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SvetlanaButosky t1_j4505pr wrote

So Hitler was an ok guy?

If I follow this line of thought.

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[deleted] t1_j46tz7p wrote

Two things can be true at once. You can think, as I do, that what Hitler did was abhorrent and cruel, you can hate him, all without saying that his actions were morally wrong. Preference and opinion are utterly divorced from whether or not something is wrong or right. Just because I don’t believe in objective morality does not mean I am automatically best friends with Hitler, or Mao, or Stalin, or any other homicidal dictator; as far as I’m concerned, they were all abhorrent and cruel.

What is even the point of saying it was wrong? Do you think that would have stopped him from doing what he was doing, if only someone had told him it was wrong? I highly doubt it.

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SvetlanaButosky t1_j472cht wrote

The point is so kids dont grow up confused and following in his footstep.

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[deleted] t1_j47edsf wrote

Children aren't taught how to behave by moralizing. We teach children how to behave by imposing negative consequences on them for engaging in behavior which we disapprove of. This prepares them for adult society, where the only rules are those which the people with badges and guns enforce. Choices and consequences, "if you chose to do this, these will be the consequences, and it's up to you to decide if it's worth it."

The same sort of approach can be taken with a figure like Hitler, or Mussolini, or any such individual. Forget about right and wrong, is that the sort of life you would want to have? Dictators don't have happy existences; it's a lot of paranoia, constant stress that your cronies, who you have no choice but to rely on, might be planning to kill you and usurp your position, and also constant fear that an opposition faction might be able to gather enough support in the military or the population to overthrow you and kill you in some horrible way. There are plenty of simple, hedonistic reasons why you don't want to try to be like those guys. It sucks!

Ultimately, I don't think there are a lot of people who want to do that sort of thing anyways, but we can ignore that for now. Why moralize, when you can just present clear consequences for the choices made? The latter seems like a much more effective way of influencing human behavior towards desired outcomes than the former.

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