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Edited on Fri Dec-04-09 12:26 PM by dmallind
Moral principles are a guidance system to determine the best choice from the less good, but nobody - and I mean nobody - actually makes moral decisions in absolute adherence to any deontology. Some people decry "situational ethics" but we all apply them. There is nobody who has never lied, often with good intentions and even with good results ("No, Herr Hauptmann, I have no idea where the Jews are hiding" would be an easy if extreme example - on a more mundane level "no your butt doesn't look fat in those jeans"). There are few people who think lying is a morally good choice in general.
So do I expect Obama to have a set of principles about what is good and bad consistent with hoi polloi? Yes. That tells him what outcome he should seek, and that he should do the greatest good for the greatest number.
But I also know damn well he has a role where he has to lie more than most of us - and definitely where he has to keep secrets more. he has a role where he MUST be willing to do, or at least command, things few of us would ever do or deem morally good choices in most circumstances. He has to be willing to see people die (to save more lives in the end), or lose their jobs (so that others can be gained), on his say so for example. Very few of us will ever have to do the first, and not a huge number of us even the second.
So what he has to do WITH those principles, and what harm he has to accept to increase overall benefit, is far more substantial and far more wrenching than a normal citizen - and he has to be able to do that. The idea that Obama (or anyone really - just writ large for him) can avoid ever causing any harm is painfully naive.
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