quote:By circumstances, I mean the motives for coming at someone with a knife. I'm sure that the two people in this situation could come up with some compromise that doesn't involve killing.
I guess I'm trying to say that deep down inside, no one kills just for the pleasure of it - everyone has some motive that they feel justifies it.
Of course I may be blatantly wrong.
OK, so you're saying if all parties involved truly looked for an alternative one could be found. I'll buy that.
I interpreted as saying a given person could always find an alternative on their own. Sorry abou that.
I do have a major caveat on serial killers fitting into that, but I suppose intervention early enough could stop even then, as long as we're talking in the hypothetical.
quote: Really? So if the person being run at says "Wait, wait. Let's talk about this." you think the one doing the running will stop and agree to that?
RRR, in my first post I said
quote:Maybe killing is necessary in certain situations, but if you understand the reasons and cirumstances surrounding the situation, a non-violent solution can always be found.
I believe this one of those "certain situations" that it would be necessary in.
quote: I interpreted as saying a given person could always find an alternative on their own. Sorry abou that.
No problem Dagonee Posts: 2756 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote: "On Mars the solution to a state of famine seems obvious, a portion of the population is selected to serve the greater good by becoming food, it seems obvious and it was a great honor to be so selected..."
Valintine Micheal Smith
Never think that your particular tastes are universal codes of conduct, they are just local customs that work well enough to get by.
I think eating the cabin boy was cowardly, one of the adults should have killed himself to feed the others. That would be Heroism.
posted
Irami, Andrew uses that case in his Legal Ethics and Contemporary Moral Issues class. I think it was his first case in law school, too, Dag.
In fact, he recently went over the case and said, "I know what you're thinking. Ewwwww, turnips." Apparently no one laughed, but I thought it was hilarious.
As to the issue at hand, I feel that it's my duty to protect myself (and my loved ones) from an attacker and I will do whatever I have to do for us all to survive. If a stranger was in my house, holding a knife over my child, I would shoot him without hesitation. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that he means to kill my child - what other purpose could he possibly have?
Posts: 3037 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote: quote: "On Mars the solution to a state of famine seems obvious, a portion of the population is selected to serve the greater good by becoming food, it seems obvious and it was a great honor to be so selected..."
Valintine Micheal Smith
Never think that your particular tastes are universal codes of conduct, they are just local customs that work well enough to get by.
If you must quote, please at least learn how to spell the name of the person you are quoting....even if it is a fictional person.
Feel free to move to Mars then...with the lag, we won't have to worry about any more posts for a while....
Also, if all you can come up with to justify a moral stance is a quote from SIASL, perhaps you shoudl rethink it....assuming you bothered to on the first place, that is....
posted
I would argue that there are times when killing someone is to be the preferred of several options, or have none of you read Ender's Game?
We could incarcerate killers, but I would prefer them to be publicly killed, it is more of a deterrent and it brings some closure to those near the victims.
To take up the 'guy who broke in' analogy, I would not only kill him, but I would put up a picture of him in my yard that said "This guy is dead because he tried to break into my house and harm my child, you want to try your luck?"
They would likely make me take his head down from a pole.
posted
It warms my heart to know our nation has given you the responsibility of defending it with a weapon.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:I would argue that there are times when killing someone is to be the preferred of several options, or have none of you read Ender's Game?
Yes, and in each case where Ender kills, there is something that could have been done to avoid it. Maybe not by Ender, but by somebody.
The first kid could have not been a bully, or the monitor monitors could have protected Ender. Bonso could have been treated or iced sooner. Had they not sent the fleet after the buggers, there would have been no need for the third war.
I don't think anyone is saying that we always have the knowledge necessary to implement the alternatives. But the alternatives exist.
posted
You mistake me, I am saying that there are times when you chose killing in full knowlege of the options. You do so because the result is better. Ender knew he could just hurt and move on, he prefered to END the threat for good and make an example for others to beware of. That way he did not have to fight the same fight over and over, or fear the same bully twice.
posted
Yes, and that philosophy is not necessarily inconsistent with the idea that there's always a way to avoid the killing and get a better outcome, assuming cooperation from all sides.
Well, a hypothetical world, anyway. Everyone on this thread has pretty much said sometimes killing is necessary.
The next step in the discussion is whether or not such necessity always indicates a moral failing that could be avoided. You've yet to give a single counter example.
posted
I thought everybody listed morally responsible killing, killings for the common good, and for personal safety, and in war.
What are you looking for? A killing where both are morally in the right, where niether is acting in an evil manner and whoever wins, the outcome is good for society... Hmmm tricky but not impossible.
posted
What irks me isn't that BC and Jarhead are serving their country proudly it is the glee with which they talk about subjugating by force. The idea that violence may be neccessary isn't that hard for most folks to swallow, but wallowing in it like a pig in a bog kicks in the gag reflex.
quote: I ask because it was stated by someone that killing a person in war is 'always wrong' while I would say it is almost always the right thing to do.
Elsewhere it was remarked "How much bonus would you need to kill someone." or some such noise. Well I got no bonus at all, I went in fat and desperate and came out lean and mean, bonus enough for me.
Let me address this, since both statements -- albeit misquoted -- are mine.
It is always wrong to kill someone. Always. Period.
It is, however, sometimes the only responsible resolution to a larger dilemma.
That does not make it RIGHT. It doesn't even make it less wrong. It makes it justifiable, but still wrong.
I think people often take too simplistic a view of the world; the idea I'm fighting against here is that something is "right" if there's a justification for it. I agree with Jar Head, of course, that the military teaches people to think in this fashion; it would be almost impossible for soldiers to be paid to kill other people otherwise: the killing is justified, and therefore "right," and therefore not a sin.
This is, I submit, an inherently corrupt and utilitarian way of recognizing sin.
My second quote, of course, was a question directed at Stryker -- who's contemplating the military because he'd like to feel useful and needs some cash for college. But there are far better and more productive ways to be useful to one's country; the unique thing about the military is that you can be useful in the specific capacity of being hired to kill people. So if Stryker's primary concern, then, is money for college, I wondered how much money it would take for him to be willing to kill people; if that amount is offered to him, the military may be a decent career.
I myself contemplated the military when I got out of high school; they dangled several carrots. But I decided that if I wouldn't accept ten million dollars to shoot a hobo, I wouldn't accept two hundred thousand for pushing a red button to hurl a cruise missile.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
For the record I have already served my country. My only task now is to keep an eye out for the weird on the interstate, and given the amount of weird that is normal it is no easy task.
I have considered going over to Iraq as a Civilian Contractor driver, the pay is astonishing but they make you pay to submit a resume which chaffes my ass.
Posts: 117 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:What irks me isn't that BC and Jarhead are serving their country proudly it is the glee with which they talk about subjugating by force. The idea that violence may be neccessary isn't that hard for most folks to swallow, but wallowing in it like a pig in a bog kicks in the gag reflex.
You know, I think a lot of that may be a coping mechanism. I'm not trying to speak for Jar Head or anyone else, but being married to a firefighter, I would sometimes be shocked at the black humor and the way they spoke about the people they treated. I finally had to accept that they had to find a way to deal with what they saw on a day in day out basis - and by turning it into something that they could laugh and poke fun at, it made it more bearable.
I mean, if you knew some of the statements made by firefighters about the people they see - it would turn your stomach. But, I'm not the one that sees kids dead in car wrecks because their parents didn't use a car seat. I don't take care of shooting and stabbing victims night in and night out. I don't drive to a rescue call and get fired at. (they have had to send the rescue unit in to the city body shop for bullet holes more than once) I don't have to pull bodies out of burned up houses or inform people their loved ones are dead.
This is one way they cope. I think soldiers put on a show of bravado that helps them cope with what they do, so I don't judge them for those statements.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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