The existence or non-existence of "god" - a word for which people have very different definitions and descriptions - was never the issue with atheism. People who rejected the prevailing christian version of a creator/presiding deity were called a-theist (godless) and persecuted. Like other collective pejorative nomenclature, we simply took it over and owned it.
I'm a full-blown unbeliever in any and all of the theist stories, and I will not wimp out with the "maybe there is a supernatural something somewhere" agnostic line.

What the hell are you talking about? where is anything like that mentioned? — Sir2u

just there:

If you had known about roles you would not have made the comments you did about mothers having side hustles as taxi drivers to earn some extra money and selling lawn mowers of dubious quality. — Sir2u

Who said anything about its quality?) — Vera Mont
You did, or do you not remember what you write!
" It's okay for a shopper to pocket the odd can of tuna because prices are too high, and for the seller of alawn mower to lie about its condition to get a better price?" — Sir2u

In response to a previous post, attempting to clarify this:

Personal and professional ethics are quite different. Each role a person plays within a group, the person adopts the ethics of that group. If your are a mother, teacher, shopper, taxi driver for the kids your role dictates the ethical rules you follow.
For example, as a shopper you expect prices not to rise too much and curse the supermarkets when they do, but as a seller you try to get the best possible price for the second hand lawn mower you are selling. — Sir2u

The women's behavior changes depending on the role she is playing. — Sir2u

Behaviour, yes. Ethics, no.

You are the one making broad claims about the laws — Sir2u

Fairly narrow ones, actually, in a different conversation, with links where appropriate.

I will no continue to answer your comments, good bye. — Sir2u

I'll get therapy and hope eventually to get over the loss.

I don't know about quantity, though I seriously doubt "more than anyone else", but if anyone were bored and silly enough to go back over all the relevant threads to check, they would discover that all of my posts were in response to someone else's statement. I never once initiated a discussion regarding events or persons involved in that conflict.

My point remains that the reason for these hostilities leading up to the Civil War was that the Lincoln election spelled an eventual end to slavery and the only way to stop it was to fully remove the South from northern control, which was to remove those votes from influencing southern policies. — Hanover

Lincoln, by his own declaration, was willing let the institution of slavery stand, so long as that tolerance kept the union together, but he was determined to stop it spreading to potential new states and allowing slave states to gain a majority. According to the constitution, the slave owners got extra legislative seats due to the three-fifths compromise.

[Lincoln] did not publicly call for emancipation throughout his entire life. Lincoln began his public career by claiming that he was "antislavery" -- against slavery's expansion, but not calling for immediate emancipation.

If you had known about roles you would not have made the comments you did about mothers having side hustles as taxi drivers to earn some extra money and selling lawn mowers of dubious quality. — Sir2u

Are you saying that a woman who has a child can't also have one or more jobs? (Many single and married mothers, in fact, do.) And she's not allowed to sell her lawn mower? (Who said anything about its quality?)

Your bitching at the super market is caused by the same thing as you wanting a bit more for the lawn mower, looking after yourself and your family. — Sir2u

And neither is an ethical response and neither is a decision to take specific action.

While the mother knows that waiting in line to drop of the kids at school is the correct thing to do she will probably hurry to grab a parking space in the supermarket parking lot. It is a perfectly acceptable thing to do in the supper market, just like changing check out line to get out quicker. — Sir2u

That doesn't become an ethical consideration, nor yet a change to some different set of ethics, as long as the parking space she's grabbing isn't the handicapped one, and changing checkout lanes doesn't involve shoving in ahead of a doddery senior.

I would certainly like to see those laws. — Sir2u

They're as available on line to you as they are to me.

I think I made it quite clear the morality of the person does not change from role to role, but the ethics attached to that role does. — Sir2u

I see no way in which a non-schizophrenic can manage that feat of multiple-think.

Continued harping on WWII, as if had been the only notable event in human history.

You were faster than me
In your example, if someone else had been convicted of, or is currently on trial for those other murders, you would report your new information to the judge, who would then decide whether to reveal it to the police or counsel for the other accused. Innocence at risk clause.
Once they're convicted of a capital offense, prisoners are often bribed to reveal previous crimes, but if you get the guy off this one, he also gets away with the others. So you're in a sticky ethical dilemma. Doctors often are, too.
But it's strictly the job related rules that regulate these things, not one's personal ethics. Basically, when you sign up for the law, or civil service or banking, you promise to leave your own values at home. Some people can go through with that, some can't.

But you do agree that depending on the role the outcome of an ethical decision may be different? — Benkei

If the deciding agent uses a different set of rules, of course. That's why we can't tolerate heads of state with principles: we need them to be morally flexible for every occasion. It's okay for them to be sworn in on a stack of bibles, as long as they don't take the Christian ethic too seriously.

If I would represent a client for murder A and as a result he also confesses murders B and C from 5 years ago to me then as a lawyer I'm prohibited from disclosing B and C. — Benkei

I don't know what the laws are in your country, but in Canada, there are exceptions, where the lawyer is required to divulge information or is permitted to divulge it at his own discretion.

Public safety can trump privilege where a lawyer reasonably believes that a clear, serious and imminent threat to public safety exists.

; in cases of child abuse, intention of harm and or a court order for any of several reasons, client privilege is void.

If the winners were smart they would use the money to create a business that spread the profits to more people, thus lowering the inequality. — Sir2u

I don't really think that giving one person every month getting the $68 million dollar is going to make much of a difference in the overall distribution of wealth. That would be 12 people a year in a population of about 40 million people. — Sir2u

It would, if every jackpot sere that big and every jackpot had a winner. That would be $816,000,000 put back into circulation, rather than being spirited to off-shore bank accounts or tied up in overpriced pictures and jewellery and boats.

And from what I have seen, a lot of them blow it all away in a couple of years. — Sir2u

That's okay, as long as they're blowing it on goods and services that provide jobs to people.

If the winners were smart they would use the money to create a business that spread the profits to more people, thus lowering the inequality. — Sir2u

Yet another small business soon drowned by big business would do no more for inequality than taxing big business and investing in public infrastructure.

But if we really want to look at inequality we should be looking at the companies that run the lottos. — Sir2u

They're actually governments.

The Interprovincial Lottery Corporation, constituted in 1976, currently has as its shareholders the governments of the 10 provinces of Canada. It conducts 3 national lottery schemes: Loto 6/49, Super-Loto and the Provincial. These national lotteries are managed by the 5 provincial organizations within their respective territories.

Incidentally, they also run a bunch of casinos and racetracks. The revenue, after reimbursing retailers and services, goes to local communities, charities, health and sports organizations.

The owners of these thing are richer every day which increases the inequality because most of the money comes from people that cannot afford to be spending the money buying tickets. — Sir2u

Yup. The irresistible lure of the golden ticket. 'Twas ever so. At least they get some of it back in the form of social services and help.

I am from Russia. — Linkey

That gives you a unique perspective on civil war and how it is taught in school a few generations after the fact. I know more about the US one, and how it's been represented in popular media - romanticized, for the most part, endlessly memorialized, fetishized and re-enacted, while it was by all practical accounts by far the most costly of all America's many conflicts in terms of human lives and suffering. I have an idea the Russian one was similar in destructiveness and long-term after-effects.
The American one was completely predictable. The French one was completely predictable. Was the Russian one similar?

And theoretically, it is possible to find a solution to this problem: if each voter, when voting, indicates on a ten-point scale how important this decision is to him personally, — Linkey

Some similar schemes have been proposed for democratic voting procedures, effectively turning every election into a plebiscite on some key issue. The efficacy of such a system depends on voters being fully and accurately informed on the issues, and if that's in the purview of broadcast media, we in North America are toast.

The concept of roles in sociology and psychology is very well know and documented on the internet. — Sir2u

I know about roles. Most people have more than one role to play in society. What I disagree with is the notion that each role has a different ethical principle or standard. Each role may have different concerns and obligations, different hazards and privileges, but no person has more than one conscience.

Everything that's produced is pooled and shared. I'm wondering about whether this is something that dwells in the human potential or not. — frank

Yes, I believe it is, and that something of the kind has been practiced by groups in various settings since the beginning of people. It works in groups small enough to be personally connected, each to each, and doesn't seem to work in large, anonymous ones.
After the apocalypse, it will probably be the only way anyone can survive. Since it's unlikely that the survivors will overpopulate their territory very quickly, those communal habits will probably become ingrained even as the groups grow more numerous. But, I think they'll need to do what the bees and ants do: when the community grows beyond a manageable size, a portion must break off and settle elsewhere. Settlements can still trade with one another, get together for fairs and celebrations and exchange young people in marriage to keep the gene pool fresh.

I'll set aside one class of property for private ownership: clothes, tools, utensils, personal transport and shelter. People thrive better if they have some privacy and favourite things that are unique to themselves. It's possible to pool the care and training of the young, but parents like to hold on to their kids in the domestic sphere. And there will almost certainly be mate-pairing and sexual possessiveness: provision has to be made for handling those social issues.

We could do a lot worse than to educate our own children in the mores and structures of Native American cultures. Their traditional skills wouldn't go amiss, either.

If it's cultural, what kind of culture reinforces the idea. In what kind of culture does ownership become a ghost? — frank

The kind in which every individual is valued and respected.

Each of them have their rules of engagement and they are opposite to each other. — Sir2u

Rules of 'engagement', yes. Two different people in two different roles. So far, no ethical conflict.

So, is it you contention that if a lawyer discovers that his client has raped and murdered several children before the one he's on trial for and that if he's acquitted, he will do it again and again, that lawyer is ethically bound to keep that information from the police and opposing counsel? Should he not consider who will be harmed by his withholding that information?
If the journalist is bound by a higher obligation - not putting people in danger by publishing the jury list - why is the attorney exempt from that higher obligation?

Now, it's unlikely that a journalist practices law as a hobby or vice versa, so the same person probably won't wear those different hats. Maybe each can reconcile his occupational responsibilities with his own civic and personal ones, if not the other person's.
But the mother you mentioned earlier must certainly shop and may earn her living as a teacher and a little extra driving a taxi, and she might even wish to sell her lawn mower sometime.
What ethical conflict would arise among those roles, and how is she to work out such a conflict?

I suggest a hierarchy of principles, wherein secondary loyalties yield to primary ones and superficial considerations are trumped by fundamental ones. I also believe most people are aware of this and are guided by it in their important decisions.
And I see no reason why those principles must be suspended while people are slaughtering one another on battlefields.

It is not my job to educate you and lay everything out so that you can just sit back and relax. — Sir2u

No, of course not. But it would be basic courtesy to back up a broad claim with at least a real-life situation in which it might apply.

I you want to participate in the threads it is your obligation to either ask for clarification of someone's ideas — Sir2u

That is what I was doing when I asked for examples of how someone's ethical decisions would be guided by different principles or standards in that person's various roles.
I respectfully suggest that skepticism regarding a claim may have sources other than ignorance.

Is it legitimate to wage armed conflict though? — schopenhauer1

If people decide it is the legal way to settle their territorial claims or religious differences or political disagreements, of course it's legitimate. This was not even an issue until the 20th century: imperial aggression, crusades and national expansion, as well as local disputes, were simply accepted as perfectly normal.

Is it not silly that conflict has any legitimacy? — schopenhauer1

Sure. What human endeavour on a mass scale is not absurd?
But in reality, the very existence of standing armies is a testament that people do consider the waging of wars perfectly normal.

Should for example, it have been legitimate to make the Nazis totally surrender Germany after they attacked Poland and France, or should the Allied militaries simply have contained the Nazis once their troops had reached the German borders in 1945? — schopenhauer1

That's not a question about the legitimacy of war in general. It is a question about allied strategy after a particular conflict was already underway. Should Poland and France ever have been in jeopardy? Of course not. Should Germany ever have been in the state of national upheaval that spews out a Nazi leadership? Of course not. Could the entire giant debacle have been prevented? Of course.
People create the conditions in which they then make war on one another. Then they say "War broke out" as if it were some natural phenomenon, like wildfire.

Now there is a brilliant idea!
Instead of seducing the poor into wasting their meager resources on a pipe-dream, scare the living crap out of the rich. Maybe let them buy their way off the eligible list with charitable donations.

What is "war"? — schopenhauer1

War is armed conflict between two or more groups with opposing objectives.

Do you think war is can be legitimate? — schopenhauer1

Legitimate is a legal term. Any act that conforms with the pertinent law is legitimate. Laws are drafted and legislated by human agencies constituted for the purpose. If a war falls within the currently accepted international definition, it's legitimate.

Tacitly saying that war is legitimate, means something..but what? — schopenhauer1

Whether you say it aloud or just think it, considering a war legitimate means you agree with its objectives. That may imply - or someone may infer from it - that you accept whatever methods are used to attain those objectives. This could the 'ends justify mean' territory - can't be too sure about implications.

Also, as ssu is at pains to point out, the nature of war changes over time, and looks quite different from ancient times, to the 1200s and Ghengis Kahn, to the 1700s and in the colonial territories, to the 1800s and various imperial wars, or civil wars, to the 1900s with total wars... — schopenhauer1

Yes. And people keep making new rules in futile attempts to cover the changed situations. And people keep breaking those rules.
If they win, they're considered - at least by themselves - justified. If they lose, they're punished.

I will give you a clue, look up how the word "role" is used in either of the subjects I mentioned. — Sir2u

Yes, I got that: Different roles, different ethics.

Each role a person plays within a group, the person adopts the ethics of that group. — Sir2u

So, what are the different kind of ethics that would guide your decision according to the hat you were wearing? How exactly does the ethical system of teachers differ from the ethical system of taxi drivers? If it is not in the matter of honesty, fair dealing, observance of public safety or respect for property, what is the salient matter of each role-specific ethic?

This is even more pathetic than the previous one. Please show me anywhere it mentions stealing or lying. — Sir2u

They were examples for the application of different ethics to different roles, as you failed to mention any. No, grumbling is not an ethical choice, nor is desire for profit.

An age old question: Are humans naturally polyamorous or naturally monogamous? — Benj96

Yes.

Or have we totally shed the shackles of basic instinctual tendencies through our civilisation and risen to a level of diversity, complexity and individual preference that the question is now redundant? — Benj96

Those basic instinctual tendencies vary as much in nature as they do in humans. Some birds and mammals mate for life; some for the duration of their offspring's dependency, (and some of those still cheat or attempt to cheat) while other couple briefly without forming emotional or obligational bonds. Pack animals tend to be monogamous, or else form family units of a female and her young within a small related community; herd animals generally pool their weaned young in a large community. In these instances, the intimacy of pair-bonding are not factors: sex is an annual necessity; companionship is found with friends.

Human young also need the stability and security of a home with two (or more) adult caregivers, as one is rarely capable of providing all the material, emotional, intellectual and moral support structure that a complex creature needs to grow up healthy.
And humans generally - though not universally - have a need for that same stability and support to live a healthy life. Beyond that, they crave affection, intimacy, a sense of being indispensable to another person. And growing old alone truly sucks.
At the same time, having sexual attractions to other individuals than one's mate is quite normal, as is the biological urge to diversify one's genetic portfolio.
Which of those primal drives dominates depends on the individual. Many try to have it both ways; most of them fail.

Personal and professional ethics are quite different. Each role a person plays within a group, the person adopts the ethics of that group. If your are a mother, teacher, shopper, taxi driver for the kids your role dictates the ethical rules you follow. — Sir2u

You mean, it's okay for mothers and teachers to speed in a school zone, as long as taxi driver and shoppers don't?

For example, as a shopper you expect prices not to rise too much and curse the supermarkets when they do, but as a seller you try to get the best possible price for the second hand lawn mower you are selling.

It's okay for a shopper to pocket the odd can of tuna because prices are too high, and for the seller of a lawn mower to lie about its condition to get a better price?

And this brings us to where a lot of people get confused, your moral compass is the same in each of the roles you play. — Sir2u

Then what is it you're confused about?

This is a bit of a straw man, as it isn't just size and scope that is different here, but the very content is different. "War" is something between states. — schopenhauer1

'States' are ruled by persons. The decisions in war, as in manufacturing, as in agriculture, as in trade, re made by individuals either separately or in groups that communicate and agree on a conclusion.

You can use the word analogously, "I am going to war with you!" but the fact that there is a legitimacy in using violent, large-scale means that bring with it other phenomena like collateral damage, drafts, and the like means that it is something different in kind than anything that an individual can do. — schopenhauer1

It is not a bunch of phenomena. It is a series of actions taken by human beings, following a series of decisions made by other human beings. An individual, or co-ordinated group of individuals has to do what an individual orders them to do after an individual has decided on a strategy. At every point in that process, a human being has to consult his own conscience: "Is this the right course of action?"

Thus, if we agree that "war" is something that is legitimate to wage in certain circumstances, we must understand all that entails... which means possible civilian deaths due to war, which presumably, would be part of this phenomenon, legitimate or not. — schopenhauer1

Yes, all that, plus the fact that from one hour to the next both leaders and followers will individually have to decide what to do next -- and what not to do.

I don’t know, can you declare war as an individual? — schopenhauer1

Heads of state often do. Or wage one without a declaration. Sometimes in secret.

What makes a government declare war and not you if it’s all the same kind of decisions? — schopenhauer1

Nothing makes a government declare a war or launch a war; a powerful individual or a small group of like-minded individuals entrusted with the governance of a nation, usually confer with the top generals and make the decision in camera. I very much doubt ethical considerations at the top of their agenda when deliberating. In some instances, that decision is then brought before a parliament or congress or senate for ratification. By then, the wheels are already in motion.

And it isn't just that the individual making decisions are doing it on behalf of himself, but is in some sense, on behalf of the state, in the capacity as an official in power, governing the state.. — schopenhauer1

Yes. On behalf of some elements of the state, on behalf of 'the state' in their opinion, at the expense of the people - even if they need to introduce conscription because the war isn't popular enough to attract enough volunteers, even if they have to use deception and coercion on the people.

The same ethic applies to those men in the Cabinet as applies to them in their homes. War - like every other executive decision - is not the same kind of decision as any other: it's bigger than most and involves other people, willingly or reluctantly, with informed consent or unwittingly. But it's not the size and scope of the decision that determines ethics, and there is not a closet full of ethical varieties to choose among for different occasions.They don't get to shed their citizen ethic like a robe and put on their governance ethic along with the striped suit.

In a government, on a battlefield, or a corporation, or a courtroom or a church, actual persons make actual decisions. If these persons are bound by one set of ethics when they shop, another when they enlist for the army, a third when they apply for a job, a fourth when they go to Friday, Saturday or Sunday service, a fifth when they run for public office, a sixth when they take the bar exam, a seventh when reach the status of CEO, general or senator or judge -- how can they ever make an ethical decision?

God - whichever culture's god - is an idea. It's the idea of a human entity, only with a lot more knowledge and power over the natural world that humans cannot predict or control, that humans have reason to fear.
Where primitive cultures had incantations and spells, dances and chanting to ask supernatural beings for magic solutions to their problems, modern religions have prayers and processions and church services and hymns to ask one of their gods for miracles.
It's all just looking for a parental figure to fix things in our favour.
Another thing both kinds of religious ritual have in common is fire - bonfires, torches, sconces, candles. I think we still haven't quite gotten over the magic/miracle of tame fire.

Ever heard the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover"? — Sir2u

Yes. Have you ever wondered why publishers go to so much trouble to design a cover that conveys what the book is about and put more information on the back and flaps?

So how is the 30,000 year span that you have called historical if most of it is in prehistory?
Or is there another term that you would you like to use for the 25,500 years before the invention of writing. — Sir2u

Prehistory is an acceptable designation for the historical period during which sufficient data is available to piece together what people were doing. I was remiss in not including that.

So you justification for saying that a book is bad is the few words on the cover. — Sir2u

What's it to do with books? You've presented a point of view and advocated for it quite vigorously. I see no reason to move the conversion into unrelated contexts.

I try not to get too set in my way of think, it tends to make one biased. Fanatical even. — Sir2u

By all means, avoid fanaticism!

Your lose, if you cannot argue both sides of a debate you will end up losing it. — Sir2u

Depends on the judges.

So you do not believe that dinosaurs existed or the homo sapiens were around over 300,000 years ago? — Sir2u

I thought the subject was history, not paleontology. My mistake.

Ah, now you have hurt my feelings. :cry: — Sir2u

I'm desolate. I had no idea!

You have no idea how wide my point of view is, I at least could argue without bias from either point of view. — Sir2u

I can only judge by what I've seen demonstrated.

You seem to only have one. — Sir2u

My convictions based on what I have learned are consistent, yes.

Just because I decided to argue from this side today does not mean I could not oppose it tomorrow, because I really don't give a shit about any of it. — Sir2u

In this, we also differ.

And just how long is your historical perspective, if that is not an impertinent question? — Sir2u

Something on the order of 30,000 years. Beyond that, the solid evidence is so fragmented that most of it is conjecture.

One never knows today what is counted as racist, feminist, homophobic and so on. — Sir2u

Doesn't one? I suppose it helps not to give a shit.

I don't think your POV will ever get any wider or your historical perspective any longer.

Really? You can't take Searle's Chinese Room seriously? Mary's Room? The Experience Machine? The Transporter Problem? The Utility Monster? You just mentally shut down when you hear stuff like that? — RogueAI

No, I don't 'shut down'. I question the basis of the example, its relevance to real life, its constraints and its aims. Having thought about it, I then decide whether to take it seriously, dismiss it as silly, reject it on the grounds of invalidity or trickery, or respond to it.

All I asked for is what you think the reasons are for terrorist actions that have happened recently. — Sir2u

I have many thoughts on the topic, and some historical data which I'm not prepared to share since they're available to anyone interested enough to bother. The most straightforward causes of what is called terrorism (When states, including powerful empires with gigantic armies and unlimited ordnance, indulge in terror against weaker opponents, it's called something else - maybe even counter-terrorism) is a people's sense of oppression, repression, and impending existential threat.
When imperialist forces invade a country, or support a rival's aggression against a country, a whole lot of people killed, maimed, bereaved, displaced and very upset. When the incursion is done by a vastly more power enemy who then attempts to govern that conquered nation with little or no regard for its culture and customs, upset turns to resentment. Over time, resentment festers in localized postules of hate and rage that periodically erupt in violence.
Destabilize a region, it tends to be unstable for quite a long time.

I mean that, as far as I can see, civil wars and “Smutas” are an attribute of an authoritarian society, not a democratic one. — Linkey

A democracy (whether sound or flawed) can be split on a key issue, like which religion should be dominant or which claimant has a right to rule, or whether a large segment of the population should be owned like beasts of burden. This particular split was inevitable. It written into the constitution. As industry and trade developed, the southern states, being almost entirely agricultural and focused on export, considered themselves unfairly taxed on imported manufactured good. And the agricultural economy had the single advantage of inexpensive captive labour. That was something the southern states would not give up, and were determined to spread through new territories beyond Missouri as the nation expanded westward. Th federal government would not allow that - could not allow it, lest the slave states outnumber and overwhelm the the free states.

My question is: when the southern states seceded from the northern states and mobilized, was that the decision of the people of those states? — Linkey

I don't know how representative the vote was, but the leaders certainly had general support. Most of the people wanted to retain their accustomed lifestyle; the whites obviously wanted to retain their racial ascendancy and privilege - many still do. The peasants certainly didn't want a whole lot of liberated slaves competing for their pay or having the vote or being allowed to own property. There wasn't much popular support for secession at first (at least in South Carolina where the movement started) as long as the question was one of states rights; the change came when Lincoln was elected president and the institution of slavery was seen to be imperilled.

I heard that the American Civil War was in some sense the second American Revolution, please clarify this. — Linkey

I suppose that could be inferred from the taxation-representation POV. But even that's bogus, when you consider that white men in the South were already over-represented.

But I don't think history shows religious people any worse than irreligious or atheistic people. — Ludwig V

Or vice versa. People who claim a religion don't just kill the irreligious and the heretics, they also kill those who profess a different version of their own religion, and those who profess their same religion but fight for a different king, people of their own nation and faith accused of crimes, their rivals, neighbours, fathers, spouses and other drunks at the same tavern.
Belief in a god stops no humans to from acting like humans; having no faith in a god causes no humans to act any worse.

Does that stop you from thinking about the morality of the situation? — RogueAI

Stops me from taking it seriously, yes.

It's like reading a good fiction book. — RogueAI

Let's just do that then. I'm up for discussing novels.
But if you really want people to think about the moral choices they make, disbelief shouldn't have to be hoisted up into the bell-tower.

I think my point is obvious. The implausibility of a moral thought experiment is beside the point. I mean, what are you doing standing next to a switch near a runaway trolley car with five people tied to the track? — RogueAI

Yes, that one is pretty silly, too. Your point is not entirely obvious to me. Do you mean that however preposterous a hypothetical situation, we should treat it seriously? Or that we should pretend to know nothing about how things work, for the sake of a question the answer to which has no effect on anything?

If you like, imagine the Brits have developed some super duper nerve gas that kills if it touches any exposed skin and the only effective defense is a hazmat suit. All civilians near the landing site have been given an antidote. — RogueAI

Why bother?
I think the concept of ethics and ethical behaviour exist in a realm of real events and people. I see no point in making up these far-fetched scenarios, when there are plenty of examples to contemplate in the world we actually inhabit, where we actually have to make ethical decisions and judge other people who make them.

You think that's implausible??? — RogueAI

I thought the example was about WWII. Quite a lot is known about WWII.
Other implausible thought experiments, and I'm sure there are many, notwithstanding.

Boston Legal, for the fourth time, I think. Still relevant. Bonus: the DVD's come in those old-fashioned bifold cases that let the disc go and accept it back in again, without falling apart in your hand.

I would suppose that methods of doing this had already been tried, obviously without success. — Sir2u

Suppose on what evidence?

Maybe you could enlighten us on what you think might be the causes of some of the terroristsy things that have happened recently and give us some advice about prevent them from happening in the future. — Sir2u

I could. But it would take too long and you would never be convinced anyway, so it seems like a futile effort. You, as well as the world leaders in control, can read the effects of past foreign policy decisions for yourself.

As it says in the article, the Palestinians are the ones that have the responsibility to stop the terrorist that are supposedly acting on their behalf. — Sir2u

And for that, they should die? I respectfully disagree.

Many of the countries that host terrorist groups have corrupt governments that are unwilling to stop them because of the financial gains involved. — Sir2u

Kill 'em all!
But for the sake of all that's unholy, do not, ever address the situations that give rise to terrorism.

Well, if all the Palestinians have to die in order to stop one terrorist organization out of the sixty or so designated by the CIA, why should we question that moral choice? There are more terrorist enclaves in Turkey, Russia, India, Malaysia, South America, Africa.... I wonder who'll be left to benefit from all that lasting peace.
However, he collateral damage I referred to was British civilians and livestock and fish - "the people" who were being defended and their food sources. One assumption that the Germans, if they had the chance, would kill everybody anyway - something that didn't happen in the countries they occupied. That's a more difficult moral choice than sacrificing potential foreign enemies. But Churchill proved himself capable of making that choice, so there is no doubt of his resolve.

The moment-by-moment tactics are one ethical consideration. The long-term strategy is another. A third, which is a moot point in the heat of a military campaign, but nevertheless relevant for future consideration, is how the state of affairs came about that produced this particular crisis. We could ask that regarding Israel's unending hostilities, and the Middle East in general. We could even ask why there are so many terrorists and what conditions, besides killing lots and lots of people, could be altered to produce fewer instead of more.