I feel like Majesty is going about this very much the wrong way. Trying to appeal to Marc by saying Eggy “deserves” to die is an absolute lost cause because a decision like this should be made easier to burden by ideas of desert but not made on such a basis because what is “deserved” is terribly subjective and Marc can argue about it all day. I know Majesty already gave the whole “too dangerous to be left alive” spiel but I think he should just be doubling down on it. “Matter of state security”, “authorized summary execution” etc. Would it convince Marc right now? No. But I think it would lay a stronger groundwork for convincing him sometime in the future. You don’t kill the bad guys because they deserve to die. You kill them because the people you won’t be able to stop them from killing later deserve to live. In most cases you can reasonably assume you’ll be able to safely contain the bad guy so that’s not an issue and they can have a trial and a fair sentence like everyone else. In this case, that would be catastrophically hubristic and genuinely irresponsible.
“You don’t kill the bad guys because they deserve to die. You kill them because the people you won’t be able to stop them from killing later deserve to live.”
I’m totally stealing that. That’s a perfect encapsulation of what I was saying in the comments on the last page.
I feel like Majesty is going about this very much the wrong way. Trying to appeal to Marc by saying Eggy “deserves” to die is an absolute lost cause because a decision like this should be made easier to burden by ideas of desert but not made on such a basis because what is “deserved” is terribly subjective and Marc can argue about it all day. I know Majesty already gave the whole “too dangerous to be left alive” spiel but I think he should just be doubling down on it. “Matter of state security”, “authorized summary execution” etc. Would it convince Marc right now? No. But I think it would lay a stronger groundwork for convincing him sometime in the future. You don’t kill the bad guys because they deserve to die. You kill them because the people you won’t be able to stop them from killing later deserve to live. In most cases you can reasonably assume you’ll be able to safely contain the bad guy so that’s not an issue and they can have a trial and a fair sentence like everyone else. In this case, that would be catastrophically hubristic and genuinely irresponsible.
“You don’t kill the bad guys because they deserve to die. You kill them because the people you won’t be able to stop them from killing later deserve to live.”
I’m totally stealing that. That’s a perfect encapsulation of what I was saying in the comments on the last page.
(Unrelated: paragraph breaks are your friend.)