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What about Tito, if you thought there was good reasons to believe that the result would be civil war and genocide? (As ultimately there was within about 12 years of his death.) Is the right to "feedback" enough to justify instigating bloody chaos?
People are very quick with historical counterfactuals, I think. The Red Alert series was smarter. We know what happened with Hitler as Germany's leader in the 1930s; we don't know what would happen with Goering or Himmler as leader. Maybe they would have been smarter, more successful, and the Nazis would have won. Or if Hitler was killed in 1918, maybe German communist or ultra-conservatives unleash even more bloodshed. Germany was a highly industrialised and highly dysfunctional country - some degree of tragedy was likely. I also think that the USSR was likely to lead to horrors, even if Stalin died in 1923. Sometimes, a happy end requires a very big counterfactual.
That's not to say that "I would kill Hitler, in hindsight" is a bad judgement. There's a plausible case to be made that he was an exceptionally dangerous figure - that probably a Goering or Himmler or communist or non-Nazi far right Germany would have been less awful. However, it's overstating the case to think that e.g. Hitler's assassination would be utility-maximising, as opposed to expected utility maximising.
The same applies all the more strongly for those on the left who regret Trump's survival. Be careful what you wish for, because what you ask for is not always what you want.
Stephen Fry wrote a novel with a scenario where a time traveler basically cancels Hitler from history and it just means a smarter Hitler alternative takes over and actually manages to wipe the Jews out.
Wasn't this also the premise of the original C&C Red Alert?
Congrats Einstein, you erased the national socialists from history and created uber-socialists in thier stead.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3HUWUtTZvK4
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On a personal level, a dictator taking power is like a guy challenging you to the most significant bar fight of your life, a duel to the death really. You don’t have to fight him, but then you become his bitch for the foreseeable future. If a dictator should claim to rule over me without my consent he will have to do without my peaceful cooperation.
Ultimately our power as citizens is backed by the threat of this ehm… counter-revolutionary violence. It’s what keeps the fringes in line and our countries relatively coup-free.
When Tito uses force against me, coerces me, puts me in prison, kills me, that’s just him being a dictator, all according to plan. But when I use force, I’m supposed to have perfect foresight of any resulting chaos before I lift a finger… I’m sorry, but that’s too passive, copenhagen ethics. On self-defense grounds alone I have a right to assassinate him (before any utilitarian arguments about discouraging coups or genocides).
By "before", do you mean taking precedence over the utilitarian arguments? Because in that case, as always with deontology, you face this position being taken to absurdity, e.g. claiming you have assassinating the dictator at the cost of a nuclear war that kills everyone but you.
Do you not think that you can ever be morally obliged to suffer indignity or coercion?
Practically speaking, you can’t adequately calculate the consequences of the assassination, so it defaults to “him or you” and you’re morally justified to kill him (he is the aggressor because a dictator issues implicit death threats). Perhaps Tito not being assassinated and keeping yugoslavia going longer than it should have, precipitated the genocidal killings of the breakup .
On principle, on hypotheticals, I agree that you shouldn’t kill him (and even die by his hand if necessary) if you have divine knowledge of incoming nuclear war or genocide. But that’s a huge if.
"Practically speaking, you can’t adequately calculate the consequences of the assassination"
But you can study history. How many cases in history are there where successful hit at high value target worked as hitman intended (few) and made the world, from objective standpoint, a better place (much fewer) ?
Morally good:
Roman Emperors who did us all a favour by being assassinated: Caligula, Commodus, Elagabalus.
Quick executions where everybody went “About time!”: robespierre, beria.
Achieving goals:
Making Serbia great again: Alexander I of serbia, Franz Ferdinand.
Left-wing rabblerousing impeded: Jean Jaures, the Gracchi.
Japanese military rule through assassination in the 1930s.
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