Eliezer Yudkowsky has talked about a similar issue. It comes up because he wants to save the planet (or more accurately humanity) from killer AIs.
He said, in short, that he does not want any terrorism for his cause because it won’t work and will just be counter productive. He’s been very clear that he only wants organized, predictable violence managed by governments and international agreements, and that the violence is meant to be avoidable by anyone who wants to avoid it (just like you can choose not to rob a bank, you can also choose not to both build a datacenter and train LLMs in it).
More broadly, people bring up whether it’d be worth doing X horrible thing to save the world. And the answer is: doing X horrible thing won’t save the world. This is ~never the choice we face.
I find Yudkowsky mixed overall. I liked this part. E.g.:
Statistics show that civil movements with nonviolent doctrines are more successful at attaining their stated goals (especially in states that otherwise have functioning police). The factions that throw away all their morals lose the sympathy of the public and politicians, and then they fail. Terrorism is not an instant ‘I win’ button that people only refrain from pressing because they’re so moral. Society has succeeded in making it usually not pay off – say the numbers.
and
But even if you’re desperate, an outburst of violence usually will not actually solve your problems! That is a general truism in life, and it applies here in full force.
Even if you throw away all your morals, that doesn’t make it work. Even if you offer your soul to the Devil, the Devil is not buying.
How certain do you have to be that your child has terminal cancer, before you start killing puppies? 10% sure? 50% sure? 99.9%? The answer is that it doesn’t matter how certain you are, killing puppies doesn’t cure cancer. You can kill one hundred puppies and still not save your kid. There is no sin so great that it just has to be helpful because of how sinful it is.
He also has much older writing on these topics (which I didn’t reread):