How much of a tyrant must one be for someone, in particular, someone with utilitarian views, to feel morally well about tyrannicide. At what point of tyranny do people feel that tyrannicide is ethically justified? Similar to being a toxic charismatic, it seems as this is up for debate based on one’s own personal preferences and beliefs. Moreover, a toxic charismatic leader could easily manipulate people into believing that another leader is tyrannical and thus justify to the people why that leader should be assassinated. Language can be easily molded and with persuasive speech this could be possible. However, Andrade states that this (tyrannicide) may not accomplish much if the tyrant is very popular, even if they are hated and could actually spark up more tension.
I thought it was interesting how George distinguished between doing it for public benefit and for one’s self. This brings me back to the idea of a toxic charismatic, and how that can be harder to differentiate. However, it is easier to think of this happening in the past, rather than in today’s society, especially somewhere like the US.
I think this is a really important connection between tyrannicide and the leadership of a toxic charismatic. Defining a tyrant is subject to one’s political, religious, and personal beliefs and can definitely be spread by charismatic leaders. Even if their followers might not agree with their leader at first, a leader can use their charismatic skills to persuade their followers in believing another leader is in fact a tyrant.
I really like your point about the ambiguity involved with Tyrannicide. I’m not sure that a clear understanding will ever be found about a threshold that needs to be crossed for tyrannicide to be justified or unanimously accepted by everyone. Related to your connection about toxic charisma and tyranny, I hope that collectively we are able to realize when a toxic charismatic is trying to engage in some kind of persuasion and avoid terrible decisions, so we don’t live under or create tyranny anywhere.
To answer your question of how much of a tyrant someone should be in order to morally feel ok about tyrannicide, I think it depends on the location and maybe even the time period. I also think the majority of the population has to be affected negatively in order to morally be ok with ending someones life for the better of the nation.
I like how you brought up the ethical question of tyrannicide. It is based on each person’s ethics whether this is ok or not. We are taught in American history that this is justified and a good thing, but are we following the ethics of other people from history or our own beliefs. Is this still ok in the ever changing world?
I agree with your point that tyrannicide is something that is formulated on opinion. The questions you ask open up discussion for the ethical judgement of tyrannicide and how much it actual ‘differs’ from terrorism. It is also interesting to consider history in regards to these terms and how they impact how Americans think about how conflicted our country’s core ideologies are, especially in how we justify inhumanity (i.e murder) by way of other American values.