On the surface, you seem to be pursuing a utilitarian line of thought: Do the thing that produces the most good for the greatest number of people (as you always say, what matters is the results). I suppose you could argue that in the context of the Reaper war, human experimentation does yield the best cost-benefit analysis in terms of lives lost, but that would involve quibbling over the details of the lore, an activity which I find highly boring.
I could tell you that I borrow plenty of elements of utilitarianism while not subscribing to the concept as a whole. I'll go along that I don't adhere to the part of utilitarianism that emphasizes equal judgement or lack of bias in regards to certain agendas and ideologies. I don't adhere to philosophies or ideologies that are particularly explained to emphasize a methodology that is consistently limiting and efficient, or to put it another way, involves consistently ignoring physical, tangible results and good for the sake of esoteric and conscientious satisfaction. In pure economics, which I won't drag down into as you do find it boring (and to be frank, so do I), my methodology isn't completely relevant or applicable either. It's definitely more of an extremity measure based on an implausible outcome. The driving philosophy behind it is 'do whatever it takes to succeed, in as best a position you can manage'.
The sticking point is this: Utilitarianism is a philosophy of radical impartiality. In and of himself, no person is worth more or less than any other, no matter their personal characteristics, so if we save or kill some rather than others, this is only because it maximizes well-being for the greatest number of people. It's no accident that Peter Singer, the most well-known utilitarian philosopher alive today, is a strident critic of animal experimentation and also argues that well-to-do Westerners have a serious moral duty to donate substantial portions of our income to famine relief organizations such as Oxfam or UNICEF.
Indeed. As I stated, this isn't at all what I should really say I stand for. I borrow the basic idea of utilitarianism as the basis for my own philosophy, but I definitely do not meet the definition of utilitarianism as it is. I don't believe in impartialty. I do believe that in and of himself, one man can be of greater worth than another. I think that's the stick part of where we come down from. And it comes to the idea that the system itself, and not the individuals that make it up is what is important. To an extent, it's an argument of collectivization over individualism, especially in regards to the state. And I would agree that we do have a... need (though not necessarily obligation in a legal sense) to working to improve the conditions of our neighbors and less well off societies, if to raise the standard bar and threshold of knowledge for a society. I wouldn't argue for a donation of resources in fiscal terms so much as human terms in that scenario. I think the actions of people working towards physically overhauling an area of limited infrastructure or resource is better than dollars given impartially to organizations that may or not spend them wisely or put them into the pockets of local corrupt authorities looking to further their regimes and personal power rather than work for the betterment of their state system as a whole.
But now you've got me off topic here (not your fault, your example's fault, so back on the rails).
For me, the greater good is the people killed for the greater good of the state system, which ideally (and implausibly) would be constituted by the best individuals who are the most intelligent, skilled, talented, etc. aka, the people whom are going to make the best system to further the state system itself. There's a lot of philosophies that I borrow elements from, some of which I know, some of which I'm likely ignorant of, and some of which are ethical, and some of which are not considered so. When it comes down to ruling itself, I prefer a Machiavellian authoritarian ordered system, where the power lies in the hands of the strongest (and thus the smartest, cleverest, most gifted) who are also tempered by practical judgement. Platonian democracy or a system of meritocratic oligarchy would be the best way to define this, with elements of Confucianism thrown in there.
This isn't your actual philosophy. Your view seems to be that if a person is 'mediocre' (whatever that means), then he thereby has no value to begin with. This is completely inconsistent with utilitarian thought, and in addition, there seems no reason at all to believe it. You claim that a person derives their moral worth from their ability to contribute to the state, but I deny that there is any such entity as a 'state' which has value independent of the individuals who constitute it. Being able to contribute to the state simply means being able to contribute to the lives of other people, but I have no idea why this would be such an important quality to have unless we already supposed that persons have value independent of their competence to contribute to the lives of others.
Indeed, it's not. And yes, that is largely what my view is. Let's put it like this: I don't believe a person can have a value (specifically, in a wartime environment such as the basic premise of this particular scenario) if they don't first adhere to a mandate to contribute to the state system or if they don't have a practical application to support the system. Now, there are several ways to remedy this. There's military service, volunteer work for more menial or tertiary functions to make the system as efficient as possible, retraining for occupations more beneficial to state efforts, and transferring what skills they have to operating in the system with efficient functionality (lacking in system redundancy that potentially decreases efficiency). The ones who can't be made to fit within this model (whether by willful refusal or physical disability) would be used in more... extraneous solutions regarding what you might consider to be unethical or immoral experimentation or utility. They'll be made useful in death if they have no use in life. Useful to the state and the people working to contribute its survival. I suspect you disagree with me and deny its existence, but I do believe that the state is greater than the sum of its parts. It's an appeal to order, to efficiency, and to professional uniformity in survival and evolution.
On a semi-related note, it's an idea that the strong have the basic right to survive over the weak.
To summarize, the problem with your arguments is that they derive whatever plausibility they have from their affinity with utilitarian ideas about doing the greatest good for the greatest number, but you don't actually support doing the greatest good for the greatest number, because in your mind, most people just don't count.
This can be true to an extent. I won't deny it. I hold myself above others. I hold people to be of separate value, and believe that some people are cut from finer cloth, so to speak, from others. Now, I'm not going to say that the cloth choice is a dichotomous one. There are different fabrics of course, and different tiers based on separate qualities.
You could call it an appeal to strength in some manner. I work for the people who are of the highest quality, the ones that can build and work with anything to ensure a survival of a common future that is more desirable than what most are capable of achieving.
I suspect you categorically disagree on moral and technical details.
The problem of what makes persons valuable is one of the hardest in moral philosophy, and I don't have a definitive answer for it. Certain characteristics, like the ability to feel pleasure and pain, seem clearly necessary because they're necessary for having interests, and perhaps some others, such as some level of reasoning ability, the ability to be responsible for one's actions, etc. probably figure in as well. As for how I would implement your philosophy, the answer is that I wouldn't implement it at all, because I don't agree with it.
I appreciate the response. To me, the question is a bit more rhetorical. I had a suspicion your answer would involve what you have involved.
My own thoughts? You might be unsurprised, if disturbed, that I have almost no issue in determining someone's value. I know you question the relevance of it and why people should take that view into consideration. I don't think I'd have an ability to answer it to your satisfaction, except that you'd probably be glad I wasn't in a position to exercise it on a macro-scale. On a micro-scale, that's a bit different. I can't talk about my job or what I do at the moment, but I'm sure you know what someone who holds my belief system would do if they were placed into a military situation where they had to make calls based on judgement of who lives and dies up to and including civilians and non-combatants, and by what nature I make that decision and how it affects the mission at large. I do do that. And I serve under men who do that as well. As do they. I do implement my philosophy into my current situation in the Middle East.
If you want a basic idea of what I believe, tv tropes calls "Utopia justifies the means".
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