Philosophical/Ethical problem

[Rex Fallout]

Hey guys,

So I've been thinking, and the following problem just occured to me.
Say that you have two people, let's call them A and B. Now A is a completely evil human being. Person B is not much better. Now let's say that person B kills person A for evil reasons. (The actual reason does not matter, all that matters is that the reasons are in some form evil, use your own moral compass to define 'evil', let's just say that B kills A because he wants to rob A, just an example, don't overthink this bit).

Now keeping in mind all of the above, does B deserve to be punished for killing A? And if yes how? (Anything goes). Please use philosophical/ethical reasons to justify, and keep legal reasons out of it.

Anyway, do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance.

By the way, I haven't yet come up with an answer to this problem.

Being Evil, and doing evil are entirely different things. I may be considered evil by most people's standards, I refuse to give to the poor most of the time, find no pity in my heart for the starving masses, and believe that the economic depression was caused by socialism. People disagree with me, and may even label me as, 'evil' but does that mean that if I am murdered I don't deserve the respect to have justice given to the wrong doer? If person A has done nothing wrong then hell yeah B should be persecuted and sentenced to at least life in prison for murder. No questions asked.

 

[callit4]

Define Evil. Evil is a generic social concept, no one has ever believed them-self to be evil. Personally I believe everyone that believes them-self important enough to end a life should in turn have their life ended(kind of a contradiction but it is the only solution I can fathom). Murder is never acceptable the fact that it is so commonplace is testament to how stupid our species is.
Does the person that kills the murderer "deserve" to die?

 

[Scabadus]

Absolutely, B should be punished. With the possible exception of a legally permitted execution, murder is murder. In any practical situation, if B knew A's location then B could call the police/army/batman to apprehend them (and possibly end up killing A depending on the situation, but at least this would be an official, documented police/army squad using what we could hope is reasonable force). If B just ups and kills A for good reasons then B's a vigilante and they never end up with Happily Ever Afters in real life; if B kills A for evil reasons then B's a dick and the next person they kill probably won't be pure evil.

 

[Extravagance]

Many problems with this, and no answer, so here goes:

The first problem: The moral grounds by which I judge A or B are not necessarily the moral grounds by which they live. It is therefore difficult/impossible to call for the punishment of A or B, because we do not operate along the ethical lines. It is also impossible to judge them as moral/immoral persons under anything other than a personal moral basis - and so is not applicable.

The second problem: If both A and B are judged by myself to be roughly equally immoral ("evil"/"good" are very complicated terms to use), then it could be easily considered a moral act for A or B to hurt/kill the other. The removeal of an immoral person is generally considered a moral act.

The third problem: There is a difference between Intention and Action. If the intention is immoral, but the act moral then how do I judge it? And vice versa. It would be necessary to find out the intentions of both A and B both before, during, and after the scenario.

The fourth problem: Judgement and punishment are both part of a legal system, and can only be part of a legal system. Anything else is a personal descision and therefore not justifiable using anything other than personal morals (see problem 1).

The fifth problem: Killing/murder are entirely subject to personal morals. There is no other way to judge these acts and give some kind of seperation of the two, without resorting to a legal defenition - often based on an originally personal ideal.

In essence, there is no true answer. Everyone who comes up with something with this will base it on their personal moral attitudes. Things like 'good' and 'evil' are extremely subjective and there are so many modifiers that it is fairly impossible to come up with a singular answer that would satisfy everyone. These problems are all without the inclusion of Religion, particularly the Christian conventions, that often further complicated ethics. So yeah. I've not given a proper answer, because there just isn't one.

 

[likalaruku]

I haven;t gotten the time to get to know A & B on a deep personal level, so their moral dilemmas aren't my problem.

 

[Krantos]

His motivations were immoral, that makes whatever act he committed immoral. Saving an innocent life, for immoral reasons is still immoral.


Obviously, that's just my opinion.

 

[Akytalusia]

despite his victim, since it was an act commited for 'evil reasons' then he's clearly dysfunctional, and his victim was circumstantial and could easily have been and will most likely be in the future, anyone else. thus he has revealed himself for what he is and brought upon himself the wrath of those who call for 'justice'. case closed.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Even putting aside legal issues, murder is such an inelegant solution. Sure it's final, but in a clinical sense. There's no poetry to it.

For a 'completely evil person' (ludicrous for a number of reasons) there is far more you can do to them than simply kill them. If anything, person B should be punished for not being imaginative enough.

 

[SilentCom]

Why cares? There's one less evil person around. The quesiton is whether it is right or wrong for a good person to kill an evil person.

Edit: By the way, evil is defined as working against what is deemed as morally correct and morals are essentially subject to the society that upholds them.

 

[Kathinka]

simple answer: yes, he deserves to be punished. the basic social contract says that we, as individuals, gain protection of a governement. for example protection from violence and murder attempts. the payoff is that the monopoly of force goes to this governement. only the governement body is allowed to use force.

grossely simplified, i know, but good enough for this.

the murderer violated the social contract and has to be punished, unless he acted in a manner that grants an exeption to the monopoly of force. self defense or the defense of innocents would be possible exeptions.

another possible point would be the rights of men.
i know the concept is pretty foreign to many people in the united states, but one of the rights of men is the right for life. and the basic human rights are, as we know, invulnerable (certain exeptions again, prison for isntance)

 

[Serge A. Storms]

My best response to the OP is to say that The Boondock Saints sucked. As far as the situation playing out IRL, he should be arrested and prosecuted. The defense can plead out to a lesser charge if the prosecution determines that A was such a shitbag that B really had to do it.

 

[MintyNinja]

Well if you kill B then it really is "killing two birds with one stone". Really, killing B is the best option here because you no longer have A or B!

 

[gbemery]

Hey guys,

So I've been thinking, and the following problem just occured to me.
Say that you have two people, let's call them A and B. Now A is a completely evil human being. Person B is not much better. Now let's say that person B kills person A for evil reasons. (The actual reason does not matter, all that matters is that the reasons are in some form evil, use your own moral compass to define 'evil', let's just say that B kills A because he wants to rob A, just an example, don't overthink this bit).

Now keeping in mind all of the above, does B deserve to be punished for killing A? And if yes how? (Anything goes). Please use philosophical/ethical reasons to justify, and keep legal reasons out of it.

Anyway, do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance.

By the way, I haven't yet come up with an answer to this problem.

Well if you are wanting to keep legal reasons out then I would assume you wouldn't want society's view of it. Therefore just judging the ethics of it from the perspective of Person A and Person B, no he shouldn't. My reasoning will be formed from the thought that since I am to believe both men are "evil", and since that which makes something evil is rather subjective then both of these men are "evil" for the same reasons for me to find them evil. Then following that Person B is not doing anything wrong from their perspectives since neither one of them would consider what they do to be "evil". I'll then assume judgement is being rendered from just the one person's ethics (person B) since 1. Person A is now dead and can't render his view and agree upon with person B as to what ethics are, and 2. since the ethics of others in society, ie pretty much what makes the standards for laws that govern a society (since pretty much laws are agreed upon ethics for a society in question), is being ignored in this case. Therefore if only person B's perspective and ethics are to be used then there is no reason to punish in his eyes because from his perspective he did nothing wrong by his standards of ethics. He was just doing something that is normal by his and person A's way of life.

 

[Olrod]

If we know that B is already evil, then sure why not punish him anyway?

If we didn't actually *know* that B was evil too, then there'd be more of an uncertainty as to whether B should be punished for killing A.

 

[Avdutch]

Awesome, lots of replies.

Anyway I've been thinking about this and some of you make a very good point, yes it is true that there is no 'objective' standard for evil or good and that morality is a difficult issue. However, there are certain things that are universally evil that are experienced as apathy by the individual committing them. (For instance stealing that shiny car, pleasure at getting the new car etc and also apathy regarding the owners/consequences etc).

Anyway, what I think is that 'yes he deserves to be punished because his intentions were evil'. I don't see this as an ends justify the means case because I feel this problem falls entirely outside that. (having an 'evil' motive, as an example a break-in gone wrong or something, can't be defined as 'ends' or 'means'.)

My background in philosophy isn't nearly enough to reasonably tackle this problem but I feel there are layers of complexity that I haven't even come close to scratching.

For instance: should person B's punishment be less compared to if he had killed a 'good' person. (I think that it shouldn't, that the fact that he had an 'evil' motive is grounds enough for the harshest possible punishment to be bestowed upon him.)

Oh and maybe I should clarify, while legal issues are of course very hard to avoid with this issue, by 'try to keep them out of it' I mean I wouldn't like to see legal reasons as a motivation for punishment/prosecution. At some point you will of course face the legal system to determine punishment, that's only realistic.

 

[Klopy]

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. Punishment should be the same for everyone for certain crimes; no special treatment. B killed A. Throw his ass in jail

 

[Nickolai77]

I think the thing with these questions is that they are set up in some sort of metaphorical "Laboratory" space, isolated from mainstream society so that we can extract some sort of "pure" philosophical answer.

On the contrary, i don't think we can isolate ethical questions from their wider social context- application is the ultimate use of ethics after all, so we have to consider what were the circumstances surrounding the murder and such.

But from what i'm given in the question, B has to be punished because for good reasons it's illegal to take another life in most states. B could only get away with it if it were murder in self-defence.