Poll: Is it ever moral to kill when it is not in self defense?
- Thread starter 2012 Wont Happen
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I would say no. That being said I think morality is over rated and should be replaced by a sort of karmic point system in which I can sleep with my friends girlfriend and not feel guilty because I donated blood at work thus getting me back into the + zone.
I don't really have a problem with taking another person's life if they deserve it. You know kill the generic douche bags of history, kill the douche bags of today (criminals, rapists, Donald Trump, Madoff, ect.) and then get rid of some people who I personally don't like...In retrospect I'm kind of a bad person...
Only ever as a form of euphemism or if the person has actually, soberly asked for it and you know they mean it,
In someone else's defence perhaps? For example, when someone is going to kill someone I love, I'm not in danger, but I'm sure as HELL going to defend that person.
Well I hate to say this since I know what you mean but... Morals are subjective. Sorry, had to. -_-
As for what I know you are implying, yes. However my answers could probably be described as proactive self defense... Also, defending others.
As for what I know you are implying, yes. However my answers could probably be described as proactive self defense... Also, defending others.
I'd kill a wannabe suicide bomber, with out the blink of an eye. Even a hostage taker, there are just particular crime's I find repulsive, even if they aren't directed at me personally.
You have to be more precise when you say "killing" for example when you accidentally squish a bug then technically you killed him, is that moral? If you are a stocks broker and buy stocks that causes a company to go bankrupt which causes its director to commit suicide is that killing? Is it moral? Planet earth's entire natural system is built upon killing in order to live, the real question would be "Is needless killing moral?"
As a person who subsribes to the deontological field of ethical decision making, one of the prima facie wrongs of deontology is to kill, no matter what the circumstances. Deontologists believe in doing the 'right' thing, no matter what the conseqences might be. Hence it is wrong to take a life no matter what the mitigating circumstances might be around that, and this is a theory that I subscribe too. I just can't fathom the idea of taking a life, in self defence or because the person deserved it or any other reason. I just see it as wrong and I can't do it. Life is sacrasanct, I believe it is wrong to take it at any stage, no matter what other options are available to me. It's just the way deontology works.
Look, I believe whatever goes around comes around. I mean, given the chance why should you kill someone just because they're as evil as Hitler, they're your fellow man (Unless they're some kind of wierd alien bent on destruction, by all means grab the shovel then). And with what I was saying before about people always getting their just desserts, Hitler killed himself in a bunker to spare himself from the torture the...allied forces? Would put him through, now he's gone down in history as one of the most if not the most evil, cold-hearted pricks to ever grace this land. Caligula, offed after being stabbed thirty times from conspirators (Ok, bad example). And I'm sorry that I sounded like some kind of hippy douchebag in this post, if anything I could make PETA puke and Greenpeace piss blood over the space of breakfast.
Well, assuming I've just found myself all alone at the door of a warehouse where some men are about to start making a porn film, the female stars are 6-yr-old twin sisters and I've got the firepower but no 'phone and the nearest police are forty minutes away ...
... hell yes!
Okay, so proof by example is considered kin of lame in some places but, really, if you ask about "ever" then a positive example counts, doesn't it?
I agree with the poster who answered with "assisted suicide" too, and under extreme conditions "putting someone out of his misery" would count too.
... hell yes!
Okay, so proof by example is considered kin of lame in some places but, really, if you ask about "ever" then a positive example counts, doesn't it?
I agree with the poster who answered with "assisted suicide" too, and under extreme conditions "putting someone out of his misery" would count too.
Wow. Hello Gandhi. How've you been?2012 Wont Happen said:
Hmmm.
Families killing girls for trying to escape arranged marriages, religious mobs stoning girls to death for adultery because they were gang-raped, insurance companies treating rape and domestic abuse as pre-existing conditions and refusing to cover victims or covering them then refusing to pay, corporations committing multiple offences under multiple acts, re-offending under the guise of putting things right and then getting laws adjusted in their favour because they have money, people throwing live animals onto fires, yobs battering people to death for daring to ask them to quieten down at 1am, gangs of 14-yr-olds raping tourists and throwing them into the Thames to drown, cops lunging across the street to knock people off bicycles and then charging them with assaulting an officer, governments colluding to invade oil-rich nations on fallacious pretexts, racist mobs laying claim to areas of cities, elected "representatives" ignoring the needs and interests of millions of people to suck up to a few rich b_____ds, people machine-gunning dolphins, tanks rolling over protestors, people flying airliners into tower-blocks, bombs going off on trains, hypocritical drug addicts ranting on the radio trying to stop anything being done to improve anyone's lot except their own, corporations trying to ban reporting of their questionable activities, beauty spots disappearing under litter, multi-million-dollar disinformation and deception campaigns to persuade people to sacrifice their grandchildren's world for someone else's short-term profit and people buying into it for some illusory freedom or status, governments underwriting fraud with the victims' money .....
..... and you think human lives are valuable. Oh look, there goes another species, driven to extinction by the ever-increasing population of humans. It's not as if the biosphere would suffer greatly from the "loss" of two to four billion humans over the course of a couple of years.
They might have guns. If they've got guns, until they're dead they're dangerous, and I want to finish the job.ArmoredSandwich said:
If I shoot them all in the knees they'll sue.
Aside from the practicality of it, I didn't actually say I'd have to, as that's not what the OP asked. The OP asked:
After all, you don't really have to kill someone who's dying in untreatable agony of an incurable disease that's going to take six months to kill them, do you? You don't have to kill the guy standing over your friend, neighbour, brother, sister, son, daughter, wife, grandmother or whomever with an axe, preparing to kill them, do you? Really?
Finally ... just ... try to actually imagine that scenario. Really imagine it. Think it through. Now, seriously, wouldn't you?
I'm not advocating shooting them in the guts and leaving them to die slowly. I just don't see it as immoral to kill them.
I just love how people keep on saying that humans are absolute bastards [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumansAreBastards] without thinking about any of the amazing things that our species has done. Humankind can only destroy on the same level that we create.Shoqiyqa said:
We've built cities of millions, survived plagues, harnessed the energy of everything from steam to atomic nuclei, edited the basic material of life itself, made machines that do everything from build nanometre-thin circuitry to mimic a human heart and lungs, turned bananas from seed pods with a little flesh to what they are today, built a ski resort in the middle of a desert, made art of every type from paintings to cinema, created materials stronger than anything found in nature, dug tunnels through mountains, inhabited every environment on the face of the earth, created a system of law, studied the basic mechanics of the universe, built a permanently manned space station, leaned to use invisible beams of radiation to communicate instantly with people worldwide, created the concept of currency, grown the ability to think abstractly, made vehicles that range from horse-drawn carriages to jet aircraft available to most of the world, and we have an exponential cycle of technological growth that ensures that we will learn to both create and destroy on scales larger than most people now could imagine in just a few generations.
You talk as if we were destroying all that has been seen under the sun, raping each other in the streets and manipulating everything for personal gain. It is not all mankind doing this any more than all knives are being used to murder. For every greedy, self-serving and ignorant man there is another who spends his time making the wonders that most people take for granted each day. For every atomic bomb, we have nuclear power. For every murderer we have a doctor. A human life is worth more than an animals because we have the potential to improve ourselves beyond anything that they could be (not that animal life is worthless) but not much capacity to sink any lower (many animals have been known to kill one another just as we do; we just happen to punish murderers).
Well-said Aussiesniper. I know I posted recently on the "Good humans" thread, but anyway, back on topic-
If you know someone is using their position of power to kill thousands and you wish to kill that person in defense of those thousands, then that is self-defense. The legal self-defense clause extends to family members and I believe other people as well.
Everyone knows you can't kill Hitler - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitlekz83hawz
@grimsprice - If i know, for a fact, that someone is going to kill 2 people. And i know for a fact that there is no other alternative than to kill them. I will kill them. Period. However, if there is even a shadow of a doubt about either point, then i would seek a different method.
This is where things get fuzzy. What is fact in a world where evidence can be so easily fabricated? How can you *ever* KNOW what someone will do? Even if you had this god-like omniscient ability, can you kill a man for a crime he has not committed? >> Minority Report
Is there an easier way of changing the situation beyond killing them? Say, relieving them of power? Kidnapping and putting them in a box? Allow me to direct you to the Evil Baby Orphanage.
In the words of Obi-Wan, if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine..
@Kubanator - Wow, I always love it when people choose to be ignorant.
@mrhappyface - If they fire at you with the intention to kill, and you shot back and killed them, you're conscience is cleared.
That said, you don't know if a person is being *forced* to shoot at you, being framed, drugged, mentally incompetent, etc. Ask any cop on the cop end of "suicide by cop."
@inverse skies -
Are you saying that at no point in your time on the planet you have never killed any animal? Heck, you haven't specified whether consuming a plant is killing them.
If you know someone is using their position of power to kill thousands and you wish to kill that person in defense of those thousands, then that is self-defense. The legal self-defense clause extends to family members and I believe other people as well.
Everyone knows you can't kill Hitler - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitlekz83hawz
@grimsprice - If i know, for a fact, that someone is going to kill 2 people. And i know for a fact that there is no other alternative than to kill them. I will kill them. Period. However, if there is even a shadow of a doubt about either point, then i would seek a different method.
This is where things get fuzzy. What is fact in a world where evidence can be so easily fabricated? How can you *ever* KNOW what someone will do? Even if you had this god-like omniscient ability, can you kill a man for a crime he has not committed? >> Minority Report
Is there an easier way of changing the situation beyond killing them? Say, relieving them of power? Kidnapping and putting them in a box? Allow me to direct you to the Evil Baby Orphanage.
In the words of Obi-Wan, if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine..
@Kubanator - Wow, I always love it when people choose to be ignorant.
@mrhappyface - If they fire at you with the intention to kill, and you shot back and killed them, you're conscience is cleared.
That said, you don't know if a person is being *forced* to shoot at you, being framed, drugged, mentally incompetent, etc. Ask any cop on the cop end of "suicide by cop."
@inverse skies -
Are you saying that at no point in your time on the planet you have never killed any animal? Heck, you haven't specified whether consuming a plant is killing them.
Yes if the reason I don't kill them there and then, they will kill many other people then i have no problem with that.