Ah, Jacob, you're pulling a JohnM on me. ;)
Bush is not engaged in indoctrinating children into suicide bombings which, as you might recall, is the subject of the discussion. The theme is whether there are acts, judged in a vacuum free of politics, culture, mores, religion, etc., that are so inherently evil that they justify extreme measures. The hypothetical you posit is rife with politics and value judgments. It therefore in my view doesn't advance the discussion.
As I see the issue, the question is whether evil per se exists and what are our obligations when we see it.
We see this kind of evil all the time in individual criminals such Manson and his ilk. Our response is one that we as a society clearly endorse, i.e., at a minimum this kind of wrongdoer is jailed and often he is executed. Are we justified in doing the same thing to international actors who fall within the parameters of evildoers? If so, how do we determine who and what is evil?
I've suggested to you that fomenting the suicide of children clearly falls within this category. I don't presently know what else does, but I'm sure there are other things that do such as mass murder, use of WMDs, etc. |
