You're answering my relevant question with an irrelevant question of your own. The OP is focused on civilian victims of conflict and makes no mention of military casualties fighting against Nazis etc. And unless you think babies can be Nazis then, any way you look at it, you seem to be engaged in a distraction. Anyhow, fighter pilots don't drop moralities on their victims and assassins don't shoot immoralities. The means is not what's important. The ethical point centres around the killing of innocent civilians. — Baden

Could you just answer my question? If your kid has to die in a war, does it matter to you what the cause he was fighting for is?

No, because your question is irrelevant and is a substitute for answering my relevant question, which you ignored. That's not an appropriate way to conduct debate.

However, I will further explain that the thought experiment, if it's to be useful, relies on us presuming some equivalence so we can actually focus on the matter at hand. If we label one party "Nazis" then the thought experiment becomes useless. It's simply comes down to who we decide to label Nazis.

It's much more useful to designate party A and party B as fighting for their own interests, not one morally superior at the outset. Then we can focus solely on the morality of the methods used to kill civilians. That's the only sensible way to approach the OP.

Honestly, I think there are people out there who think being killed by a bomb dropped by a nice respectable airplane pilot is somehow more humane than being shot in the face or stabbed to death. These people either lack the imagination to conceive of a slow and agonising death under a pile of rubble with your legs blown off or are utterly devoid of morality themselves. Either way not good.

It's much more useful to designate party A and party B as just fighting for their own interests, not one morally superior at the outset. Then we can focus solely on the morality of the methods used to kill civilians. That's the only sensible way to approach the OP. — Baden

No, it's not, because that's not how the real world works. If two groups are fighting, it is often the case that one side's goals are morally repugnant and the other side's goals aren't: Russia vs Ukraine, North vs South, Axis vs Allies.

If two sides are fighting, and both are committing atrocities, we have to look at why they're fighting. If they're both fighting over some natural resource, there may be a moral equivalence. If one side is fighting to rid the world of "subhumans" so their "master race" can have lebensraum, then there is not a moral equivalence. If one side is fighting to establish a theocracy that is hostile to women, Christians, atheists, Jews, LGBTQ, then that is morally repugnant, is it not?

Honestly, I think there are people out there who think being killed by a bomb dropped by a nice respectable airplane pilot is somehow more humane than being shot in the face or stabbed to death. These people either lack the imagination to conceive of a slow and agonising death under a pile of rubble with your legs blown off or are utterly devoid of morality themselves. Either way not good. — Baden

How passive aggressive of you. Obviously, this is directed at me. You should have the courage to answer my questions and accuse me directly.

If it is my kid's fate to die in combat, I would prefer he die fighting for a good cause. — RogueAI

Every side believes its cause to be a good one.

Every side believes its cause to be a good one. — Vera Mont

Some sides are right and some are wrong. The North morally trumps the South in the American Civil War (the North was morally superior), agreed?

No, it's not, because that's not how the real world works — RogueAI

Brains in vats and evil demons aren't how the real world works either. I wonder why they should be invoked by philosophers... Obviously we can agree if one side are Nazis (or the equivalent) then all things being equal we are against them and we can agree that in many conflicts one side has the moral upper hand. But if we take that approach then the thought experiment is unnecessary because the answer is decided a priori, right? So, the only way to make the thought experiment relevant is to focus on the precise moral issue it raises. I'm not going to judge the intentions of the OP writer, but I think it's a worthwhile OP insofar as we take the point seriously.

Some sides are right and some are wrong. — RogueAI

In retrospect from a given angle. Never beforehand from inside either faction's ideology.

How we now evaluate past conflicts between people with whom we were not personally acquainted is irrelevant to the moral issue presented here. If the identity of Group A and B had been given in the OP, we might be able to apply historical perspective to their actions. But I suspect clean, correct Group B might not, in that light, so evidently have moral superiority. If their nationalities were avoided, so should the Germans, Japanese, Incas and Boers be avoided.

In retrospect from a given angle. Never beforehand from inside either faction's ideology. — Vera Mont

Really? Allied soldiers fighting the Nazi's weren't aware they were on the right side? They (and the world) only realized this after the war was over? Nonsense.

I don't know if you are one of those people. Are you? I expect it's pointless to ask because you don't seem to want to say anything here except "Nazis are bad". But we all know that...

Brains in vats and evil demons aren't how the real world works either. I wonder why they should be invoked by philosophers... Obviously we can agree if one side are Nazis (or the equivalent) then all things being equal we are against them and we can agree that in many conflicts one side has the moral upper hand. But if we take that approach then the thought experiment is unnecessary because the answer is decided a priori, right? So, the only way to make the thought experiment relevant is to focus on the precise moral issue it raises. I'm not going to judge the intentions of the OP writer, but I think it's a worthwhile OP insofar as we take the point seriously. — Baden

The OP asked if there is a moral equivalence between two groups. That's impossible to determine without knowing why they're fighting, hence my point: "WHY two sides are fighting is as important as HOW two sides are fighting".

The OP asked if there is a moral equivalence between two groups. That's impossible to determine without knowing why they're fighting — RogueAI

Again, you have to understand the nature of a thought experiment and that there are no two real groups, and that positing them as such and giving them a priori moral attributes makes the thought experiment useless.

Nazis were genocidal oppressors and Jews et al were the oppressed and mostly slaughtered by Nazis. I'm consistent, BC – no matter how bestial the oppressd (dispossed) become, IMO, the oppressor (dispossessor) is always worse. :mask: — 180 Proof

Yes, the Jews were oppressed and the Nazis were genocidal oppressors, as a group. On an individual/personal level things become more complicated. I remember reading Viktor Frankl's memoirs and he remarks how there were actually some "good" Nazis and also there were morally bankrupt Jews who ended up Holocaust victims. The more memoirs I read of holocaust survivors the more complex/obscuring the picture becomes from "good Jews, bad Nazis."

Don't get me wrong, "good innocent Jews, bad evil Nazis" is the general truth but on an individual level and on a true historical level the truth is much, much more disturbing. I don't know whether you've read Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem or the memoirs of any of the Jewish police.

The OP asked if their is a moral equivalence between two groups. That's impossible to determine without knowing why they're fighting, hence my point: "WHY two sides are fighting is as important as HOW two sides are fighting". — RogueAI

I did pose that as a factor in arriving at a judgment. The OP comparison was as flawed as the argument about red historical herrings.

Allied soldiers fighting the Nazi's weren't aware they were on the right side? They (and the world) only realized this after the war was over? — RogueAI

Soldiers in all the armies involved were mostly conscripts. Nobody informed them of the precedents and nuances of the situation, just loaded them with a ton of propaganda field gear. They were not asked their opinion, just shot if they tried to stop killing one another.
As for what "the world" realized, it's difficult to piece together a coherent idea.

Again, you have to understand the nature of a thought experiment and that there are no two real groups, and that positing them as such and giving them a priori moral attributes makes the thought experiment useless. — Baden

The thought experiment is unanswerable because the motivations of the warring groups are unknown. There's not enough information to make a moral judgement. Is the pilot fighting on behalf of Baal worshippers who want to install a theocracy and sacrifice every firstborn child? Then he's worse than the armed men of group B. Is the pilot an Allied fighter trying to stop the Nazi's? Then he's better than the armed men of group B.

See my point?

The thought experiment is unanswerable — RogueAI

I don't agree that it's unanswerable. Coming up with a definitive moral judgement based on the information provided is not the point imo. The point is to abstract out the information given from any partisan context and work with it on its own terms. I find that useful. If you get nothing from it though, that's fine.

- Yes, good points. Thank you.

Clearly what is occurring in this thread is that some are refusing to answer for one reason or another because they do not believe that the thought experiment conforms to the reality in the Middle East. What they should do in that case is say, "Group A is worse than Group B, but I deny that Group A correlates to Hamas and Group B correlates to Israel."

Edit: When I wrote this I did not understand that @RogueAI was pro-Israel. Still, his arguments don't hold water.

My basic point boils down to asking how hard it is to presume for the sake of argument that neither of the two sides are "Nazis" or etc but are a priori morally/immorally equivalent. Anyone who can't do that ought simply to move on to the next thread.

The one issue that I have with the thought experiment is that the parties to be judged should be group A vs. group B (not the pilot vs the armed men or whatever). But that's not a difficult adjustment to make.

My basic point boils down to asking how hard it is to presume for the sake of argument that neither of the two sides are "Nazis" or etc but are a priori morally/immorally equivalent. Anyone who can't do that ought simply to move on to the next thread. — Baden

Right, or they should move on to the next category. If they don't understand how to handle a hypothetical then ethics will elude them altogether. Besides, even judgments of non-hypothetical situations saddle us with the burden of limited information. Limited information is just part of the game, hypothetical or otherwise.

:up:

Do you suppose there are a lot of children hanging out at armament factories during the night? — Leontiskos

The OP says 'debris from the [factory] explosion kills 100 civilians'. Are you saying these civilians were 'hanging out at armament factories' rather than, say, going about their normal business, maybe living a few streets away? I don't follow.

Given that armament factories are not usually found in residential neighborhoods, I see no reason to assent to your claim that Group B's actions smash children against walls. Surely there is much less reason to believe that Group B's actions have this effect than to believe that Group A's actions have this effect. Positing some sort of equivalence on this score is not rationally justified.

Positing some sort of equivalence on this score is not rationally justified. — Leontiskos

Neither is killing people on an industrial scale. But we don't seem anywhere close to discontinuing the practice.

Given that armament factories are not usually found in residential neighborhoods, I see no reason to assent to your claim that Group B's actions smash children against walls. — Leontiskos

Nearly all aerial attacks do that. Even by the squeaky-clean 'good guys'.

The promise was a war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs. The documents show flawed intelligence, faulty targeting, years of civilian deaths — and scant accountability.
Shortly before 3 a.m. on July 19, 2016, American Special Operations forces bombed what they believed were three ISIS “staging areas” on the outskirts of Tokhar, a riverside hamlet in northern Syria. They reported 85 fighters killed. In fact, they hit houses far from the front line, where farmers, their families and other local people sought nighttime sanctuary from bombing and gunfire. More than 120 villagers were killed.

Munitions are designed to kill people. They don't care which people die, they just go where they're pointed... more or less. Where the population density is high, safe infrastructure is scarce and weapons - defensive or offensive - are made wherever they can be, more people get killed by happenstance than in wide, roomy, wealthy places.

I think in this hypothetical scenario, there actually is something a bit more bad/evil in face-to-face butchering/burning/maiming someone than doing it from bomber planes. It goes with the inverse too. Why is it that actually giving soup to the poor has some more "value" or "good" to it than simply sending money to a food bank that might end up doing the same? Just as with the good, there is a dignity and humanity you are dealing with in person, with the bad, there is a dignity and humanity you are disregarding in person, in barbaric and brutal ways of maiming, burning, cutting, etc. in person.

That is an answer with ONLY the contingencies defined in the OP. However, if you were to add other facts, I do believe @RogueAI's points should be taken into consideration. Is the person doing the butchering doing it out of "desperation" or out of planned operations in order to form fear in the enemy? After you do this butchering which will result in some response, do you care about your own people or would you rather knowingly use them as fodder by hiding under civilians?

How about if the bombers care and protect their citizens under any circumstance, whilst the butcherers disregard what happens with their citizens, and therefore don't value their lives as much as their cause?

Also, what if one side's intention is to cause mass terror and chaos, to provoke a war, and the other side is to try to get the enemy who did the butchering, maiming, burning, raping, but unfortunately, that enemy hides in hospitals and residential buildings?

These are all things to consider. You can take my first paragraph as the answer to the very limited parameters in the hypothetical scenario if you want.

I appreciate that you are trying to set up a thought experiment that removes the specifics of the current war. But (at least as I read this) it seems that you have given sort of a rationale for B's actions but not for A's.

If you want to make the two scenarios as equivalent as possible, here is one suggestion for scenario B:

Scenario 2: A pilot of group B is conducting a strike on armaments factories a building in a residential neighborhood of group A. The flight is done at night to minimize civilian casualties. Fliers are also dropped to minimize casualties. The bombs are dropped using a precision missile yet debris from the explosion kills 100 civilians. Babies are killed in their cribs and children are smashed against walls.

Alternatively you could modify Scenario A (something like this):

Scenario 1: Armed men of group A come into a residential neighborhood of group B where the residents have supported a regime that oppresses and murders citizens of B and go from house to house shooting and using blunt force weapons such as axes against civilians. They go from house to house and butcher 100 civilians before leaving. Babies are killed in their cribs and children are smashed against walls.

There are likely even better ways to adjust the 2 scenarios to make them as equivalent as possible.

There are likely even better ways to adjust the 2 scenarios to make them as equivalent as possible. — EricH

Only, I doubt equivalency was intended.

I'm quite familiar with the writings of Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel et al. The crimes of oppressed-populations (i.e. the dispossessed) are no more atrocities than the crimes of oppressor-regimes (i.e. the dispossessors). My read of history, as well as moral philosophy, amply shows that resistance by any means necessary (including "terrorism") is warranted in response to the inhuman regimes of tyrants, slaveholders, genocidists, dispossessors ... and that an Intifada is morally equivalent to e.g. the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising or Nat Turner's Rebellion.

I'm going to agree with everyone that context is too important to give an answer here. We'd have to consider things like: "what are the goals of the groups involve?" "What are their motivations?" And quite importantly "what are the probable results of their actions and do they actually further their goals?" The last is important because it is often the case that a group might be justified in using violence in some form, yet nonetheless use violence in such a way that their own cause is actually hurt.

Now, if your cause is important enough to shed blood for, then it's morally wrong to torpedo it out of blood lust. The desire for vengeance itself can't be the justification.