Indeed, sometimes the right thing to do involves allowing one’s own citizens to die. In World War II, the British military had cracked the Enigma code and had advance notice of impending German attacks on Coventry. But if they prepared for the attacks, the Germans would have known the code was cracked. So Churchill’s government made the hard choice to let innocent people die in order to retain a military advantage, giving them a better chance of winning the war and saving a greater number of innocent lives.
Excellent point, and a great example of how empathy would have been worse than rational compassion (though it is arguable - and in my view more likely - that it was strategic rationality rather than rational compassion)
