Yeah, I picked up on that.
One of the character flaws mine has is that he oftentimes doesn't solicit outside opinions before arriving at a conclusion: the euthanization of the tower horrors being one of them. (Another being the unilateral decision to destroy Thari's books, and to keep people like Eric from practicing necromancy. He'll take the plunge to find out on his own, and then actively keep people from making his mistakes, weather they ask for it or not. This is not an endearing quality, even though he means well by it.)
In his analysis, these were innocent people that hadn't done anything to warrant their suffering, and forcing them to live that way was unspeakably cruel, and that death was a legitimately merciful solution. His opinion changed when most of them openly stated they wanted to live, regardless of their percieved suffering. One thing he holds in highest esteem is the power of willful choice, and informed consent. He would let a person endure literal hell, if they knowingly chose it. The one caveat to that though, is if they chose something horrible, and then beg release from it later. He feels people should endure the consequences of their actions, and will not intervene in that natural course of events. If scorpion man comes and says he was wrong, and wants to die, weird will tell him to deal with it himself, and quite bluntly too. Scorpion man is not his responsibility.
In like kind, he doesn't expect anyone to bail him out if he chooses to do something stupid, like get killed, injured, captured, or tortured. He would verbally berate anyone who would be stupid enough to come rescue him, which doesn't win him any brownie points. He feels experience is the best teacher, and if the proscribed outcome of the stupid choice is death, he expects to die for it. No exceptions.
As a result of this personal ethical code of conduct, he absolutely refuses to screw people over, or lead them down a road with deleterious consequences if he can at all avoid it. This is why if he sanitizes thari's research like hugo wants, he'll be damned sure its as squeeky clean as fucking mother goose before letting it loose.