I realize that this could also apply to lower rank soldiers involved in some war crimes, etc. so I guess it is not that clear cut. But would you blame a random soldier of lowest rank for carrying out terrible orders and not risking himself(or his family)? Well I don't know. I guess I would not.
Of course, the stakes are rarely that high, but the harm done is also rarely that high also.
This is a bit of a tangent, but that's something I never liked about referring to evil things as "inhumane". It seems to me that hurting others in order to help friends, family, or self is very human. In that case, morality is choosing to act against human nature by doing the right thing at the expense of self or loved ones.
Rather, one could argue, morality is a set of emotions, norms, beliefs and rules we have gained through culture and evolution in response to certain behavior patterns. And these can be seen as having a game-theoretical foundation. The rules that assigns the label Evil to someone tends to select people that we (or our ingroup) are in an existential conflict with, at a level where it's either us or them.
For instance, we can have rules that define some patterns of behavior as Evil, and have different set of moral rules for treating people depending on whether they are classified as Evil or not.
I absolutely would. The defector is willingly harming unconsenting others. That the harm would have been caused by someone else anyway doesn't suddenly make it OK.
> (...)In that case, defecting will be seen as justifiable.
Exactly! My argument basically boiled down to this. In certain situations, defecting may be the way to go. I would not blame the defector for doing what is in their best interest.
And “someone would have done this anyway” could very well be what's turning a situation into a prisoner's dilemma, so it could actually be a valid justification in some cases.
But yeah, it could depend on what is meant by "justification" exactly.