Ripped from reddit
this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
543 points (98.2% liked)
Political Memes
9954 readers
835 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't remember where exactly, but I've encountered an hybrid approach that balances utilitarianism with deontology. It goes something like this:
Take, for example, the case of a mass shooter. Utilitarianism says you are allowed to take them down if that's the only way to save their victims. Naive deontology says you are not allowed to kill whatsoever. The approach I've just presented says that we can go with utilitarianism in this case - but only because the shooter is one responsible for this mess so it's okay to harm them for the greater good.
Note that it does not say it's okay to kill them otherwise. If you manage to capture them, an other lives are no longer in risk, both deontology and utilitarianism will agree you are not allowed to kill them.
Let's go back to the classic Trolley Problem. Is the person tied to the second track responsible for the situation? No - they are a victim. They are not stripped from their deontological protection, and therefore you are not allowed to sacrifice them in order to save the other five.
Back to the case in hand. We need to ask the following questions:
If the answer to all three questions is "yes" - then what's the problem?
What about decreasing the harm of the employees by suing him or reporting him to the state labor board or even just kicking his ass or any combination thereof. The above seems overly simplistic.