Natural Rights

[GePap]

Originally posted by loinburger
You've yet to show anything from any source defining murder totally separate from the concepts of premeditation and malice

And you any definition that excludes unlawful, so you don;t have apoint here.

Only two of your five definitions failed to include "malice" or "premeditation" in the noun definitions, and of those, one of the two mentions "malice" while the other mentions "premeditation." Further, both of those two used "malice" and "premeditation" in the verb forms as they relate to the noun forms (e.g. "to kill (a human) with premeditated malice" is obviously related to the noun form, whereas "to spoil by bad performance" is unrelated). What's more, you have admitted yourself that "unlawful killing" is an incomplete definition, so I fail to see what the fuss is about.

It is less incompleet than yours, since it addresses the Humans and namial distinction better than your two word definition.

You change "the big question" being addressed by the debate halfway through, and accuse me of engaging in a poor debating strategy? You completely missed the point about "malicious intent" -- if I hate Joe Schmoe, and accidentally kill him, then this is not murder despite the fact that I have malice towards Joe Schmoe. If I killed him with malicious intent then it could constitute murder, and if I exhibit malice towards him but accidentally kill him then I did not kill him with malicious intent. "But soldiers are mean!" So friggin what? I brought up the killing of prisoners and non-coms because these are the only times, as far as I can see, when a soldier is capable of killing with malicious intent -- if I shoot somebody who's trying to shoot me, then it doesn't matter how much I don't like the guy, I didn't kill him with malicious intent.

Sorry, but you were not trying to answer the question in the first place, and when I corrected this, you scream that the topic was changed. Plus, I am not arguing for malicious intent, so i do not know where you bring this up. I obnly am arguing about the fundamental connection between murder and the concept of law, or at the least, rules. As for your soldier example: No, you don;t only shoot people shooting at you: for example, and ambush is a trap, and the very plan is meant to be that you kill them before they are any threat to you. The civilians in cities being bombed in no way represented a threat to life opf the air crews, but the crewmen are not guilty of murder for killing those people. And in hand to hand fighting (the bigger part of war history), it is hard to think of killing not being malicious, plus, if we delve historically, the sacking of cities was considered lawfull, and thus the horrid slughter of the inhabitants was not murder.

"Killing with premeditated malice."

So if I kill a hog with premeditated malice, am I a murderer? Oh, woops, look, you short definition gives no hint that murder defines only actions between human beings! Do you somehow infer it? Then why could one not also infer unlawful? As I said, a short definition of murder is not possible.

You're the one who's suddenly decided to turn this into a linguistics/anthropology debate rather than a philosophical debate, so it's only fair that you cast the first stone -- provide solid linguistic/anthropological evidence that the term "murder" did not come into existence prior to the codification of laws.

To me the tow are not separate, as they are to you: you being the one who chose to separate them and treat them apart. As the one who decided to make them two disctint arguements, and not one whole, it still falls unto you. But as I sai, it is impossible to find anthropological evidence, sicne any recorded definition comes after the creation of cities and thus laws.

Involuntary manslaughter is a misdemeanor.

And you define that two broadly. The example I gave simp;ly does not ft as involutary manslaughter: if you chose to kill, it can not be involuntary.

You continue to miss the point -- the question of whether or not it is possible to define murder without the use of the term "unlawful" is entirely different from the question of whether or not the term murder ought to be defined without the use of the term "unlawful." For some reason you keep insisting that I'm trying to answer the second question. I'm not. I'm trying to answer the first, so it's hardly a "problem" for me that the contemporary definition of murder incorporates the term "unlawful."

Your definition is sadly imcomplete, as it does not even address the issue of man-animal. So you have to make it longer yet again, and no, as I said above, you can not separate the two arguements as you are trying to do. They are tied together, as far as this arguement goes.

When did I say that this could be considered involuntary manslaughter?

Can you involutarily commit manslaughter in any way other than being ingaged in another crime at the time you accidentally kill someone? A simple car accident is not involunatry manslaughter if it happened while both drivers were following the law. Only if one is invlved in some aspect of lawbreaking (like speeding) can it then become involuntary maslaughter: the very aspect of somehting unlawful can not be separated even for this.

Again, you accuse me of using a poor debating strategy, and then you resort to using cheap tricks like "you asked a question about my example, making me the victor!" Get off your high horse and expand the question, or else content yourself with my answer of "murder is always performed with malicious intent."

You did not answer the question which prompted your response. If you dot answer the questiopn, what should I think?

Again, you're arguing from a strawman. My position is "it is possible to create a definition of murder independently of the law," not "we ought to use a definition of murder that is independent of the law." Please explain why my inability to come up with an example of a "legal murder" negates the first position.

It is possible to create a definition? It is possible to create a new definition for anything, now isn't it? And that was never the point. It would be possible to define a horse as a cow with a horn, but it does nothing. My interest has always been to make it clear that the concept of law can not be separated from that of murder: I am not interested in making up incomplete definitions for a term being used here is a serious debate. I am interested in finding one common definition that we can use in it, and one that is faithful to what the meaing of the word is, and where the word comes from. If this is not what you are interested in doing, then simply stop, becuase it detracts form the greater arguement of natural rights, which is what I am trying to do, and the thread is about.

My mockery was related to the fact that your five sources all confirmed that "premeditated malice" is a common element in the definition of "murder." The terms "premeditation" and "malice" can exist independently of a code of laws, therefore it is fairly easy to conceive of a primitive pre-legal definition of the term "murder" that amounts to "killing with premeditated malice". QED.

And yet they also all mentioned unlawful. What you are "tyring" to do is chop out one universal thread and say that another two are good enough: that to me is intellectual dishonesty. As for your second leap of logic: to do that you have to back it up with a philosophical discussion about how such a definition is possible, specially since you have yet to answer why "premeditation and malice" somehow change the act of killing so much that a new word and concept would be needed at that point. And that simply returns then to my point, that you can NOT separate the concept of mruder from law, or at the minimum, morality, rules, norms, customs.

[Imran Siddiqui]

"Killing with premeditated malice."

What about soldiers? Are they guilty of murder, in your opinion?

[GePap]

The fundamental difference between "homicide" and "murder" is that homicide does not necessarily violate reciprocity, while murder does violate reciprocity. Put another way: I have a given set of desires, and to maintain consistency I am required to operate on the assumption that you (or anybody else) shares these desires, or I must adequately justify the position that you (or whoever else) is somehow different from me in such a way that you (or whoever) does not share some or all of these desires. I don't desire to be accidentally killed any more than the next guy, but the difference between being accidentally killed and being murdered (read "being killed with premeditated malice") is that somebody guilty of involuntary manslaughter has not necessarily shown that he is incapable of reciprocating with others, while somebody guilty of murder has shown that he is incapable of reciprocating -- hence the difference in the crimes. "The Rules" simply amount to reciprocation with others.

First of all, on the issue of "involuntary manslaughter", to repeat what i said above: this can only occur if the action you were taking that lead to the accidental death of another was somehow, in itself, unlawful. A purely accidental killing is not a crime of any sort.So fiy uo are using "involuntary manslaughter" as your other, you have yet to do what you claim you want to do, which is separate yourself from the idea of laws.

Now, to the rest:

First of all, notice how you say "the difference in crimes": still havent separated form the concept of law, if you are talking about crimes. As for the other: what legitimacy do you have, what authority do you have, to label the acts? What I mean by this is that anyone can call anything murder: they can lie, no? Just saying it is so does not make it saw. Who then decides what is murder and what is not? What shows, as you said above, that the other person will not share reciprocity? What if, as I said before, you do it in a premeditated way (which is what makes it different from an accident), but without malice? Planning the act is enough to show that you do not care for reciprocity, and yet, that would not be murder by your definition.


But enoguht of this, because as I say to you in the previous post, I am not interested in playing with definitions, but in showing that the concept of murder ca not be sepaarted from the idea of law, and given that your method of "showing this" amounted to willingly ignoring one vital part of the definition and goping with only two others, is not valid, as far as I am concerned. The only way for you to do so is to build up the philosophical arguement that would allow you to dump one of the vital parts without utterly redefining the word.

[Kidlicious]

Boy. Berzerker and the rest of the Libertarians still got you all going on this sillyness?

[Imran Siddiqui]

The fundamental difference between "homicide" and "murder" is that homicide does not necessarily violate reciprocity, while murder does violate reciprocity.

To pick up on this, I'm not entirely sure this is correct. Voluntary Manslaughter is basically a 'crime of passion' as relating to killing. I would think that a man that has seen his wife in bed with another man and then kills him with a butcher's knife is incapable of reciprocity. You don't want someone around that flys off the handle like that, right?

But Voluntary Manslaughter isn't murder.

[GePap]

A question Imran (since you are the one studying to be a lawyer):

Is a purely accidental killing involuntary manslaughter, or must the party who;s action lead to the accidental death have been engaged in some other misdemeanor at the time, a misdemeanor that lead to the situation that lead to the accidental death?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Is a purely accidental killing involuntary manslaughter, or must the party who;s action lead to the accidental death have been engaged in some other misdemeanor at the time, a misdemeanor that lead to the situation that lead to the accidental death?

It depends (as is the answer to everything in lawschool ). Purely accidental killing with no negligence (ie, the person runs across the highway) carries no penalties. Involuntary manslaughter is best characterized by calling it a 'negligent' homicide. Murder (of all stripes) is basically purposeful, knowingly, or reckless homicide. Voluntary manslaughter is murder while embroiled with anger, the crime of 'passion'. Involuntary manslaughter is negligent homicide.

So a pure accident, where you weren't acting negligently, doesn't get you hit with any crime. For another example, if you were hunting in the forest and you heard a sound and shot what you thought was a bear, but was a man... no charge. Now if you were waiving your gun around a hunting lodge and it went off killing someone, then involuntary manslaughter (btw: it'd be a streach to call it reckless... since it is a hunting lodge and people carry guns... even so it wasn't reckless enough).

[GePap]

Just as I thought.

[Berzerker]

Gepap -

And you are in the very small minority of those that think there is sucha thing as natural rights..

Yes, but I didn't accuse you of being the only one who defined murder in a twisted manner which is what you accused me of doing. As others have shown, I'm not the only one who recognises the broader definition and concept of murder and certainly not in any deceitful or patently or absurdly false manner as even the definitions you've supplied prove.

There are Gods in myths, and one hell of a law maker in the Bible. All those things you mention happen in places with laws, not human ones, but devine ones. (notice, not NATURAL ones)

Are you suggesting governments invented those myths of gods and their activities? What government invented Cain's murder of Abel (were they divine too?)? This biblical story came before the 10 Commandments and even those laws preceded the legal code in Leviticus (or is it Deuteronomy?). So, if God gave the 10 Commandments, government didn't invent them.

That you consider the killing immoral (and perhaps call them murders now) does not make them murders. Sorry.

You wanted linguistic or anthropoligical proof and I gave it, sorry you can't handle it.

And on the dwefintiions: as I told Loin, mangling a song is also in most of the definitions definition.

Whaaaa???

I guess you think people have a fundamental desire not to hear mangled songs..Lets close all the Kareoke Bars!

You don't have to close them, just don't go to them. You're still avoiding my questions, I'm not surprised. Such behavior is characteristic of someone lacking a defense for their indefensible arguments. Btw, obviously the person "mangling" the song does want to hear the song, so the desire to not hear mangled songs isn't universal.

The question is Berz, which part of the definition ois the one that matters, unless you want to make beating another team decisevely a crime against narual rights too (since this is yet another definition given...)

Why is it an either-or question? If the dictionary offers two definitions of the word "murder" within the context of killing another person, why wouldn't both be valid? You think these publishers placed an invalid definition of murder in their dictionaries? One deals with laws being in place and the other deals in more general terms in order to recognise that murder can occur even without laws.

Keep Gepap

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Gepap
Since you have yet to show anything from any source defining murder, or speaking about murder totally seperate form the oncept of law, what ground do you stand on

Originally posted by loinburger
You've yet to show anything from any source defining murder totally separate from the concepts of premeditation and malice

Originally posted by GePap
And you any definition that excludes unlawful, so you don;t have apoint here.

Jesus H. Christ, just look at what you've done! Look, dammit, just look! In****ingcredible. You've been doing this throughout the entire thread, but never this baldly...

Originally posted by Gepap
It is less incompleet than yours, since it addresses the Humans and namial distinction better than your two word definition.

It's against the law to kill your neighbor's dog (destruction of property or something along those lines, you can either ask Imran for the specifics or else behave like a condescending **** again, whatever floats your boat). It's against the law to kill the member of an endangered species. Pick your poison and suck it down.

Sorry, but you were not trying to answer the question in the first place, and when I corrected this, you scream that the topic was changed.

I was answering the question, but your selective reading capacity continued to ignore the point. You've done it again, I might add -- you asked me to justify why a primitive pre-legal society would want to have a definition of "murder," I pointed out that I'd already provided such a justification, and rather than address my justification you completely ignore the point. What's absolutely amazing to me is that you missed the point yet again -- you ask me the same question again at the bottom of this post. In****ingcredible.

(This is the danger inherent with this kind of debate -- it's necessary to cut up the posts in order to make them legible, but this only makes it all the easier for "some people" to selectively ignore sections of the other person's posts.)

"Killing with premeditated malice."

So if I kill a hog with premeditated malice, am I a murderer?

"Unlawful killing" would also label such an act as murder. See above, and suck it down. If it will prevent any further twattery on your part, then simply substitute "homicide" for "killing" as necessary. I thought that this was implicit in the argument (seeing as how you've been using the term in this manner as well), but apparently I've got to spell everything out.

To me the tow are not separate, as they are to you: you being the one who chose to separate them and treat them apart. As the one who decided to make them two disctint arguements, and not one whole, it still falls unto you. But as I sai, it is impossible to find anthropological evidence, sicne any recorded definition comes after the creation of cities and thus laws.

Huzzah, so you're intentionally demanding proof that you admit doesn't even exist! Intellectual dishonesty at its finest. You're the one who is claimimg that it is impossible (not "improbable" but impossible) for a pre-legal definition of murder to have existed. You're the one who is now claiming that philosophy and linguistics/anthropology are the same thing. Both claims are exceedingly strong (the latter is, frankly, ridiculous), yet you claim that you needn't provide even a shred of evidence for support. If you're going to keep this up then I don't see much point in my continuing in this cluster****.

And you define that two broadly. The example I gave simp;ly does not ft as involutary manslaughter: if you chose to kill, it can not be involuntary.

I never said that the example you gave could count as involuntary manslaughter.

Your definition is sadly imcomplete, as it does not even address the issue of man-animal. So you have to make it longer yet again,

See above: substitute "homicide" for "killing," and suck it down.

and no, as I said above, you can not separate the two arguements as you are trying to do. They are tied together, as far as this arguement goes.

What a ridiculous assertion. "Is X possible" is a completely different question from "should we do X." "Is cloning possible" is different from "should we clone," "is it possible to create a workable definition of 'murder' without incorporating the term 'unlawful'" is different from "should we remove the term 'unlawful' from the definition of 'murder,'" "is it possible that you are hungry" is different from "should we eat some tacos," etc.

You did not answer the question which prompted your response. If you dot answer the questiopn, what should I think?

Obviously you thought "loinburger has asked me to clarify my question, clearly I may pretend that he has answered the question in the style of my choosing." Perhaps, just perhaps, you should have answered my question before jumping to conclusions. "Poor debating strategy" indeed.

My interest has always been to make it clear that the concept of law can not be separated from that of murder: I am not interested in making up incomplete definitions for a term being used here is a serious debate. I am interested in finding one common definition that we can use in it, and one that is faithful to what the meaing of the word is, and where the word comes from. If this is not what you are interested in doing, then simply stop, becuase it detracts form the greater arguement of natural rights, which is what I am trying to do, and the thread is about.

If you're incapable of understanding that the meanings of words change over time, then there is no point to your attempting to argue about natural rights -- morals, rights, laws, rules, etc. are (quite understandably) closely intertwined in their contemporary definitions, so it quickly becomes impossible to debate "natural" rights with somebody who insists on applying contemporary definitions to a pre-legal hypothetical. "Bargle bargle, of course rights can't be natural, it says right here in my dictionary that a right 'conforms to law, justice, or morality,' and clearly laws didn't exist in a state of nature! Victory is mine!" Or, you might insist that the libertarian or pseudo-libertarian in question provide you with anthropological proof that natural rights exist, all the while admitting that it is impossible for any such proof to exist. You've got a veritable bonanza of "debating strategies" at your disposal.

Originally posted by Gepap
As for your second leap of logic: to do that you have to back it up with a philosophical discussion about how such a definition is possible, specially since you have yet to answer why "premeditation and malice" somehow change the act of killing so much that a new word and concept would be needed at that point.

Posted for the third time by loinburger, howabout you try to actually read it this time through
If you were to accidentally kill somebody, then I would alter my treatment of you differently than if you were to kill somebody with premeditated malice (e.g. in the former case I would be less prone to trusting you to handle heavy machinery or whatever, while in the latter case I would be less prone to trusting you in any way shape or form). This idea that the term is meaningless simply because I lack the authority to punish you for your crime is hogwash -- it behooves me to make the distinction between accidental killing and killing with premeditated malice, independently of any benefits that society as a whole may gain from making this distinction.

[Imran Siddiqui]

*backs away slowly from what is about to become unpenetrable flame war

[loinburger]

Originally posted by GePap
As for the other: what legitimacy do you have, what authority do you have, to label the acts?

Previously posted by loinburger, I'm really starting to wonder if Gepap ever bothers to read a quarter of what I post
Authority is completely unnecessary to simply apply a definition -- it is only necessary to apply a law. If you were to accidentally kill somebody, then I would alter my treatment of you differently than if you were to kill somebody with premeditated malice (e.g. in the former case I would be less prone to trusting you to handle heavy machinery or whatever, while in the latter case I would be less prone to trusting you in any way shape or form). This idea that the term is meaningless simply because I lack the authority to punish you for your crime is hogwash -- it behooves me to make the distinction between accidental killing and killing with premeditated malice, independently of any benefits that society as a whole may gain from making this distinction. You can certainly come up with a plethora of contrived examples in which it is not possible for me to correctly apply my pre-societal definitions of the term, but this simply limits their usefulness -- it does not negate their usefulness.

Please, if you're going to ask me another question, kindly ask one that I haven't answered yet.

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
*backs away slowly from what is about to become unpenetrable flame war

Oh, you're no fun.

[chequita guevara]

Re: Natural Rights

Originally posted by Berzerker
What are they and from where did they originate?

1) Natural rights are expressions of shared, universal desires.

1) Shared and universal are repetitive and universal is a dubious claim.

1a) Not wanting to be enslaved and murdered are universal desires.

This remains to be proven.

2) Natural rights are moral claims of ownership beginning with oneself and his labor, but moral claims consistent with universal desires.

You jumble a lot of different points together here. If you're ttrying to make a proof, keep them seperate.

2a) If you "own" yourself, then you own your labor.

This does not necessarily follow. Peasants were not owned, but they were compelled to provide labor.

3) Natural rights are limited to human interaction, not interactions with other life forms.

Then the qualifier natural has no meaning. Either a right exists in nature or it does not.

3a) If a lion eats you, we don't say the lion has deprived you of your natural right to life.

Then why use the term "natural?" If nature does not respect these rights, how can they be natural?

4) They come from existence, i.e., by virtue of your existence, you have natural rights given by that which created the universe and life.

If nothing created the unverse, then nothing gave you your rights. Therefore, by your logic, we do not have them.

On a logical and factual basis, you have not even begun to establish your premise, let alone make an argument.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh, you're no fun.

The post lengths are getting to Communism v. Capitalism level... that's scary...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Oh, you're no fun.

The post lengths are getting to Communism v. Capitalism level... that's scary...

I dropped out because it seems to have gone way OT.