That’s a different argument (which might be bad on it’s own terms).
According to me (and perhaps I need to write down the ethical theory, in full, here), “this action is net-harmful, but it’s only a small effect on the margin, so its ok”, doesn’t hold water. It only means you’re doing a small bad thing. (Though in practice people confuse “small in absolute terms” with “small compared to the scope of the situation”.)
If one’s argument is instead “this produces a small amount of harm on the margin, but it empowers me, and the moral benefit empowerment effect outweighs the small marginal harm” then to the extent that you’re making a moral error, it’s not the error of marginalism.
It could be the case that the benefit of your empowerment outweighs the harms that are incurred. You have to either argue that 1) that’s not actually true, and you’re deluding yourself about how good it is for you, personally, to have more power or 2) there is and ought to be a deontological principle against the specific harmful-action that they’re taking.
That’s a different argument (which might be bad on it’s own terms).
According to me (and perhaps I need to write down the ethical theory, in full, here), “this action is net-harmful, but it’s only a small effect on the margin, so its ok”, doesn’t hold water. It only means you’re doing a small bad thing. (Though in practice people confuse “small in absolute terms” with “small compared to the scope of the situation”.)
If one’s argument is instead “this produces a small amount of harm on the margin, but it empowers me, and the moral benefit empowerment effect outweighs the small marginal harm” then to the extent that you’re making a moral error, it’s not the error of marginalism.
It could be the case that the benefit of your empowerment outweighs the harms that are incurred. You have to either argue that 1) that’s not actually true, and you’re deluding yourself about how good it is for you, personally, to have more power or 2) there is and ought to be a deontological principle against the specific harmful-action that they’re taking.