Waxing the killing floor

[motherengine]

can murder be righteous, justifiable, or socially viable outside of acts of war and the government sanctioned killings politically termed 'punishment'?

[Morphyous]

Yeh, if his names George Bush. :(

[Fishteacher73]

Depending in your POV, yes. Very easily. Look at any genocide. They almost were all considered righteous and justified. Morality is subjective so anything can be considered immoral or moral depending on your POV. Alcohol is considered taboo by Islam, but many Christian sects use it in their rites.

 

While morality I think can be considered subjective, ethics is more objective. Ethical code must be logically derived without theological inferences.

 

So is murder ethical? No. In any circumstance I think, murder is unethical and cannot be logically justified. There are alternatives that are non-leathal.

[Morphyous]

There are alternatives that are non-leathal.

Not so permanent though

[Fishteacher73]

Would life imprisionment not be permanent?

 

Perhaps murder would have sounded better to Charles Robberts Swart (S. African President when Mandela was imprisioned for life), but at least life imprisonment is reversable....

[sanctus]

Fishteacher, I don't agree that ethics is objective (or as you put it more objective than morality).

Picture yourself for example a man a woman, the man sitting on a chair and eating the woman sitting at his feet eating as well. With the common ethics we would say that not right, why should the woman be lower than the man? Now this couple belongs to a tribe that veneres the ground as the source of everything, so it is actually a honor to eat on the ground. Now how do we put it with our "common ethics"?

 

And murder can be ethical. By your definition ethical it is if it is logically derived (without theological interferences), there are heaps of logical derivation why a nurder could be ethical. Example: if I don't kill him he might potentially kill me, I don't want to risk that, so I kill him (by this reasoning I should eventually kill all life). It is very logic and without theology.

[C1ay]

can murder be righteous, justifiable, or socially viable outside of acts of war and the government sanctioned killings politically termed 'punishment'?

 

No! Murder is the unlawful killing of one human by another. Unlawful killings can never be righteous, justifiable or socially acceptable. While people are killed in acts of war and by the government as punishment as approved by the people, these are not acts of murder because they are lawful killings.

[Fishteacher73]

Why would murder be neccessary? You can defend yourself without killing.

 

It is illogical to place people in a social hierarchy anyway, so the example is flawed. (not be argumentative). The fact that the two have been set in a caste system (at least while eating) removes them from a logical system. It is illogical to subjugate women, so the converse is true as well.

[IrishEyes]

I agree with C1ay - 'murder' is never ok.

Is ending someone's life outside of execution or war ok? Yes, of course it is. Sometimes, regardless of what Fish may say - ending someone's life is the only answer. Of course, the alternatives should always be explored. But in general, it's not a good thing to use "never" or "always", as there can usually be found an exception that will violate your "absolute" laws, right my liberal friends? :cup:

[Queso]

I would kill if i had to, even if it meant a life of isolation, it had to be done.

Maybe it's just my inner desires to be a cowboy and rob banks for a living, but for some reason I believe in some cases vengeance is good. I'm not going to go collect the heads of all the bullies in my life or anything, but if a cartel killed all my family and friends, you know his *** is mine :)

:cup: I suppose I got a bit off the point. It's all how you look at it, the point of view, as everybody has already said.

[C1ay]

And murder can be ethical. By your definition ethical it is if it is logically derived (without theological interferences), there are heaps of logical derivation why a nurder could be ethical. Example: if I don't kill him he might potentially kill me, I don't want to risk that, so I kill him (by this reasoning I should eventually kill all life). It is very logic and without theology.

 

I disagree. The word murder is specifically defined as an unlawful killing. Acts of war, capital punishment, self defense and/or self preservation are all lawful acts and do not fall under the umbrella of murder. Outside of this list, I can think of few reasons that homicide could be considered righteous, justifiable or ethical. Killing a killer to save the lives of others would be an example. I could also understand a killing of passion or vengeance to avenge the killing of family or friends, but would not particularly agree that it's ethical, even if it might be righteous or justifiable.

 

I can also imagine cases of self preservation that I would not consider ethical or honorable, even if technically legal. Imagine being trapped on a deserted island with one of your own children with only enough food for one and then starving or killing your child to save yourself. In the same situation I would not even necessarily considerate it honorable or ethical to outright kill a stranger just save yourself, even though I might understand why somebody would.

 

Just my 2¢,

[sanctus]

So actually we agree. Where you make a difference between murder and homicide I make none. I don't know if you already read some of my older post, but anyway I'm a pacifist so for me something like lawful killing just doesn't exist.

In my earlier post in this thread I just wanted to point out as you did as well, that there can be logical derivation to kill.