Which part of murder is immoral?

[Dr Strangelove]

Re: Re: Which part of murder is immoral?

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior

A three year old wouldn't object to being castrated if you gave him new toys in exchange. Doesn't mean you're being fair to him.

The heck he wouldn't! First of all most three year olds are quite familiar with their own anatomy, and a large portion of them consider it to be one of their favorite toys. Secondly, it would be impossible to do it without inflicting pain. You can cool it off then inject a local anesthetic, but the injection will hurt some and then when the anesthetic wears off it will hurt. No three year old I have known has ever thought that pain was an acceptable trade off for a new toy. They will let you know that hurting them is definitely not OK in their opinion.

[St Leo]

And, why is it morally OK to kill a non-human

It's wrong to kill a non-human as far as I am concerned. Unfortunately, it's very hard to avoid. For one thing, I can't tell my body to stop murdering bacteria even if I wanted to.

[Ben Kenobi]

I think US law says that after 20 weeks, the foetus is concious, thus is recognised by law. So, if the baby is aborted before 20 weeks, s/he is not "murdered".

Actually, according to US law you can abort all the way up until the third trimester, so long as you don't pull the child partially outside of the womb to kill him.

The standard has nothing to do with consciousness, but rather, an arbitrary line of viability.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Which part of murder is immoral?

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Which part of murder is immoral?

It largely depends on how you define morality. Suppose you use the common definition of "a code to regular human behavior." Now, for a values system like this you need to start from somewhere, these are called basic beliefs which are taken to be true. They are like axioms in mathematical theories.

Now, I submit that "murder is wrong" is a basic belief. It seems to me that all tribes and civilisations have that, the only difference is the scope.

[David Floyd]

Now, I submit that "murder is wrong" is a basic belief. It seems to me that all tribes and civilisations have that,

Which just maybe implies that the "right to life" is what one could call a "natural right"?

[Urban Ranger]

Not necessarily.

I reject the notion that we are born with rights. Rights are given to individuals by the groups they belong to.

[GePap]

Murder is alway immoral if only becuase it is defined as immoral. Killing does not equal murder. Abortion is not murder until the soverign power defines it as such. Otherwise it's just another form of killing, and killing is amoral.

[David Floyd]

I reject the notion that we are born with rights. Rights are given to individuals by the groups they belong to.

So we aren't born with rights, but we ARE born with an innate belief that murder is wrong? I'd say the latter is a strong indication (although certainly not absolute proof) of the former.

[David Floyd]

GePap,

So you think that government predates the concept of murder?

[GePap]

We had this debate. a social structure predates the idea of murder, and since human beings are inherently social beings, the idea of a killing that is immoral ( as opposed to all those killing which are perhaps not only moral but necessary) is really old, but a society is needed. If the only two men in the world meet and one kills the other, not murder.

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by Adalbertus


Try to kill someone without affecting the victim. But please mind to choose someone else, not me.

You missed my point. Murder is wrong, even if it does not effect other people, I was not including the person that is actually killed.

[Az]

Originally posted by DanielXY
@az
Hm, if you spin it some more. Killing someone you know does only bad to society and probably wont change, is a good thing. For example execution of all career criminals would be an idea (new 3 strike-law anyone... ).

maybe it would, if we could be certain in the guilt of the criminals.

[David Floyd]

a social structure predates the idea of murder, and since human beings are inherently social beings, the idea of a killing that is immoral ( as opposed to all those killing which are perhaps not only moral but necessary) is really old, but a society is needed. If the only two men in the world meet and one kills the other, not murder.

Not quite. Rights are only evident when human interaction comes into the picture. The right to life - that is, the right not to be murdered - is only relevant if there is someone around to murder you. But social interactions do not equate to government.

[MrFun]

The killing part of murder is immoral.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by David Floyd
GePap,

So you think that government predates the concept of murder?

Somehow I think so.
Laws define which is murder and which is not. Abotion isn´t murder per law, as long it is done up to a certain age of the fetus.
Killing enemy soldiers in most cases also isn´t considered murder, even if it done by partisans and they kill the enemy soldiers by a bomb in their sleeping Quarters (the part who is Partisan and who not is again defind by government; normally paramilitary units who kill enemy Soldiers are considered are considered Partisans/Guerillas, whereas enemy paramilitary groups who kill your own soldiers are considered Terrorists).
Same goes for Self Defence. If you kill another Prson in Self Defence it also isn´t considered murder per law.
Also killing other animals than humans normally also isn´t considered murder (although there my be exeptions, especially if it involves pets who get killed [for exeample dogs and cats])

Of course there are other groups. like the various churches, who may have other concepts of murder (sometimes for example killing Heaths not to be murder) and he immorality of it.

So it may be difficult to answer the question, which part of murder is immoral, as Morale and the concept of murder is made by humans.