You don't adopt the position because it's logical. You adopt it because it lets you have a little smug sense of moral superiority.
Really? I could have sworn that it's for logical reasons. You just don't know them because your mindset it so ingrain in thinking such survivalistic ways. Besides, I don't feel morally superiority. I'm the way I am simply because I believe it's the right thing to do for both myself and others. I don't believe in superiority -- that is egotistical.
And what, pray tell, are these logical reasons? Can you explain them, in simple words, to us, survivalist idiots?
Meanwhile, I'll try to explain my logic to you:
- another species attacked; by the size of this attack we are likely to conclude that this is a carefully planned and thus premeditated action
- the actions of the enemy brought the human kind at 0.0004 percent of its former size. Conclusion: the goal of the enemy is to annihilate the whole of the human kind
- the remaining population does not represent any sort of threat to the enemy, yet they had been constantly being attacked in order to be destroyed. Conclusion: this is a further evidence on enemy's intentions
- we don't know (at the outburst of hostilities) whether this attack was provoked or not, but we know that it if by very, very far beyond the level of possible provocation. Conclusion: another evidence of enemy's intentions to annihilate human kind.
- this is a known enemy - we fought them before, and the war ended with our victory and a treaty which aimed to restore peace by separating two species to prevent further collision. Conclusion: the treaty was held by a threat of retaliation from our side; as soon as enemy concluded that it can achieve military supremacy and fend off the threat of retaliation it broke the treaty and restored hostilities
- the remains of human kind are not in possession of any argument that could force the enemy to stop its activities to completely destroy our species. Furthermore, we cannot be sure that any kind of deal with the enemy which could achieve the peace would stand, based on previous experience. Conclusion: the enemy cannot be trusted to cease its activities to destroy us, therefore the only logical action is to continue to fight until the enemy's ability to fight is completely destroyed and we could be assured it will not regain this ability before remains of human kind establish their military might that could match the enemy's. What that actually means is that the enemy must be practically annihilated.
It's pathetic. Next time you're in a fight, when the other guy is beating the crap out of you, be sure to take time to 'understand' him.
If someone got into a fight with me, I'd try to defend myself, but I wouldn't hold it against them, as they must be a troubled person in need of help to do such a thing.
Or if a guy breaks into your house, try to get to the bottom of his motivation for doing so while he murders your family.
Luckily, these things are unlikely to even happen. And what is wrong with using just enough force to prevent your family from harm? Do you honestly believe that criminals have no feelings? Do you really think that are all inhuman, and that they aren't just like you at their core? Don't you think these people need help, rather than punishment? Do you not believe that helping these people will help prevent these things from happening? Or perhaps you would be too caught up with trying to get revenge?
The main problem with your reasoning is that you are taking the very extreme situation (total annihilation war, that actually never happened) and trying to deduce from it a general behavioral pattern robocop and myself presented regarding any physical threat to one individual. These are totally different situations: it's not that somebody broke in your apartment and killed your family - it's much more drastic than that: it's when somebody broke in your apartment, killed all your family, your dog, all your neighbours, everybody in your street, in your city, state, continent. In such a (highly hypothetical) situation, it is safe to assume that such an enemy cannot be reasoned. Furthermore, in BSG, its not an unknown entity who does not know human race, it's the enemy who has intricate insight of human behaviour, it knows us. I might want to punish them, but my priority is to stop them. And the only way to stop them is to annihilate them before they do the same to my kind (although in BSG, they've practically already done it). It is established rule that you are permitted to fend off any physical threat to you by applying the same ammount of force that your attacker applied to you. Therefore, if some entity applied the ultimate force to annihilate your entire species, you are permitted by any moral and legal law to fight back the same way, especially when you logically concluded that there's no other way to survive.
You do actually watch the show, right? Because the original point has been brought up (that point being if it is OK to completely wipe out an enemy). And I can assure you, the message was not that it's definitely the right thing to do. How is an enemy suffering more OK than someone else? Why do you think people do these things in the first place? Do you think people are incapable of change?
I watched the show and I concluded that they've set up the fictional situation, raised the question and provided a wrong answer to it. Was that the inability of the authors to grasp this fictional situation in its entirety or something else, I do not know. If they wanted to ponder on moral and legal issues of excessive use of force in resolving conflicts similar to what we have on this planet (wars, terrorism, etc.) by providing the balanced view from different angles they should set up the situation differently, not by putting one side in the fierce struggle to survive. Because in such situation, all morals and legality of actions are plain irrelevant.
We are, after all deep in our core, still animals who struggle to survive and replicate no matter how we would like to view ourselves.
