Would you agree or disagree that, across all human cultures, it is recognized that there are unenviable situations and crises wherein there are no winning decisions, and that any decision you make will feel ultimately "wrong"? And that, due to the unavoidability of these decisions, the moral offense is either lessened or even negated so long as the intentions are good?

Are there any cultures that openly reject this? Or is this a universal emotional moral principle?

If examples are required; one is euthanizing a companion animal who is going to inescapably suffer until they die, either during their suffering or immediately preceding it. Nobody wants to kill their companion, but nobody wants their companion to suffer, either. Therefore I can't particularly blame anyone for either choice, so long as it was taken with the best intentions, and can't think of a culture that would.
The only possible exception would be Buddhists, given death doesn't end the animal's suffering in their eyes, but that's due to their religious and spiritual beliefs affecting their how they actual interpret the situation/crisis, rather than them rejecting the notion of no-good-options negating moral guilt. I would imagine that if a Buddhist understood the rationality behind euthanizing a companion pet, even they would be hard pressed to consider the owner immoral in the same sense as someone killing because they wanted to, or even killing to survive.

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>>17759812 (OP)
People from dictatorial regimes saying things like "I was just following orders" is a very good example of that. They are completely normal people, but the mere pressure for social acceptance is already enough to lead to immoral behavior.

>>17762369
I'm not sure that's what I'm talking about since "just following orders" isn't generally an accepted defense since social isolation is generally regarded as preferable to committing war crimes.
But it does show them try to exploit the universal sentiment to gain sympathy/leniency, while failing to see it doesn't apply to their case, I suppose.

>>17759812 (OP)
>Would you agree or disagree that, across all human cultures, it is recognized that there are unenviable situations and crises wherein there are no winning decisions, and that any decision you make will feel ultimately "wrong"?
This happens almost constantly in my life, so yes, if some individuals can suffer from this, then entire cultures also fall prey to situations like this.

In such situations the winning move is not to play at all.

>>17762545
Is summary execution at the hands of a commanding officer preferable as well?
Or does fighting for the "wrong" side make you a criminal deserving of everything the "good guys" impose upon you in a show trial?

>>17762716
Summary execution at the hands of a commanding officer is different to pressure of social acceptance, as the post I was replying to was referring.
If we're using the Nazis as an example, they didn't face execution for disobeying orders until the final months of the war, and social acceptance/peer pressure really was all it took to get them to perpetrate genocide.
For more info on this, I'd recommend you either watch the documentary 'Ordinary Men: The "Forgotten Holocaust"', or read the book it's based on, 'Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland' by Christopher R. Browning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvli6ogZiqU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6-BHbEPaI8

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>>17762369
do you expect them to say "I was intentionally being immoral and having fun in doing so"?

>>17764183
Yes

>>17764234
good thing that immoral people never lie

>>17762369
While >>17763116 is right about the Nazis in particular, there is a situation where I could see some level of sympathy or understanding being given.
The Strain is a shitty vampire series, but it has a lot of WWII flashback segments. In one, two Ukrainian Soviet POWs (Fetrovski and Boiko) volunteer for auxiliary work to get out of starving in a POW camp, without knowing about the final solution. When they're first ordered to kill, they decline, only for the Nazi officer Eichorst to order them lined up alongside the Jews and shot as well by the those men willing to do it. Fetrovski pleads for a second chance, seeing that he and his friend Boiko would die for nothing, and ends up shooting and killing a Jew. He's allowed to live, while Boiko is killed anyway.

Shit like that can almost be understood; and if you get threats to family involved, even moreso.
That said I don't actually know whether or not the real Ukrainian auxiliary would face execution for refusing to participate in mass killings, or if they'd just go back to the POW camp. Which is still bad, but closer to social isolation than it is to you and your friends being killed for not doing something that was going to happen anyway.

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>>17759812 (OP)
The idea of a pure moral decision is stranger than the idea of comparative wrongdoing in a moral decision. People may have percieved "winning decisions" without nuance throughout history but anyone in any culture who is perceptive enough could see that any moral decisions they make depend on the changeable factors of the detailed and absurd physical world they percieve. Any "no-brainer" decision could be better or worse if one "brains" the caveats involved. That depends on individual agents; different cultures don't each come with a rulebook and a description of their values. You could abstract that from your observation of some culture but that would miss its physical qualities in space and time; it's external and internal relationships, the biochemical and particulate structures underlaying it and its fluidity across real time. That applies regardless of your interpretation of the physical.

To put it simply, it's a matter of who purports the details of a moral situation at a granular level rather than unitary cultures simply having such and such an idea of moral situations.

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>>17759812 (OP)
The buddhist rejection of euthanasia is not religious or spiritual but analysis based. Look at the Abhidhamma if you dont believe me. Its a direct investigation into the nature of mind, the consciousness and human psyche. So they reject euthanasia not believe a book told them, but because through investigation of the human mind, through rigorous analysis of the notion of consciousness, with great clarity into human psychology, they understood this suicidal empathy to be harmful/ignorant/dangerous behavior that justifies killing others, causing great harm to the mind of the killer, and those enabling those acts. Its not just destructive to the animal that is being killed, but also destructive to the personal mind, and the future repercussions of the mind that has taken a life of another. Without being an omniscient. The only exception in Buddhist doctrine is when you're an omniscient and knows what is good, even when it takes the life. And even that doctrine is very controversial and debated on whether its legitimate or political addition.

>>17767608
This is my answer, of course I think is the most correct, but it's unsatisfying, draws attention away from OP's aim.
>>17769880
This is a more satisfying and relevant answer.

In any case, people get too hung up on complicated moral dilemmas like trolley problems, dying dogs or whatever and in effect, they assume a hedonist/utilitarian moral binary principle and then step on from there, essentially opting for a math problem where they measure and compare death and suffering. The more basic epistomological or ontological question "How do you know what is good or bad, what things are good and what things are bad?" has no strongly certified answer, and yet it certainly precedes whichever moral conundrum you want to look at.

But the pitfall in my understanding is an underestimation of already-existing philosophies due to incomplete knowledge. I'm sure Bhuddism and other Asiatic religions have a way of relating their descriptive foundations to their prescriptive ends but I don't know those details.

>>17769880
>causing great harm to the mind of the killer, and those enabling those acts.
But wouldn't seeing your companion suffer painfully over a period of time until dying likewise cause great harm to the mind? It's a scenario where either decision is destructive to the personal mind (and the animal).
I'll look more into the Abhidhamma, thanks. This seems relevant,
https://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2016/02/Keown-compassionate-killing.pdf

>>17770133
>he more basic epistomological or ontological question "How do you know what is good or bad, what things are good and what things are bad?" has no strongly certified answer, and yet it certainly precedes whichever moral conundrum you want to look at.
Let's assume there are general universal moral principles. If someone ends up in a situation where their only options are almost identically bad, with it being difficult to tell or debatable which one is the lesser evil, and the individual picks what he sees as the lesser evil at the time with the best intentions, would you agree that universally people would see this act as less severe than one done out of selfishness or malice, or even view the one being made to choose as innocent, or a victim in their own right?

>>17770563
A mind of a killer isn't to be fostered. Killing causes suffering to all parties involved. Like the golden rule, animals even in suffering conditions still fear death most of all. Why else would they even struggle if they are near death? You performing the act of killing of the animals is still an act that is harmful towards the path of enlightenment. But let me be clear, there is no straight path. In the event that you kill an animal to put them out of misery and not have yourself squirm over watching the death of it, there may not be a better pathforward. The obvious answer is, dont let yourself lead you down the path where you're forced to choose over an uncertain environmental conditions. The earlier in life you decide to steer yourself away, the less you are forced into these unfair situations. Once you're in that unfair situation, you're likely fucked either way. Mental feedback (aka karma calculus) calculus is hard and neigh impossible to understand what is appropriate decision due to our lack of mental clarity in predicting the calculations properly for all parties involved. So buddhist general ethics is more a heuristics for non-enlightened to follow that is condusive towards path of enlightenment.

>>17770563
I think you're describing a difference between deontological and consequentialist ethics. Deontological ethics judges the "intentions" of a moral agent in particular whereas consequentialism judges the outcome, the consequences of actions. Neither is universal and there are diverse opinions traditionally and professionally.

In the modern day, people obviously have very diverse viewpoints but that's also true to a lesser extent for traditional cultures. There were always selfish people who were basically consequentialists because they considered the consequences upon themselves to be the arbiter of right and wrong. There were also always very agreeable people who could sympathize with someone faced with an impossible lose-lose decision even if the surrounding culture cared about the unwelcome consequences above all else. Cultures also change over time just like languages. People say a word wrong over and over, eventually it becomes the new way to say it et cetera. This is what I mean by questioning the question; assuming a frame of certain cultures holding certain beliefs is not necessary and doesn't really correspond to reality.

Reality can transcend the difference between deontological and consequentialist ethics anyway because the good or bad intentions of an actor can themselves be viewed as a consequence and a descriptive fact. You could judge the intentions as good and the consequences bad separately without needing to resolve a contradiction. Two different things in two different times/places/senses do not constitute a contradiction unless your some sort of Hegelian or Marxist dialectician.

>>17762545
>"just following orders" isn't generally an accepted defense
It has been for most of history. People would even lionize particularly capable adversaries despite them having helped slaughter their own people.

>>17770668
>Why else would they even struggle if they are near death?
Animals have starved themselves to death in sorrow.
>The obvious answer is, dont let yourself lead you down the path where you're forced to choose over an uncertain environmental conditions.
This isn't obvious at all, because it's outright impossible. So long as you exist in this world you're going to be faced with these kinds of dilemmas. Trying to distance yourself from accomplishes nothing except turning you into a parasite.

>>17770695
Life choices can be made early on to steer yourself in a more positive direction. For a common man, working hard early on and then living in a nicer environment where you can afford to pay for proper health care, living in nicer neighborhood where sickly gets taken care of early on, look after your own, others around you is a choice in life that starts early on as we make our career path. But ofcourse people wont always have this clarity when they're younger, so all they have are vague heuristics of the society, from families, traditions, church, etc to guide them towards a better life. If you find yourself not following the path of the elders, and forced into an unfair environment (born poor) where there is misery all around you, then you still have a choice to get out of that misery by working hard. It just is a bit more harder now that you're in that condition. and the conditions necessary for prosperity gets much harder since time is short for our life anyways.

>>17759812 (OP)

idk