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The morality of killing

Siúil a Rúin

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What is your position on the morality of killing another human being?

Is it ever justified?

Can you explain your position from a philosophical moral standpoint?
 

SearchingforPeace

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Killing or murder?

Killing to defend innocents seems pretty justified. If some crazed person with a gun is attacking a school, it seems that there should be no concern about killing the crazed person with a gun.

Self defense is also a valid reason to kill someone else.

The problem becomes whether there was a credible, realistic threat or not. If someone merely imagines that their life is threatened by someone else, they could engage in what they term "self-defense" and not be engaged in self-defense at all. Many of the antifa and no-platform types justify their behavior on the basis of self-defense because the mere utterance of words contrary to their narrow worldview is an attack on them personally.....

Now, governments use both excuses to attack other countries and allege they are doing it protect innocents or in self-defense, which is largely the just war doctrine. "The unstable country is causing all kinds of problems for the whole world so let's go kill a bunch of the people there and install our own cronies!" or "They attacked us (but ignore all the things we did to attack them before that)" type deals.

I view most of those as bogus and manufactured, and most have a long list of provocations.

So, tl;dr version: killing to defend innocents or self-defense is justified and morally defensible, but can be abused, especially by governments or NGOs that present propaganda as fact.

What about death penalty? Interesting issue for sure. What to do with those who kill others? By killing someone else without justification, they have forfeited their rights in a society to live peaceable. Would life in prison be a better solution? Maybe. But maybe the Hammurabi Code got it right back thousands of years ago. Certain crimes require certain punishments. I am pretty OK with the death penalty, but I understand why others are not.

What about nonjudicial killings, like government operatives involved in espionage or drone strikes? Here is Obama on this topic: Obama Said He's 'Really Good At Killing People' - Business Insider

...According to the new book “Double Down,” in which journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann chronicle the 2012 presidential election, President Barack Obama told his aides that he’s “really good at killing people” while discussing drone strikes.

Thousands of people were killed in the name of the people of the United States of America last year alone, many of which were innocents, none in a declared war.

I really don't know how justified such behavior is. I question strongly attacking any civilians in a war, including things like firebombing Dresden and Tokyo and dropping the a-bomb on Hiroshima. Drone striking a wedding seems very unjustified.

Now, non-direct killing seems also extremely morally questionable. In WWI, the British enacted an illegal starvation blockage of Germany and kept it going after the end of the war. It resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. It is not morally justified.

Ultimately, there always be justifications for killing. Many will be completely immoral, but may be understandable. John Wilkes Booth felt justified in assassinating Lincoln, after all. Brutus and the rest of the assassins felt justified in killing Julius Caesar. In both cases, I believe the murders were immoral.
 

geedoenfj

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What is your position on the morality of killing another human being?
Klling for what it is, is not morally acceptable.. Unless in a certain very very limited context, like in a battle (that is of course should be for valid reasons) or defending one's land, fortune, family, or defending themselves..

Is it ever justified?
Sometimes it's even very necessary!


Can you explain your position from a philosophical moral standpoint?


Everyone has the right of living safely and in stability, whoever takes that right away from other people deserves to be punished, and knowing how serious the punishments they will receive would limit the possibilities of them doing it.. The details of each case differs of course, whether it's a murder or wars etc. but this is my philosophical standpoint
 

Red Herring

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Murder is wrong. I don't see how it can ever be justified.

I think it is part of the definition of murder that it is both illegal and unethical. The OP however, is about killing which just means causing the death of a person. This includes self defense, acts of war, death penalty, medical decisions like saving one of two conjoined twins , euthanesia and cannibalism. Ample room for discussion.

I'll contribute my own two cents later on.
 

Typh0n

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My opinion is that killing another human being can be justified, in cases of defense of one's own life, or property. Also, killing in order to save innocent people is justified.

What about in cases of war? When you are forced to go kill in the name of country? Well, it would depend on the nature of the war itself, whether the war itself is justified or not; invading another country? Not justified. Defending your own country from an invader? Justified.

This also brings up the issue of extrajudicial killings and what exactly constitutes an act of war. I think a government going to kill innocent people (innocent because they are not declared in a war) in the name of democracy is certainly wrong.
 

Agent Washington

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On some level, I'd like to say it's not justified. I'm a transcendental idealist, so there's that.

It really does come down to "assuming everything goes fine, no WWIII between US and USSR because USSR's greatest threat was literally nazi germanz anyway, and there's no paradox, if you can go back in time, would you kill Hitler?"

I haven't exactly made up my mind, honestly, about where to draw the line. In historical cases, you'll see all sorts of justifications, and there's always a paradigm shift when one mode of knowlege eventually is discredited (or, even if it's discredited, still keep circulating). I'd like to be able to plant my foot down and say, "it's wrong", I guess, because of this.
 

wool

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I think it is part of the definition of murder that it is both illegal and unethical. The OP however, is about killing which just means causing the death of a person. This includes self defense, acts of war, death penalty, medical decisions like saving one of two conjoined twins , euthanesia and cannibalism. Ample room for discussion. I'll contribute my own two cents later on.
I'm not trying to shut down discussion.
I don't think taking a life is ever justified, though. No matter the context, or situation.
Life is not ours to take, even our own.
 

Kanra Jest

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Hm.

More complicated than that.

Life is precious. But sometimes you must defend yourself lest you be the one dead. Common sense. Unless you wish to pacifistically commit apathetic suicide. Such is the way of things.
 
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