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Notes -
I think a better way to understand the fundamental conflict is to think less in terms of "unthinkable trade-offs" and more in terms of "necessary evils" More pointedly that utilitarianism as it is typically advocated for in rationalist spaces does not seem to handle such scenarios gracefully. Instead of being able to acknowledge that [action] is bad but [action] was also necessary/understandable given the circumstances it instead seems to default to a position where [action] was necessary/understandable given the circumstances ergo [action] cannot be bad and must have actually been good or at least neutral.
I see Scott's defense of Fauci in this post here and his earlier posts on Kolmogorov Complicity and the Virtue of Silence as classic examples of the problem, sure sometimes betraying the public trust is the rational choice, but by betraying the public trust you have demonstrated yourself to be untrustworthy and can no longer honestly claim to be "the sort of person who cooperates in prisoners dilemmas" because you aren't, you're a defector.
That's just a semantics question over what "bad" means. You can say "hurting someone in self-defense is always bad, but sometimes it is the best option" or you can say "hurting someone in self-defense is not bad" and you're really saying the same thing.
Yes, and at the same time it also illustrates the fundamental problem with utilitarianism, namely that it is the ethical framework that makes it easiest to excuse one's own negative behavior.
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