Stating that Hitler thought he was helping Europe by slaughtering millions of Jews and other minorities doesn’t imply any degree of approval for anything he did or acceptance that if he’d been right, the end state he was aiming for was worth the atrocities committed trying to get there. Evil in the real world isn’t like a cartoon where the bad guy just enjoys being bad for its own sake. Pretending otherwise just makes it harder to recognise when people are doing evil things again just by being simultaneously incorrect and in charge.
It seems like you’re under the impression that thinking you’re doing something good is virtuous, but I fundamentally disagree. I don’t think morality should be solely judged by outcomes, either, but rather whether you take reasonable measures to ensure that even if you’re wrong, you don’t make things worse. Everyone hears the phrase the road to hell is paved with good intentions as children, so should know that having good intentions has little to no bearing on whether they’re a good person unless they’re also making sure they’re not doing evil by recklessness or negligence.
Godwin’s law isn’t claiming that it’s fallacious to compare things to Hitler or that the person who first mentions Hitler is wrong, it’s just observing that comparisons to Hitler eventually happen if an argument goes on long enough. It’s kind of obvious, too. Reductio ad absurdum is a valid form of argument, and as long as whoever you’re discussing something is isn’t ludicrously off the deep end, they’ll agree that Hitler is obviously bad, so if someone says something, and that thing when taken to its logical conclusion would imply (in the logically guarantees sense rather than subtly suggests sense) that Hitler wasn’t bad, it’s quick and easy to point that out as a demonstration that the thing must be wrong.
In this specific case, though, it’s even simpler. Hitler and Thatcher are both obviously bad, and they were putting words in my mouth about Thatcher when objecting to a comment where I’d explicitly called her evil to suggest that I was claiming she wasn’t evil.
Are you by any chance familiar with degrees of murder, involuntary manslaughter and insanity?
If I think I’m defending myself, despite no reason to do so, I can’t claim self defense. You can’t argue, that your neighbor certainly didn’t threaten you in any way, but he sometimes looked really weird, so it’s self defense to kill him.
I’m not even sure, what exactly you’re trying to argue here?
It seems like you’re under the impression that thinking you’re doing something good is virtuous, but I fundamentally disagree
It seems like you made impressions on yourself, because that’s completely besides anything I wrote.
Doing something bad and knowing that it’s bad, is bad. That should be very very obvious.
You’re building yourself an entire terracotta army worth of strawmen here.
Stating that Hitler thought he was helping Europe by slaughtering millions of Jews and other minorities doesn’t imply any degree of approval for anything he did or acceptance that if he’d been right, the end state he was aiming for was worth the atrocities committed trying to get there. Evil in the real world isn’t like a cartoon where the bad guy just enjoys being bad for its own sake. Pretending otherwise just makes it harder to recognise when people are doing evil things again just by being simultaneously incorrect and in charge.
It seems like you’re under the impression that thinking you’re doing something good is virtuous, but I fundamentally disagree. I don’t think morality should be solely judged by outcomes, either, but rather whether you take reasonable measures to ensure that even if you’re wrong, you don’t make things worse. Everyone hears the phrase the road to hell is paved with good intentions as children, so should know that having good intentions has little to no bearing on whether they’re a good person unless they’re also making sure they’re not doing evil by recklessness or negligence.
When you start using Hitler and Jews… You lost it…
Other commenter expounded to your the error of your choice. It is up to your to figure if you care where he or she is coming from.
That analysis is solid IMHO tho
Godwin’s law isn’t claiming that it’s fallacious to compare things to Hitler or that the person who first mentions Hitler is wrong, it’s just observing that comparisons to Hitler eventually happen if an argument goes on long enough. It’s kind of obvious, too. Reductio ad absurdum is a valid form of argument, and as long as whoever you’re discussing something is isn’t ludicrously off the deep end, they’ll agree that Hitler is obviously bad, so if someone says something, and that thing when taken to its logical conclusion would imply (in the logically guarantees sense rather than subtly suggests sense) that Hitler wasn’t bad, it’s quick and easy to point that out as a demonstration that the thing must be wrong.
In this specific case, though, it’s even simpler. Hitler and Thatcher are both obviously bad, and they were putting words in my mouth about Thatcher when objecting to a comment where I’d explicitly called her evil to suggest that I was claiming she wasn’t evil.
Are you by any chance familiar with degrees of murder, involuntary manslaughter and insanity?
If I think I’m defending myself, despite no reason to do so, I can’t claim self defense. You can’t argue, that your neighbor certainly didn’t threaten you in any way, but he sometimes looked really weird, so it’s self defense to kill him.
I’m not even sure, what exactly you’re trying to argue here?
It seems like you made impressions on yourself, because that’s completely besides anything I wrote.
Doing something bad and knowing that it’s bad, is bad. That should be very very obvious.
You’re building yourself an entire terracotta army worth of strawmen here.