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Debate Score:63
Arguments:61
Total Votes:66
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 Why is it wrong to kill? (51)

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Ignoramis(381) pic



Why is it wrong to kill?

Why can a solider kill, but if someone attacks me (physically or through manipulating my situation), it is wrong for me to kill them? I understand why it is wrong to kill a person on an impulse or desire (like serial killers). But what if you are trying to solve a problem and have tried all other alternatives?

An example would be a child who gets beaten every night without reason killing the kids who beat him, or a woman/man who is being stalked killing her stalker (who might one day become a rapist if the issue isn't addressed early)? Or a shop owner killing a person who is robbing their store?
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6 points

It's really not wrong because natural selection chooses the survival of the fittest. There is no such thing as right or wrong, life is meaningless, you are worthless. Thank your local atheistic evolutionist for this freedom of thought.

1 point

You make the most sense when you liberal troll.

2 points

Rules against killing, whether legal or religious in origin, are simply a cornerstone of what it means to be a society. If everyone has to defend themselves from killing constantly, and if it were normal to kill to get whatever you want, then society itself breaks down.

The Old Testament has a commandment against killing because they needed a cohesive society. But note they didn't hesitate to kill other tribes in the name of God. Because that latter type of killing was a promotion of their own society over the rival society.

These are all reasons why when contemporary people quote the Bible as reason to never ever kill anybody anywhere for any reason they've lost the original context. Societies do indeed allow killing, even Judeo Christian societies, if by doing that killing it promotes the fabric of that particular society. This is why quoting the Bible against capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion, etc, really doesn't cut it. The people who wrote those verses were trying to promote their own societies by discouraging destructive behavior from within. Arguably all the examples I just gave are instead constructive behaviors meant to help people in societies get ahead overall.

Saintnow(3684) Disputed
1 point

It's really not wrong because natural selection chooses the survival of the fittest. There is no such thing as right or wrong, life is meaningless, you are worthless. Thank your local atheistic evolutionist for this freedom of thought.

2 points

Whenever killing is regarded as being "wrong" it is merely a matter of opinion, generally of the populist variety as influenced by prevailing powers. So, it is wrong if and only if people regard it as wrong; nothing more nor less.

Amarel(5669) Disputed
1 point

This reminds me, you never exactly got back to me on this very argument about a year ago. I still completely disagree for the book of reason I presented back then.

Your answer here does not indicate the reasons why people form these opinions (popular or otherwise), which I would contend is not merely on a whim or unpredictable.

Jace(5222) Disputed
1 point

I had to leave the forum for a while, and left a number of exchanges up in the air. You will have to refresh me. And at any rate, I am not claiming these opinions are whimsical or unpredictable. Nor are the reasons for the existence of such opinions particularly relevant to my point that morality is a matter of opinion.

Atrag(5666) Clarified
1 point

Can you say why in every single cultural that has ever existed killing the innocent has been wrong?

Jace(5222) Disputed
1 point

That seems obvious; codifying in some form when it is and is not okay to kill is necessary for social order. The error in your line of reasoning is in treating this as a homogeneous practice; in reality, what constitutes "innocence" may very greatly between and even within cultures.

atypican(4875) Disputed
1 point

Like Spartan culture where they tossed weak babies into a chasm?

Harvard(666) Clarified
1 point

This is profoundly false.... In some cultures, killing the innocent (e.g. sacrifice) was praised and believed to be necessary (source).

Saintnow(3684) Disputed
1 point

It's really not wrong because natural selection chooses the survival of the fittest. There is no such thing as right or wrong, life is meaningless, you are worthless. Thank your local atheistic evolutionist for this freedom of thought.

Jace(5222) Disputed
0 points

Did you have a point in there somewhere?

Self-defense is not wrong; it is justified and allowed under our laws. Also, isn't there something about eye for an eye in the Bible?

1 point

The wrongness of killing comes in degrees and is determined within the context in which the event occurred. Our sense of justice requires that one must not kill another without sufficient reason. Typically that reason must be the preservation of life. That is to say, an aggressor puts their life on the line when they physically threaten the life of another and if they loose their life in said aggression, it is not wrong. Put another way, killing is wrong to the extent that one should not do to others what they do not want done to themselves. This rule of thumb is a moral imperative in civil society (without which there is no preponderance of opinion).

Jace(5222) Disputed
1 point

That is all well and vague. Saying it is "contextual" and a matter of "sufficient reason" places the issue squarely in the field of popular opinion and/or authoritarian control. What passes as sufficient reason varies from social order to social order, across time and geography. The golden rule has not prevailed universally, and it therefore cannot be claimed as an imperative for civil society.

Amarel(5669) Disputed
1 point

Saying it is "contextual" and a matter of "sufficient reason" places the issue squarely in the field of popular opinion and/or authoritarian control

Not at all. Saying it is contextual is merely an acknowledgment of complex behavioral patterns in a complex world. Saying that one must have sufficient reason is not an opinion. Whether a given reason is sufficient may be a disputed matter of opinion, but the requirement to have one is not.

The golden rule has not prevailed universally, and it therefore cannot be claimed as an imperative for civil society

Mine was a reference to the silver rule. It does prevail universally to the extent that people adhere to it within the confines of their moral/civil circle. That is to say that not all civil societies are civil to other societies. The silver rule would still be maintained within the given group.

Our previous debates lead us to basically agree on a number of the facts around moral development and behavior but to disagree entirely on the final analysis of the facts. If you search any of the morality arguments from about a year ago, we had a number of threads at various times.

1 point

I think the real message was lost in translation.

Killing is only wrong if you are punished for it.

1 point

Oddly, that makes a lot of sense. The government and religion tell you whether it is wrong or right. Consequently, you can argue that killers that do it without permission, are really independent thinkers or revolutionaries. One day, the government could say that doctors killing sick people is alright, then it is okay. etc ...

Saintnow(3684) Clarified
2 points

It's really not wrong because natural selection chooses the survival of the fittest. There is no such thing as right or wrong, life is meaningless, you are worthless. Thank your local atheistic evolutionist for this freedom of thought.

Jace(5222) Disputed
1 point

Killing can be simultaneous wrong and not wrong. All that is required for it to be wrong is that one person regard at as being such. Punishment is merely an expression of whatever is either the popular or authoritarian understanding of "wrongness".

1 point

Answer to me what "Good" is to you and I can give you a reason why killing is not good. however, it is not "Wrong" in all contexts by all understandings of "Good".

---

If you hold that humans have rights, Death, particularly Death before the end of one's natural life, is a total denial of those rights. and it should stand that since rights are privileges that apply to all people, any denial of rights is unfair, death is in total, unfair.

Jace(5222) Disputed
2 points

You can hold that humans have rights without also believing that a violation of those rights is unfair, or that premature death in particular is unfair. For instance, if rights are merely an expression of power then they exist only insofar as there is a power to enforce them and there is no "loss" and fairness is moot. Or, under determinism a person cannot die in any other way or at any other time then previous events dictate they will... so there is no such thing as a premature death, and so also no deprivation.

2 points

Fair enough. I suppose I'm asserting more base assumptions than I thought I was....hmmm......

fishfish77(54) Disputed
1 point

You could believe that those rights humans have are fair and taking away those rights would be unfair unless they took away other peoples rights which would be eye for eye to take away their rights for taking away other peoples rights. Premature death would be dieing younger than expected.

1 point

its wrong to kill an innocent person. killing an evil person prevents them from doing evil which is different then killing an innocent person for no reason.

Jace(5222) Disputed
1 point

What is an "innocent" person? What is an "evil" person? How can one know that killing said "evil" person will actually prevent them from doing an "evil"? Does it matter that the latter may be a lesser "evil" than killing them? What if they were going to steal... still okay to kill them? And who decides who is innocent or evil?

fishfish77(54) Clarified
1 point

an evil person is a murderer. an evil person is a criminal. an innocent person is someone that has done no crime.

1 point

because if everyone killed everyone would be dead and no one would be happy.

Jace(5222) Disputed
1 point

Why would everyone kill everyone if it were acceptable to kill. Just because people could does not mean that they would want to or be able to.

1 point

I give you credit "Why is it wrong to kill?" It is a very good question. I personally cannot give you a definitive answer to that question only my perspective.

If I approached the question from the biblical Christian point of view God does not want his people to take another's life even at the expense of their own (why is an answer only God can answer). God is the giver and taker of life as he has stated in the Bible "Vengeance is mine." The next statement may be a little hard for some people to accept but mankind cannot create life they can only help it along so then if man cannot create life man should not be taking life.

The biggest problem is we have created a whole world a society that no longer values life and maybe that was part of the reasoning in the Bible why mankind should not be taking life for we are not aware as human beings the value of human life. We of course can fix a number to a human life as for example what we would pay for a fallen soldier in combat but that doesn't in and of itself say that that amount is accurate. Who but God knows what the value of a human life is worth? It matters little today however because we have created a society where death and violence is a common everyday affair. No one ever thinks that it doesn't have to be this way but apparently creating a society where trust is more important than distrust is basically what one would call in our society Mission Impossible!

Ignoramis(381) Disputed
1 point

I beg to differ. Why is it that some doctors make over a million dollars a year in salary paid by the average person's taxes? Precisely because we value life so much, that no one has the balls to challenge the person that oversees life seeing procedures, EVEN IF, they dont really care about your life.

1 point

Brief me on what your primary values are and I will tell you why the kind of "reasoned killing" you describe will not serve them. Ie why you should consider that kind of killing wrong