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General discussion (archive)is it wrong to murder a murderer(101 posts)(101 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 01, 2012
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QC: As far as moral issue, yes. You can say that he murdered first. You're saving lives by taking this one.
You are only saving lives if you are certain the murder will kill again.
Posted March 01, 2012
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graniteoctopus: like the thread says, is it bad to kill someone who has willingly killed someone else?
My answer is that it depends. It sounds really nice from a moral-theoretical point of view to say that it is wrong to murder a murderer. The scenario though ("to murder a murdered") covers many situations and hypotheticals and variations where murdering the murderer would be just fine, maybe even the best possible thing to do.

Such a question is nice to kind of discuss when you're first learning about morality or whatever in middle school, but real life is far, far more complex than just whether it is right or wrong to kill a "murderer." Simply put, that question cannot be answered with a hard line yes or no. In the real world, sometimes the answer will be yes; sometimes it will be no. It just depends.

Humans feel the need to restrict our views down to phrases and vocabulary words. "Such and such is wrong." "Such and such is a war crime." "Such and such is justified." We don't want to have to write/speak paragraphs in order to answer one question. We let ourselves be too restricted by language. The only way to give you a straight answer about whether it is right or wrong to kill a specific person is to first have you tell me the full facts of the person's situation. Then my answer would be either that it's right or wrong plus accompanying reasoning. There's no simply way to break this shit down into a single word for you. Things aren't always just right or just wrong. A belief otherwise is unsustainable in real life, and humans need to start breaking away from allowing our desire for simply language to restrict our understanding of morality.

Some religions might view all killings as wrong no matter what. Their "reasoning" will be an exception to everything I wrote above, because their reasoning won't be actual reasoning. They would be just following the rules of their deity, and any justifications for the rule they tack on afterwards would be superfluous to their beliefs, from their point of view. Thus, there is no point in arguing about it with them. It is pointless to argue against a viewpoint based on belief rather than reason.
Post edited March 01, 2012 by da187jimmbones
Posted March 01, 2012
I believe it is frowned upon by some people.

Edit: The Bible says it's okay.
Post edited March 01, 2012 by spindown
Posted March 01, 2012
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QC: Nothing is simple. Murder of a murderer is still murder. If it's in self defense then you'll be found not-guilty. If you make the first move, you're guilty. The best way to avoid legal issue if you can help it is to get the cops involved once you have the evidence that such-and-such is the person who caused the murders. Not much of a solution but it keeps you out of legal trouble. If you kill him in your home, he's trespassing and may/may not result in legal action against you. There's about a billion different ways something can play out.

As far as moral issue, yes. You can say that he murdered first. You're saving lives by taking this one. But then, now you can't justify sparing lives that indirectly caused the murders. You can't justify ignoring people who supposedly inspired people to kill, from game programmers to directors to movie actors to musical artists. And besides. It's a life that's on your hands regardless if you want it or not. It's always going to be a part of you once you've taken it. Letting them live results in more suffering later on, but killing them is unjust and should never be in the hands of a person who has a personal vendetta against them. Think Batman for example. The Joker, Two Face, Harley Quinn, Scarface, Mad Hatter, Edward Nigma, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, The Penguin. Only a small part of the universe of Gothom City, all of them killers, murderers, some tied to Batman in every way, some tied to the people he knew. Killing them would be mercy to the people of Gothom. But killing them means putting yourself at their level, giving away your humanity and sanity in the name of justice and protection.

The opposite end of the spectrum would be the Punisher. His family was killed by a gang war in the middle of a park, and he dedicates himself to basically slaughtering everyone who's committed a crime. Can you justify yourself? It's revenge, sure, but then those people were the same as you, with family and friends and hopes and dreams, however battered and shattered they may be. But then, it's always going to be open for interpretation, and someone who has their mind set isn't going to change easily. Morally, it's a terrible war you start. Justifying it becomes harder as it goes further. But some people are going to go the Punisher route regardless, and the only hope is to limit the damage they do.
The Punisher is no different than Mr. Freeze, Edward Nigma, Clayface etc They all had anger inside that turned to hate, and that made them join the dark side...
Posted March 01, 2012
graniteoctopus is planning to kill a killer.
Posted March 01, 2012
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graniteoctopus: like the thread says, is it bad to kill someone who has willingly killed someone else?
Admit it, you're trying to make us do your philosophy homework for you:)

Or did I get it wrong? Civics?
Posted March 01, 2012
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graniteoctopus: like the thread says, is it bad to kill someone who has willingly killed someone else?
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orcishgamer: Admit it, you're trying to make us do your philosophy homework for you:)

Or did I get it wrong? Civics?
Medicine actually. ...what?
Posted March 01, 2012
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orcishgamer: Admit it, you're trying to make us do your philosophy homework for you:)

Or did I get it wrong? Civics?
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graniteoctopus: Medicine actually. ...what?
Why is this in your homework for medicine? I'm treading very close to the line of being curious:)
Posted March 01, 2012
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graniteoctopus: Medicine actually. ...what?
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orcishgamer: Why is this in your homework for medicine? I'm treading very close to the line of being curious:)
a body cannot suffer in sweet repose *smiles
Posted March 01, 2012
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orcishgamer: Why is this in your homework for medicine? I'm treading very close to the line of being curious:)
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graniteoctopus: a body cannot suffer in sweet repose *smiles
Alright Dr. Kervorkian, while there's a definite argument for allowing euthanasia in some cases, I doubt very much the average "murderer" is in the kind of suffering that would warrant it. If you're talking about vengeance (which is what the death penalty is), well I suppose they probably have to have a doctor to administer certain types of deaths, but I don't think a firing squad requires one, nor do many other types (perhaps a coroner for confirmation, but that's it).

Can you elucidate what you mean? State authorized vengeance wouldn't really be considered murder and neither would euthanasia. So are you talking about is it okay to be a vigilante? I don't see what that question has to do with medicine, really.
Posted March 01, 2012
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graniteoctopus: like the thread says, is it bad to kill someone who has willingly killed someone else?
Depends on the reason that someone willingly killed someone else.

If the someone else was an innocent person, it's ok to kill the murderer.

If the someone else was a murderer of an innocent person, then I'd say its wrong to kill the murderer's murderer.


Basically, I do believe some people deserve to die, and there's nothing wrong with killing those people.

In practice, its very rare where you can be 100% certain that any person is really a murderer, which is why I am against the death penalty - it has the chance of killing innocent people.
Post edited March 01, 2012 by kalirion
Posted March 02, 2012
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QC: Think Batman for example. The Joker, Two Face, Harley Quinn, Scarface, Mad Hatter, Edward Nigma, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, The Penguin. Only a small part of the universe of Gothom City, all of them killers, murderers, some tied to Batman in every way, some tied to the people he knew. Killing them would be mercy to the people of Gothom. But killing them means putting yourself at their level, giving away your humanity and sanity in the name of justice and protection.
Now think of the thousands, if not millions, of people that were murdered by various supervillains after escaping / being released from prison where Batman and Superman put them. Over and over and over.
Posted March 02, 2012
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QC: Think Batman for example. The Joker, Two Face, Harley Quinn, Scarface, Mad Hatter, Edward Nigma, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, The Penguin. Only a small part of the universe of Gothom City, all of them killers, murderers, some tied to Batman in every way, some tied to the people he knew. Killing them would be mercy to the people of Gothom. But killing them means putting yourself at their level, giving away your humanity and sanity in the name of justice and protection.
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kalirion: Now think of the thousands, if not millions, of people that were murdered by various supervillains after escaping / being released from prison where Batman and Superman put them. Over and over and over.
One of the big appeals to the characters of course. They know how simple and how easy it would be to kill these people, but it's a moral objection. To be fair.... I'm pretty certain most of the people in Arkham Asylum and Arkham City don't have use of their legs anymore.

Still, it was just an example I had. I'm a big Batman fan, and of course sometimes you want to see him take that path and kill the joker or whoever, but then, that wouldn't be Batman.
Posted March 02, 2012
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kalirion: Now think of the thousands, if not millions, of people that were murdered by various supervillains after escaping / being released from prison where Batman and Superman put them. Over and over and over.
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QC: One of the big appeals to the characters of course. They know how simple and how easy it would be to kill these people, but it's a moral objection. To be fair.... I'm pretty certain most of the people in Arkham Asylum and Arkham City don't have use of their legs anymore.

Still, it was just an example I had. I'm a big Batman fan, and of course sometimes you want to see him take that path and kill the joker or whoever, but then, that wouldn't be Batman.
That's because Bruce Wayne is so fucked in the head he knows if he ever walks that road he'll be the Joker, hell, he'll be worse than the Joker.
Posted March 02, 2012
Yup. I agree with Batman. You know an action is undesirable, therefore by committing it back on them you're lowering yourself to their level.

Plus it's often difficult to say what kind of circumstances attributed to their situation. Not all murderers are crazy immoral sociopaths. I think the best course of action is to see what led them there and then try to help them. But... that's not going to happen. People don't want to see their money going towards helping criminals - all they care about is exacting revenge which in my opinion isn't the best option obviously, but I guess it's our natural emotional response.

Edit: Oh man... got my 'their', 'there' mixed up. Embarrassing. I blame the lack of sleep.
Post edited March 02, 2012 by GoJays2025
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General discussion (archive)is it wrong to murder a murderer(101 posts)(101 posts)
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