Sure, I never meant to imply that the issue is clear-cut. Many of the people revealed to be informers argued that they only reported the most innocent things about the people they were tasked to spy on. Tens of thousands of books are written about such moral dilemmas. When people decide that Schindler is a hero, they seem to use a litmus test that is similar but definitely not identical to replaceability. They ask: Did he do more than what can reasonably be expected from him under his circumstances? I don’t think focusing on the replaceability part of this very complex question helps clear things up.
Okay, that’s pretty fair. I can only really claim that a replaceability argument could be used to argue that Schindler was a hero; there may be other ways of thinking about it, and those may be the ways people actually do think!
That said, I’ve found that example does sometimes make people reconsider their opinion of replaceability arguments, so it certainly appeals to something in the folk morality.
Sure, I never meant to imply that the issue is clear-cut. Many of the people revealed to be informers argued that they only reported the most innocent things about the people they were tasked to spy on. Tens of thousands of books are written about such moral dilemmas. When people decide that Schindler is a hero, they seem to use a litmus test that is similar but definitely not identical to replaceability. They ask: Did he do more than what can reasonably be expected from him under his circumstances? I don’t think focusing on the replaceability part of this very complex question helps clear things up.
Okay, that’s pretty fair. I can only really claim that a replaceability argument could be used to argue that Schindler was a hero; there may be other ways of thinking about it, and those may be the ways people actually do think!
That said, I’ve found that example does sometimes make people reconsider their opinion of replaceability arguments, so it certainly appeals to something in the folk morality.