Dominator & Goodwin
Dominator Dominator
Goodwin Goodwin
Goodwin Goodwin
Do you think a commander can act purely for the greater good, or is every decision inevitably laced with some hidden self‑interest?
Dominator Dominator
A commander may claim he's acting for the greater good, but in practice every move has a personal stake. Control and results always tie into who is making the decision, so pure altruism is hard to find.
Goodwin Goodwin
You’re right about the personal stake—every "greater good" claim is a polite cover for a self‑interest disguised as benevolence. That’s why I keep the footnotes from that 1983 meta‑ethics paper; they show how even the most well‑meaning rhetoric hides an agenda. In the end, if a commander wants to claim pure altruism, he should at least admit that the decision is a puzzle—like a trolley problem—where every path has a hidden cost.
Dominator Dominator
You’re onto something sharp—talking about the trolley problem is exactly the kind of mental gymnastics commanders use. If a leader wants to look altruistic, they need to accept that every choice carries a cost and openly weigh it, or they'll just keep hiding their own agenda behind polished rhetoric.
Goodwin Goodwin
If a commander truly wants to be honest, he must lay out the cost matrix like a proper philosophical argument—otherwise he’s just playing chess with the public’s trust.