Is Not Saving Someone the Same as Killing Them?

[Gray Firion]

Slightly off topic here. Consistency, Context and Perspective always rule in such situations and to be perfectly honest, that's the last game where you should be looking for either. Some of this is due to the different areas and different class stories having been written by completely separate writers, which makes the entire game be pretty much all over the place with a demented idea of morality, right and wrong.

For starters, you cannot be "good" if your mission entails you to kill living and/or sentient beings left, right and center, in all planets from start to finish. Whether your targets belong to this or that faction/organization, whichever side you belong to, you're a psychopath at worst and a mass murderer with a guilty conscience at best. Despite this, if the choices you make along the way leave you on the "Good" side, then the story paints you as a hero, regardless of how many people you killed.

Case in point: I made a character with the intent of being "Evil". I ended up making more light side choices than dark with the game treating me like a saint despite: leaving people to rot in suspended animation (repeatedly) until the end of time (or until the machines holding them break down from age), robbing others of conscious thought (situations with kiliks and some jedi), having a demonstrably compassionate person being killed by half-sentient monsters while I watched right next to them and imprisoning others for repeated torture afterwards, among other things. All of the specific ones I remembered now awarded me "Light Side" points. Throughout all of this, the game tried to tell me I was doing the right thing...

So yeah. I like the fighting mechanics and the setting, but expecting a well-written story in that game left me a bad taste in the mouth after the first playthrough.

You did mention this, that you knew a choice to be bad and wanted to do it, while knowing it was wrong, while at the same time having made horrible things throughout the game. There is no consistency and context doesn't matter, because the game came from a bunch of different perspectives that instead of working together decided to go in completely different directions and tell completely different stories.

Strictly OP: Killing a man or letting a man die while having the capacity to help, is theoretically not the same for a variety of reasons. However, both leave the same practical result.

In the end, if you let a man die when you could have helped, while you are no murderer, you're also no better than one either. Because you didn't stop it when you could, you were complicit in the murder. This is enforced by Law: if you have the capacity to help someone in deadly distress, you must help.

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

I won't kill you.

But I don't have to save you either.


Not acting to save a person is not the same thing, really, it depends on the context.

Unless, ironically, you are Batman. I always hated that scene because it's a perfect example of Hollywood Stupidity. They think Batman's rule about not killing is more like a gypsy curse he has to obey rather than his moral alignment. Batman would have saved Ra's

 

[manic_depressive13]

Oh woops, I read "Is not" as the expanded version of "Isn't", so the title read:

"Isn't saving someone the same as killing them?"

So I sat there scratching my head for a good minute before clicking on the thread and realising my mistake.

Anyway, it depends on the distinction you want to make. Personally I don't think inaction can ever be compared to action. The person who acts is responsible, the person who doesn't act is complicit at best. The person who attacked the character in question was the one who killed them. Let's not shift the blame here. You might be an asshole for not saving someone you could have saved, but you certainly didn't kill them. You didn't do anything.

 

[Greg White]

In the end, if you let a man die when you could have helped, while you are no murderer, you're also no better than one either. Because you didn't stop it when you could, you were complicit in the murder. This is enforced by Law: if you have the capacity to help someone in deadly distress, you must help.

Not really. Someone with special training to help has to, but a regular bystander is not, and even then the only thing that you can be punished with in most places is a lawsuit, not jailtime.

As for you being as bad as the murdurer, no, you aren't anywhere near as bad.

You may be heartless for not helping, but you didn't contribute to their death, and a traitor isn't worth helping anyway.

 

[FalloutJack]

No no no... I'm sorry, but killing them is an act of putting them into the situation where they die. Not saving them is not killing them if it is, say, their own fault. It can't be. You weren't responsible. You're a witness to what DID kill them, which is not you, because you were just minding your own business-

Integra: BULL. FUCKING SHIT.

I was! I was just chillaxing like a baller, when...

 

[lunavixen]

It's killing them by omission. But, that being said, killing someone and murder can actually be separated into two different categories, depending on whether the Mens Rea (the mentality and capability of murder as well as intent) for murder can be proved [on the provision that you wounded the person in the first place, otherwise it's more likely to result in charges of, Accesory to Murder or Aiding and Abetting after the fact](i.e. You didn't want to save them and willingly let them die despite it being within your ability to save them [Murder], vs. you couldn't save them for some reason [no crime]).

TLDR: It's all dependent on context and intent.

By the way, forgive my odd terminology, I was trying to break down the terms into basic ones that people without a study in law can follow.

 

[Gray Firion]

In the end, if you let a man die when you could have helped, while you are no murderer, you're also no better than one either. Because you didn't stop it when you could, you were complicit in the murder. This is enforced by Law: if you have the capacity to help someone in deadly distress, you must help.

Not really. Someone with special training to help has to, but a regular bystander is not, and even then the only thing that you can be punished with in most places is a lawsuit, not jailtime.

As for you being as bad as the murdurer, no, you aren't anywhere near as bad.

You may be heartless for not helping, but you didn't contribute to their death, and a traitor isn't worth helping anyway.

The entire OT part I wrote, was made on the following distinction: Theoretically, reasons, circumstances and the people involved differ. But the Practical end result is the same: someone died.

If you did not know how to help, you could still try and find someone who could. A bystander who does nothing to help while witnessing it in person, CAN and WILL be prosecuted for the inaction.

No, you're not a murderer. No, you're not as bad as one. Yes, if through your actions you can find help for an ailing person, you have to find help. Yes, you're complicit in murder if you knowingly refuse to help (or find help) to someone in deadly peril. Whether the person is a traitor, a doctor, a criminal, a biologist, a murderer, Whatever, it is not up to you to just decide a death is justified. You are no Judge, no Jury and you're trying ever so hard not to be Executioner either.

 

[Ryan Minns]

I personally believe inaction equals support. If an innocent is being beaten in the street and you ignore it you're just as responsible as the aggressor.

You should never interfere in a situation like that unless you know 100% that you'll be able to stop the aggressor and stop him. If they turned on you and you can't defend yourself, what then?

Call the police, try to scare them off, but never physically interfere if you can't actually do anything to stop it.

So you mean like... perform an action? Like, not be inactive but actually do something? So? Action?

 

[DoPo]

I personally believe inaction equals support. If an innocent is being beaten in the street and you ignore it you're just as responsible as the aggressor.

You should never interfere in a situation like that unless you know 100% that you'll be able to stop the aggressor and stop him. If they turned on you and you can't defend yourself, what then?

Call the police, try to scare them off, but never physically interfere if you can't actually do anything to stop it.

So you mean like... perform an action? Like, not be inactive but actually do something? So? Action?

Not all action is good action. Technically, going and helping beat the guy is also an action. You wouldn't call that helping, though. Help does have requirements - if your action, as sincere as they might be, don't help (and they could, indeed, make stuff worse) that's not exactly helping, either.

 

[Greg White]

Whether the person is a traitor, a doctor, a criminal, a biologist, a murderer, Whatever, it is not up to you to just decide a death is justified. You are no Judge, no Jury and you're trying ever so hard not to be Executioner either.

In this we have a difference in opinion.

A traitor is a traitor, no matter how you look at it, and is certainly not deserving of help.

He can live with whatever cards fate has dealt him.

 

[miso2002]

The world's not black and white so no not saving someone is not the same as killing them, it's just that choosing not to interfere in something that's already happening. Depending on the circumstances it could be an evil decision, but it's still not the same thing as murder.

You still are making a choice, though. So if we say murder is choosing the death of an individual than it would be murder. If we said that murder was creating the scenario to kill someone than it wouldn't.

 

[Olas]

I'd say it depends on how much activity is required to save the person. If you could save someone's life by pushing a button and chose not to I'd say it's basically murder, however if it's a person trapped on the third floor of a burning building I wouldn't look down on you for not running in to save them.

Everything in between is basically a shade of gray.

 

[DugMachine]

I personally believe inaction equals support. If an innocent is being beaten in the street and you ignore it you're just as responsible as the aggressor.

You should never interfere in a situation like that unless you know 100% that you'll be able to stop the aggressor and stop him. If they turned on you and you can't defend yourself, what then?

Call the police, try to scare them off, but never physically interfere if you can't actually do anything to stop it.

So you mean like... perform an action? Like, not be inactive but actually do something? So? Action?

Well a police call isn't going to save this person's life if they're about to be beaten to death. And I wouldn't be jumping between them. Of course take action but I'm just saying you shouldn't interfere physically if there is a fight going on most of the time.

 

[Azure23]

I was always taught growing up that doing nothing was a certain kind of choice. I'm sure everyone here has heard of the bystander effect and in my own opinion it's the single most disgusting phenomena around. If someone is in trouble, right in front of you, do something. Call the goddamn cops if you don't want to get personally involved. The whole idea of "it's not my problem" fucking sickens me. Now I'm not aiming all this vitriol at the OP, he's playing a video game, he can do what he wants. But if that situation occurred in real life then yes, you would have killed that person. Maybe you didn't cause the injury that had him bleeding to death, but by not helping him you made a conscious decision that resulted in his death.

 

[LetalisK]

The world's not black and white so no not saving someone is not the same as killing them, it's just that choosing not to interfere in something that's already happening. Depending on the circumstances it could be an evil decision, but it's still not the same thing as murder.

You still are making a choice, though. So if we say murder is choosing the death of an individual than it would be murder. If we said that murder was creating the scenario to kill someone than it wouldn't.

The thing is, people use the latter definition, because that's the actual definition of homicide, with murder being a specific, premeditated form of it. The former definition isn't murder; it's making a choice that results in someone's death, which everyone is guilty of because none of us are busily giving our money away to starving orphans.

Those are two different ethical issues. Not only is there no immediate and present danger in the latter, but you're trying to compare committing oneself to a specific lifestyle choice with acting in the moment.

If you were in a situation where saving someone's life was something incredibly doable with little to no harm or inconvenience to yourself, and chose not to, you're certainly worthy of scorn and hatred, but don't compare that to murder.

But someone died because of what you chose to do. You decided that person should die. I don't think letting someone die is murder, since murder implies expending effort in the killing, but it's no less morally reprehensible. Mind you, this is coming from someone who in reality would probably let someone die given certain circumstances. I'm completely aware I'm subject to the double standard too.

 

[likalaruku]

Well, some lawyers have claimed that in a court of law, & the greasiest ones won.