But plainly violence is sometimes preferred to subjugation. It is not possible to develop optimally, at least for most, in slavery.
And in my own case, I would likely be a tough, ruthless soldier.
I have said before that in my view ethical decisions are best undertaken within the constraints of being local, imperfect, and necessary. Inherently, this is a sort of relativism, but one which compares the relatively better with the relatively worse, with both measured next to the goal of universal peace and glowing happiness.
When the SEAL’s in Lone Survivor, let the goatherds go–and I think in the actual event there was only one, but I may be mistaken–they condemned perhaps 20-40 other men to death ON THE OTHER SIDE, as well as all those on their own side who died. All in all, let’s figure 80 lives were lost in Operation Red Wing(s?). And this does not factor in added Marines killed because the target of the operation was not killed, or everyone else who died getting him killed (which I assume was accomplished at some point). It also does not factor in deaths in the village where Luttrell was sheltered, if in fact they were attacked (I think in actuality they were threatened but not actually attacked.)
Sober analysis clearly indicates that much less death would have occurred if they had simply slit the throats of the goat herds, and buried them somewhere they were unlikely to be found. Or left them to die of exposure, as Murphy proposed.
War is hell, as Sherman said, and the task it to bring it to an end as quickly as possible, if one decides to wage it, which is not a decision that should ever be made lightly.
My suspicion is that Luttrell may have been protecting others by making himself the locus of the decision to release the prisoners. Certainly, that would make sense.
Morality is not always about feeling, but about using your mind to determine what is most right. It is not ONLY about mind–heart must play a role–but it involves both. It involves your entire self, at least in my view, and no moral decisions can be permanent in a changing world, but this does not mean all of them do not exist in a continuum of relatively better and relatively worse.