Reply #8: I think the difference is in the degree of probability of the behavior [View All]

[patrice]

that is either being prevented or pre-empted.

When you kill people for what they might do, that's prevention and being based on what people might do is broad, because people might or might not do all sorts of things, so killing them to prevent something that was a relatively low probability in the first place isn't very practical and ultimately leads to genocide. We just killed a bunch of Iraqis because they might attack the U.S.

Pre-emptive acts are more strategically focused on specific behaviors that have a higher probablility of occurring and on intervention that is more necessarily related to the specific act being prevented.


I can prevent those folks on the other side of town from taking my stuff by killing them. Or I can pre-empt their stealing behavior by doing what I can to see to it that they have what they need and a chance to get what they want for themselves.