This is an old dilemma (as I suppose you suspect).
Part of the difficulty is the implicit assumption that all possible world-states are achievable. (I’m probably expressing this poorly; please be charitable with me.)
In other words, suppose we decide that state A, resulting from “make the lives of some people worse, in order to make the lives of some less-well-off people better” is better (by some measure) than state B, where we don’t.
If the only way to achieve state A is “by force or conquest” (and B doesn’t require that), the harm that results from those means must be taken into account in the evaluation of state A. And so, even if the end-state (A) is “better” than the alternative end-state (B), the harm along the path to A makes the integrated goodness of A in fact worse than B.
In yet other words, liberty + human rights may not lead to an optimal world. But the harm of using force and conquest to create a more-optimal outcome may make things worse, overall.
This is an old argument, and none of it is original with me.
This is an old dilemma (as I suppose you suspect).
Part of the difficulty is the implicit assumption that all possible world-states are achievable. (I’m probably expressing this poorly; please be charitable with me.)
In other words, suppose we decide that state A, resulting from “make the lives of some people worse, in order to make the lives of some less-well-off people better” is better (by some measure) than state B, where we don’t.
If the only way to achieve state A is “by force or conquest” (and B doesn’t require that), the harm that results from those means must be taken into account in the evaluation of state A. And so, even if the end-state (A) is “better” than the alternative end-state (B), the harm along the path to A makes the integrated goodness of A in fact worse than B.
In yet other words, liberty + human rights may not lead to an optimal world. But the harm of using force and conquest to create a more-optimal outcome may make things worse, overall.
This is an old argument, and none of it is original with me.