the idea. (You and I aren't that far apart in these matters, really!)
Worthy ideas are abused by demagogues and mass murderers. Peace, prosperity, security, freedom, children. They claim to care about all that. As Bryan Caplan says, we aren't cynical enough about politicians.
And yet.
Obviously worthy ideas are worthy per se.
Think of any indictment or policy that would actually improve public health, make children safer, raise living standards, or decrease violence. That's a proposal that would work towards the greater good, by definition. By simply stating that fact out loud, does that proposal become less good? does it switch from beneficial to evil? Obviously not.
I identify (more or less) as a consequentialist, a (negative) utilitarian, and an (aspiring) rationalist.
My whole moral framework puts something very similar to “the greater good” at the centre. “Bad” to me is whatever increases suffering in the universe. “Good” is defined in opposition. Noting greater than the whole universe, and nothing more important than reducing suffering.
So, in a certain way, the greater good is the only thing I care about, and the only thing I think everyone else should care about!
(Of course I'm oversimplifying, and I'm not absolutely certain about this. But it's the closest I have at the moment to the beginning of a morality.)
@tripu I appreciate that you care about a greater good, but you have to acknowledge that any such measure will always be subjective. That is why I think imposing your view on somebody else by coercion is unethical.
There are way too many things to care about nowadays (hence #wokeism), many of them valid, and we cannot get onboard with all of them. This shouldn't be an excuse to oppress people because they don't care as much as we do about certain things.
> _“Any such measure will always be subjective.”_
Yes. Moral philosophy isn't objective the way maths are, or even chemistry.
> _“That is why I think imposing your view on somebody else by coercion is unethical.”_
That's a huge leap, a non sequitur. The ethical uses of coercion and violence are within the scope of ethics, too. In _all_ ethical frameworks, there are some cases when the right thing to do is to “impose your view by coercion”.
The fact that moral systems aren't clear-cut equations and that they sometimes (or even often) contradict each other doesn't mean that all forms of coercion are always wrong. You can't escape the messy conundrums of trying to live an ethical life by pretending that it's possible to never force others to do anything they don't want to do.
I think it was good to use force to free slaves from their masters. Remember: they weren't human beings but property to their lawful owners. Freeing slaves was theft. Using coercion (apart from persuasion) to free a slave is the moral thing to do, even if you haven't communicated with the slave and the slave hasn't asked for your help.
Using coercion to stop someone from torturing dogs for fun is the right thing to do, even if those dogs are their property.
If your neighbour insists on expanding his arsenal of heavy artillery and producing chemical weapons, in spite of the clear opposition of the whole community, you guys don't need to wait for him to produce a credible, specific threat before using violence to force him to stop.
In a world with great inequality, where famine killed millions and some individuals had the same resources as medium-sized countries, abstaining from any form of coercion (eg taxation) that could help ameliorate the injustice would be immoral, I think.
etc.
@tripu I dread when someone justifies actions because of the "greater good". Terrible disasters have been justified as been necessary "for the greater good".