Is Murder Really That Bad?
Murder is usually regarded as the quintessential example of a wrong act and a harmful act. It is usually regarded as being as bad or worse than acts such as rape, mutilation, putting a hot poker on someone’s chest, and long term imprisonment. But, I have really started to question this common perception on murder. While I think that murder could be regarded as significantly harmful and that could reasonably imply that it is significantly wrong, it’s hard for me to see why it would be considered worse than terrible acts like rape and mutilation. This is because the convincing explanations that are usually given for why murder is wrong do not seem to make a convincing case that murder is extremely wrong while the explanations that convincingly imply that murder is extremely wrong do not seem to be plausible at all. I will make a list of the most popular explanations for the wrongness of murder and explain why I either completely reject the explanation or why I think the explanation implies that murder is not that bad of an action. So, here’s a list of explanations:
1. The Deprivation Account: Some people would say that a big part of what makes murder wrong is that it deprives the person who is murdered of the benefits of life that she would have received if she wasn’t murdered. This account typically makes a distinction between depriving a particular person of a benefit and simply preventing a benefit from occurring to an unspecified value recipient. This is why the proponents of the account would believe that murder is worse than intentionally preventing someone from being born. Personally, I do not except such a distinction. I don’t think it matters if there is a particular person who has a benefit removed or if it’s just a benefit removed from no one in particular. Of course, many would find the implication that preventing a birth could be worse than murder to be absurd. But, it’s worth noting that the deprivation account also has some implications that I think a reasonable could consider absurd. For example, doesn’t it seem absurd to anyone that the removal of a benefit would be far less wrong or bad just because we can’t identify a specific victim of the benefit removal? It seems to me like that should be irrelevant as long as we can identify that there was a benefit that would have occurred if not for the actions of an alleged wrongdoer.
Though, one could argue under my view that preventing birth should be considered as wrong as murder typically is considered but I’m inclined to favor the viewpoint that murder should be viewed more like preventing birth typically gets viewed since I’m more of a pessimist about life. Though, even an optimist should probably consider birth prevention and murder to be fairly minor harms unless he thinks that the benefits of life overwhelmingly justify the harms. Even if one accepts a deprivation account where a specific victim must be identified then they should also consider a good aspect of death in that it alleviates any future harm you would have to experience if you haven’t died an earlier death. Given this, I think it’s hard to argue that murder is a great wrong because of the deprivation that it produces.
2. Preference-based theory: Some people might argue that murder is a major wrong because people have a strong preference to continue living their life to the point that they would even be willing to have sex with someone that threatens to kill them if they don’t comply. I think this explanation for the wrongness of murder could be challenged by mentioning the fact that death is inevitable. Given that everyone will die one day, we cannot do anything to prevent anyone’s preference to not die from being violated. If someone murders another person, they are violating a preference of that person that will eventually bound to get violated anyways. Normally, we don’t consider hastening a negative outcome that would have occurred anyways to be a major harm. You might say in response that a murderer violates a preference that his victim has to specifically not die on the particular day that she dies, but under this specification, the preference-based theory just seems to be a deprivation account and it seems to contain the same problems that the deprivation account contains.
3. Grief-based theory: Some people might think that murder is a great wrong because it causes the loved ones of a murdered person to grieve. But, grief is also an inevitable part of any close relationship between 2 people that will last a lifetime. The only thing that might be changed by murder is who the grieving party happens to be. For example, if someone murders a young kid, then this will cause his parents to grieve and that’s bad. But, if that kid wasn’t murdered then he would likely have to grieve the death of his parents one day. While we might say that grief of losing your child is usually greater, could we really say that the child’s murder made things much worse in terms of grief?
4. Religious theories: Some people might have religious reasons to be opposed to murder but it’s worth noting that religious texts almost never seem to specify that murder is more wrong than other wrong things like stealing, adultery, and lying. In fact, I once heard a Christian pastor say that all sins are equally wrong in the eyes of God and that we should not assume that sins like lying to someone are less wrong than murder.
5. Kantian theories: Kantians also rarely seem to have a specific argument that murder is more wrong than other wrong acts.
While there may be more explanations given for the wrongness of murder, I think I covered the ones that are most commonly mentioned. I would love to hear some polite and constructive counter arguments to my claims and to start a pretty good dialogue.
1. The Deprivation Account: Some people would say that a big part of what makes murder wrong is that it deprives the person who is murdered of the benefits of life that she would have received if she wasn’t murdered. This account typically makes a distinction between depriving a particular person of a benefit and simply preventing a benefit from occurring to an unspecified value recipient. This is why the proponents of the account would believe that murder is worse than intentionally preventing someone from being born. Personally, I do not except such a distinction. I don’t think it matters if there is a particular person who has a benefit removed or if it’s just a benefit removed from no one in particular. Of course, many would find the implication that preventing a birth could be worse than murder to be absurd. But, it’s worth noting that the deprivation account also has some implications that I think a reasonable could consider absurd. For example, doesn’t it seem absurd to anyone that the removal of a benefit would be far less wrong or bad just because we can’t identify a specific victim of the benefit removal? It seems to me like that should be irrelevant as long as we can identify that there was a benefit that would have occurred if not for the actions of an alleged wrongdoer.
Though, one could argue under my view that preventing birth should be considered as wrong as murder typically is considered but I’m inclined to favor the viewpoint that murder should be viewed more like preventing birth typically gets viewed since I’m more of a pessimist about life. Though, even an optimist should probably consider birth prevention and murder to be fairly minor harms unless he thinks that the benefits of life overwhelmingly justify the harms. Even if one accepts a deprivation account where a specific victim must be identified then they should also consider a good aspect of death in that it alleviates any future harm you would have to experience if you haven’t died an earlier death. Given this, I think it’s hard to argue that murder is a great wrong because of the deprivation that it produces.
2. Preference-based theory: Some people might argue that murder is a major wrong because people have a strong preference to continue living their life to the point that they would even be willing to have sex with someone that threatens to kill them if they don’t comply. I think this explanation for the wrongness of murder could be challenged by mentioning the fact that death is inevitable. Given that everyone will die one day, we cannot do anything to prevent anyone’s preference to not die from being violated. If someone murders another person, they are violating a preference of that person that will eventually bound to get violated anyways. Normally, we don’t consider hastening a negative outcome that would have occurred anyways to be a major harm. You might say in response that a murderer violates a preference that his victim has to specifically not die on the particular day that she dies, but under this specification, the preference-based theory just seems to be a deprivation account and it seems to contain the same problems that the deprivation account contains.
3. Grief-based theory: Some people might think that murder is a great wrong because it causes the loved ones of a murdered person to grieve. But, grief is also an inevitable part of any close relationship between 2 people that will last a lifetime. The only thing that might be changed by murder is who the grieving party happens to be. For example, if someone murders a young kid, then this will cause his parents to grieve and that’s bad. But, if that kid wasn’t murdered then he would likely have to grieve the death of his parents one day. While we might say that grief of losing your child is usually greater, could we really say that the child’s murder made things much worse in terms of grief?
4. Religious theories: Some people might have religious reasons to be opposed to murder but it’s worth noting that religious texts almost never seem to specify that murder is more wrong than other wrong things like stealing, adultery, and lying. In fact, I once heard a Christian pastor say that all sins are equally wrong in the eyes of God and that we should not assume that sins like lying to someone are less wrong than murder.
5. Kantian theories: Kantians also rarely seem to have a specific argument that murder is more wrong than other wrong acts.
While there may be more explanations given for the wrongness of murder, I think I covered the ones that are most commonly mentioned. I would love to hear some polite and constructive counter arguments to my claims and to start a pretty good dialogue.
Comments (47)
Yes, I think death is to be preferred over any significant form of torture. I will die one day anyways and I don’t understand why it would be much worse to die later. I don’t have to experience the suffering that comes with rape though because that suffering is not inevitable like death happens to be. Now, if we had an opportunity to live forever this might change the equation though
I think that main murder dilemma arise a bit higher when you consider society interests. In some sense it was started by humanism or even religions and they succeeded. Main assumption was that people's ability to kill depend on their experience during growing up. So if someone grows in peaceful environment he will have strong psychological barrier to harm anyone. In hurst environment situation will be the opposite.
In that sense every murder is a destabilizing factor and it is very harmful for society in the long run. Several decade ago such stories were very popular in the literature. Even today there are some nations where revenge may wipe out entire families or even more.
I don’t think I speak lightly of murder. I just think suffering has a far greater degree of value significance than having a longer life span. I would love to know why you would consider preserving one’s life span to be a more worthy pursuit if you can be as kind as to share your reasoning with me. I can give you a fairly quick answer for why I think suffering matters more: you don’t have to value your life but you are forced to disvalue suffering. If someone claims that they don’t think there’s anything bad about suffering then I would speculate that they must not have a capacity to suffer. My past experience with suffering seems to prove its badness. I can’t say the same thing about death.
And again, from point of view of society and religion it should be clearer why nonlethal harm is preferable even if it has devastating consequences for the specific individual or his entire life
I would like to ask you some questions about your post. Please do not take these questions as a criticism of position since I don’t feel I understand your position well enough to criticize.
1. You mentioned that you thought that humanism and various religions have succeeded. By what standard have they succeeded and why do you feel that this standard is appropriate at judging the success of a set of ideas. I don’t mean to say that these sets of ideas are not successful since I tend to analyze religious and humanist ideas separately rather than as some kind of combined package or a united ideology.
2. My understanding is that your primary concern is that a more lax attitude towards murder will be instrumental in promoting the prevalence of vigilante justice and revenge. Rape and mutilation also seem to encourage revenge if the punishment is seen as being too weak. What I was suggesting partially by my OP was that a father should be more willing to engage in vigilante justice if the rapist of his daughter receives a light punishment then if the murderer of his daughter receives a light punishment. I’m kinda struggling to understand why murder has a greater destabilizing effect here if there doesn’t seem to be any necessity to regard murder as being worse than an act like rape. I would love it if you can elaborate more on this topic.
Damn, your writing style reminds me of Thomas Jefferson lol. It was quite elegant and pretty. They should hire you to write presidential speeches. I don’t think I understand your point of view well enough to comment on it so I would like to ask some clarifying questions instead:
You mentioned that you believe that there is a need for mankind to be free to live under the assumption that they are free from death except from natural causes. I’m having a hard time understanding why a death from natural causes should or would be viewed more positively by someone. Do many people even care about the cause of their death? I can kind of understand that one might be selected by evolution to wish to avoid death before one has time to reproduce. But, why would an old woman care if she dies from murder or from natural causes?
I also would like to mention that I don’t think that murder is completely ok. We should still punish murderers. I just think it’s not as bad as significant forms of torture. So, I think torture is more deserving of punishment. On that note, I must ask: doesn’t torture have just as much of a destabilizing effect on society as murder? I’m failing to understand why it wouldn’t.
By succeeded I meant that they were finally become able to significantly change humans psychology and attitude to the fact of murdering. Religions tried to achieve this goal many hundreds of years without luck but last couple of centuries were very different in that sense. It's difficult to say what was the main reason of such change, I personally tend to think about medicine actually.
Regarding standards, there are many approaches to measure impact. You can measure crime rate, attitude to death or even just death rate. More interesting measurement is the fraction of society that can murder without been psychologically injured.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Not exactly. There are many factors and I just mentioned the simplest one. Society is the system and it has many system effects. Most dangerous are psychological changes and attitude to death. That's why many topics are just forbidden for public discussions (at least our country has some). I don't think that it's too hard to see possible consequences of such changes. At least fast growth is incompatible with instability that can be caused by ability of people to kill easily.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
In some sense I agree with you, I just wanted to show the possible reasoning behind the difference that we can see around.
Any father I know would be happy that his daughter is alive.
There is no way to support such approach logically. Death is the termination state so you can't have something with more weight. The only logical way is to make them equal. Otherwise you will left possibility for rapist to kill his victim in a court to mitigate the punishment...
As usually, there are contradictions on different layers. It's understandable in case of specific individual but impossible in case of society.
So, my understanding of what you are saying is that perhaps human extinction can be a possible consequence of a society that has a less negative attitude of murder. I assumed that mainly because you mentioned the ability that we have to kill people very easily and nuclear weapons is always the first thing that comes to mind regarding that subject matter for me. Given our nuclear capabilities and myriad of other potential ways to destroy mankind, it seems like you could argue that having a more lax view on murder could potentially add fuel to the fire to our destructive potential more so than a more lax attitude towards rape or mutilation. Would you say that this is one of the biggest global concerns around there being more lax attitudes towards murder?
I have not considered that possibility. That would kind of be a convenient way to get your prison sentence reduced for raping someone in a world where murder is punished less. I’ll have think about that a little more. I’m gonna head to sleep for now :yawn:
Imagine you have been raped by a big guy who overpowered you and, your know, invaded your intimacy. Suppose he let you live rather than kill you afterward. Let's further assume that it was quite painful for you. Months or years later, he's been caught by the cops and you are attending his trial. So you are given the following alternative, as in the above conversation: either you live and ensure that your rapist is punished harshly, or you allow him to kill you right there in the courtroom, so that his sentence would be lightened.
What choice would you make?
Consider that you have already been raped at this point, that this harm has already been done to you, and that no amount of further harm done to you will attenuate any harm previously done to you.
Consider also that you have no interest in lightening your rapist's sentence.
What choice would you make, as a rapist victim?
You see? It's facile to troll about armchair philosophy on murder and rape. But until you see things from the victim's point of view, you're just making noise with your mouth.
With you OP in mind it's difficult to say what is worse, complete extinction or agony of endless surviving
In a bit more real world scenario I would rather said that a live person can be useful for society even in case of serious injury. The similar difference can be found in the religion... The next level of reasoning is the political instability. Protests may look very different in case of different mentality... and so on, with the serious degradation or even extinction at the end.
Actually it worth mention that we are on the middle of the humanization process. It means that things will change seriously later on. For example, right now, nonlethal harm is gaining more and more criminal weight.
-If someone (genuinely) wants to be murdered, then it's not (at least not necessarily) immoral to murder them. (Let's say they are old and sick and have already lived a fulfilling life, as an example).
-Someone is middle aged, lived a decent life up to that point, their kids are already grown up, their divorced, of average to below average health. They have a moderate preference to live than to die, but isn't so attached either way. They would rather be murdered painlessly than endure any great hardship in life.
-Someone is young, full of great hopes and dreams, and would rather suffer any great hardship than lose their life. They would even prefer to be raped or tortured than to die. For such, murdering them may be the worse thing you could do.
I don't mean to show age bias. An older person could value their life or be as valuable to society as a younger person, or more. However, I do think it can be argued that murder is worse or less worse depending upon how many days of life one has deprived someone of(though I don't think its the only factor) so that, if you have a 20 year old and an 80 year old who both equally value their life and are r equal in their contributions to society, and assuming the 80 year old would die sooner, it could be argued that it would be more immoral to kill the younger person.
Edit: As a side note, I think people tend to over-value existing. What matters is depth of living, not just being existing. Many of us are already living as if were mostly dead already, and would prefer to live mostly out of a fear of dying, rather than of genuinely loving life...I'm one of such people, unfortunately, to an extent
The beauty of viewing these arguments in the manner that I suggested lies in that personal concerns may be discounted at the start, with any one case in particular, being generalized to a far broader scale in how it is analyzed. This holds merit for a number of reasons, one of which, you yourself gave expression for, by means of your earlier response; that the cause of another's death doesn't matter insofar as it is restricted under the field of one's own consideration, given that after the fact, nothing further can occur with respect to the life in question. What in this instance is deserving of priority then, are those forms of behavior which emerged collectively in turn; this, encompassing the reactions of all others within society, or some part of which, to the outcome just mentioned; Death. And more to the point, whether its presentation had in its time been an expected thing, or otherwise sudden in onset, and consequent to no natural cause. This is where the relevance of that distinction between the character thereof, as being either natural, or of opposite meaning, draws its power from. It is this which serves to determine, also, whether the overlying sentiments consist in righteous indignation, or grief is all that dominates, and nothing more. When there exists an implication of fault, and an end which took place much too soon, this emotive structure becomes directed, and thus assumes for itself a purpose. To my mind, no other circumstance beyond this better illustrates why our attentions should be affixed to the macro. Individual patterns of behavior, contrarily, if seen in isolation, are too varied in their appearance to lend any insight into these principles of social evolution, and even less so, are able to render clear what utility they afford.
You have done a good job of tackling some standard arguments against your proposition. Others have raised the point that if murder was normalised there would be negative knock-on effects. Maybe I am missing something, but surely the knock-on effects of normalising causing suffering, would rise equally.
Still, lets look at some of the arguments.
1. Deprivation.
Deprivation applies to most wrongs. Stealing deprives one of things. Rape deprives one of sexual choice. Each of these deprivations though can be recovered from. Murder, cannot. As there is potential to better oneself in almost every wrong except murder, I can't see these wrongs being greater than murder.
If comparing to abortion, I suppose you would have to classify if it was murder, or something else.
2. Preference-based theory
How about we call this, "Agency of choice". Again, all wrongs are the removal of choice from a person. Murder is when you deprive someone of their life against their consent for some personal gain. Again, all other wrongs can be recovered from to some extent except murder. If someone chooses to die, this is not murder. So someone may prefer death to a particular existence. When we choose for them, that is when it is an evil.
3. Grief-based theory
We have grief for those who have been deprived of choice, means, and life. Again, all of these griefs have the potential to resolve themselves into something better, except murder. I think we see a pattern forming here. It appears that the deprivation of potential betterment is really why murder is such a heinous crime.
4. Religious theories
The Aztecs used to call a specific type of murder a "sacrifice". I don't think a religion alone can justify it. Perhaps if we addressed the underlying justification, we might get somewhere with this. At a shallow level, a religion can justify murder as much as justify not murdering, so it can't be a good basis of judgement.
5. Kantian theories
Meh, I don't find Kant's ideology useful or logical.
I have only one question after reading your arguments, why does euthanasia exist in this world? Maybe your missed something?
Lets take a look at Wikipedia's definition of Euthanasia.
"Euthanasia is categorized in different ways, which include voluntary, non-voluntary, or involuntary:[6]
Voluntary euthanasia is legal in some countries.
Non-voluntary euthanasia (patient's consent unavailable) is illegal in all countries.
Involuntary euthanasia (without asking consent or against the patient's will) is also illegal in all countries and is usually considered murder."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia
In all cases, Euthanasia without consent is considered a crime. Murder is taking someone's life without consent for persona benefit. It could be gleaned that Euthanasia without consent is considered murder.
From Brittanica:
"Euthanasia, also called mercy killing, act or practice of painlessly putting to death persons suffering from painful and incurable disease or incapacitating physical disorder or allowing them to die by withholding treatment or withdrawing artificial life-support measures. "
britannica.com/topic/euthanasia
In the case of "acceptable" euthanasia, it is understood that the person is suffering from something which has no potential to improve. Yet this is not a mere ailment, but something considered typically debilitating and an excessive degradation in quality of life, possibly to the point of not being able to survive without assistance. Regarding my above points, the lack of potential improvement seems to fit in with the trend of something being terrible.
So with consent, I do not believe Euthanasia would be considered murder. Grey lines start to come into affect when a person is unable to give permission, but a close friend or relative believes the person would give permission if they could.
Well, some people can be useful for society after a serious injury but I would say most will end taking more resources from society than they will give to society. For example, if I got my arm mutilated, then I would probably would go on disabilities and avoid working(assuming that I still decide to continue living life under those circumstances.). In the case of rape, I would likely be traumatized and that wouldn’t be an ideal mindset for making society better.
Quoting Skeptic
Do you mean to say that protests would become more lethal if we had a more lax attitude towards murder?
Quoting Skeptic
Is non-lethal harm really receiving more attention? I suppose you can make that case with rape and the Me Too movement making it gain more attention. It’s hard to comment on the change in attitude for mutilation and stereotypical forms of torture because those things are sufficiently rare in our society. Though, one of the non-lethal harms that I have mentioned in the OP is long term imprisonment. It seems like just about everyone would consider that to be a more humane punishment for crime than the death penalty. I actually tend to think the death penalty is a more humane punishment myself. Though, someone holding my viewpoint could still argue that long term imprisonment is a better punishment because criminals deserve a harsher punishment.
On a final note, I would like to talk about the concern surrounding a rapist killing his rape victim in court to receive a lighter prison sentence. Realistically, I think this should be considered pretty overwhelming evidence that he really committed the rape and thus he would probably get charged with both rape and murder. In addition, I think most rapists would still have a bigger incentive to keep their victim alive because a dead body will likely get found and they usually investigate if it got raped before hand(at least that’s how it appears on tv shows like CSI:SVU). On the other hand, surviving victims of rape rarely report their victims so the rapist is probably less likely to get caught if he just lets the victim live. Though, it might be the case that in a society where rape is considered worse than murder, victims of rape will report their rapists more frequently. Another solution we might have to this problem is to specifically give a higher prison sentence for murder committed to prevent the investigation of more serious crimes.
Quoting Skeptic
All I did was answer your question as presented to me. If you have specific criticisms you would like to discuss, feel free to point them out.
There are still some benefits for society but they are mostly psychological. There is always a tradeoff between aggression and compassion. In a long run such support may be much cheaper.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I meant that lethal aggression has much higher psychological impact on people around, and I don't mean direct relatives here. In general such atmosphere will push people to be more aggressive. Even without direct immediate lethal context it may cause political disaster.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Good point, the only thing is left is the way of punishment. Don't want see 1984 in reality :fear:
I like your points but according to the reaction on your posts Seneca isn't popular any more
I’m a pretty big fan of Cosmic Skeptic so I’d have to stick around for that. One thing that makes him so great is his willingness to entertain very controversial viewpoints that other philosophers are not willing to entertain.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
I agree, that’s what I’ve been trying to suggest in response to those posts. I think these types of slippery slope arguments are often a sort of last resort argument. If someone doesn’t have any other good reason to think that their ethical position is correct then they could always make a slippery slope argument and speculate a dystopian future created by an opposition to their viewpoint. You see this with the anti-euthanasia advocates for example. But, almost any position could be defended with a slippery slope argument. For example, I could argue that we should ban violent video games because they will eventually cause a normalization of gruesome murder and this will lead to societal decay.
I have defined deprivation as an aspect of a harm that removes a benefit from a particular person. I don’t think that rape is primarily harmful because of deprivation as I have defined it. The primary aspect of rape that makes it really bad is that it causes a lot of suffering which isn’t inevitable suffering. The suffering caused by murder, on the other hand, could be called inevitable in a sense that this individual would have likely died in a painful way regardless. Though, I was talking more about painless murder being not as wrong as we typically think. Under my view, one could be committing a major wrong by murdering someone painfully. The wrongdoer’s biggest offense would be torture rather than murder though. Another thing worth mentioning is that there is a silver lining to getting murdered in that it alleviates you of any future suffering that you might have to undergo. This is at least a small upside to murder even for those who wish to continue living. Rape doesn’t usually have any upside at all. I suppose there are rare cases where a woman might think that there was a small upside to being raped because it made her a stronger person or maybe she is glad that it caused the creation of her child. Though, more often than not, rape makes people weaker by traumatizing them and a rape pregnancy doesn’t get celebrated and gets aborted or given away instead.
Quoting Philosophim
I also don’t think that the removal of choice is a central aspect which makes rape and torture bad. It is rather the suffering that it produces which is not inevitable suffering. It’s also worth noting that your agency of choice in regards to wanting to continue your life is bound to get violated at some point because you cannot live forever. Your agency of choice in regards to rape however, does not ever have to be violated.
Quoting Philosophim
Why do you think that? Couldn’t you overcome the grief of your loved one getting murdered as well? Couldn’t you also better yourself after your loved one gets murdered? I’m having a hard time understanding why murder grief would be inherently worse than natural death grief.
I don’t know if I agree with that. For example, there are murder scenes in kid friendly movies like the Lion King and the Hunchback of Notre Dame for example while mutilation scenes or rape scenes or torture scenes are pretty unlikely to be shown in any movie that isn’t for adults over 18. In addition, I have personally felt sick to my stomach when watching a documentary about blood diamonds and mutilation getting used as punishment for not finding enough diamonds and the scene in Get The Gringo where a cop gets tortured by having toes snipped off one by one and the scene from Tiger King where someone gets their arm ripped off by a tiger. I can vividly remember every mutilation scene that I have watched because of how sick to my stomach it made me feel. I can’t remember almost any murder scene I watched because those scenes have never had any emotional impact on me. I actually think my reaction to those different types of scenes is the typical reaction that people have. Mutilation scenes and torture scenes probably disturb people the most. Followed by rape scenes and murder scenes are actually probably last if they don’t particularly brutal.
Quite strange comparison I wold say. Can you estimate probability of your own death by watching the Lion King? You are falling into a single person view again, but I'm talking about society perspective. Is it possible to make a higher psychological impact without lethal consequences? Yes, for sure, but average people in our society are completely different. If you are going to create lows for society, you need to understand the typical behavior in that society and reasons behind it.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
It means only that you didn't get use to such a view, and it's almost impossible for an adult without psychological consequences, but picture is different for kids. Did you try to imagine what is going to happen to the mind in a place where violent death is all way around? And we have a lot of historical evidence on this topic. So society is pretty confident about things it want to avoid
At some point I think it will become possible to change weights and to understand that in some cases consequences may be much worse than just death. But there is no way to change historical process in a blink of the eye
Well, I’m not trying to change the historical process in a blink of an eye. My goal is to make progress on that goal as much as I can. Obviously, we couldn’t really alter our laws in a democratic society without the members of such society agreeing with those laws on some level. Legal changes have to start with cultural changes. But, how do you initiate a cultural change? It seems like a good way to start is to make your case to the community of intellectuals and then hope a lot of them will think that what you are saying makes a whole lot of sense. Then, the idea spreads further and becomes fairly common among moral philosophers but mostly rejected by the common man. Veganism can be said to be in that sort of stage right now where a decent proportion of moral philosophers accept it but it’s mostly rejected by society at large. Eventually, ideas with decent intellectual credibility could start becoming more mainstream in society at large and it could change reactions and the historical process in the end. I actually really doubt that this will happen in the end but as a philosopher I enjoy talking about ideas that make sense to me based on the reasons given behind those ideas. I think that is a useful exercise for moral progress as well though because you never know how influential an idea can become. It’s worth noting that the idea of gay marriage was ridiculed in the past and it was also probably considered resistant to the historical process. If I was making an argument for gay marriage in the 80s, I would be under no illusion that everything would change in a blink of eye. Rather, I would hope that the idea would get more respect in a more enlightened future world.
Right. The ability to choose is a benefit of a person. People like personal agency.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
What is the cause of the suffering? The suffering of broken bones is different from the suffering of a broken heart. People like to have sex, but they like to have sex with people they choose to have sex with. Rape is removing a person's choice NOT to have sex. It is the removal of this personal agency that in my mind defines rape. If you have another way of defining it, feel free to propose it.
I suppose what you are trying to say though is about whether suffering is inevitable. We should define that more clearly.
While it is inevitable we will all die one day, dying at the hands of the murderer is not inevitable at that particular time. If the murderer did not interfere, it was inevitable that you would live. If we ignore the time between when you were murdered, versus when you would die of "natural causes", we are missing a major part of the equation.
The only way we could state murder to be equivalent with dying is if a person was murdered at almost the exact moment they would have died naturally. But the idea of, "You're going to die in 20 years, so its not so bad if I murder you now," doesn't work as a valid comparison
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Actually narrowing down what you mean by a "major wrong", is difficult because of statements like this. Now its not inevitability, but the idea of murder with pain versus murder without pain which determines what makes it a major wrong versus not so bad. But that doesn't answer whether that's a major wrong in relation to different types of wrongs. Of course getting sliced into bits with a razor blade while numbed is going to be a less horrible experience then if you feel every second of it, but does that make the action less wrong then having 5 dollars stolen from you?
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
The problem is you're not including all of the other positives of living you might have to undergo as well.
Its kind of like saying, "I stole all your money, but don't worry, now you don't have to pay taxes anymore". Taxes are not the only thing we spend money on. Suffering is not the only thing we spend life on.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Yes, that wasn't very clear. If my friend has five dollars stolen from them, I can feel grief at their loss. But five dollars can be earned again. If my friend breaks up with their significant other, I can feel grief at their loss. But they could possibly remarry, and they have other things in their life they still enjoy. Murder is the end. I will have grief over my friend. They will never come back. They will never experience life again. There is no potential for future joy or improvement. There is only the end.
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But well, we celebrate soilders for taking the lives of others, so killing as such is not a total no-no in most cultures including the western one.
I don’t think the suffering that comes with rape is necessarily caused by a removal of choice. For example, suppose there is a guy who has a button that could freeze time and he uses this button to molest women. The women would never suffer as a result of the molestation even though their choice had been violated and I would go as far as to say that the time freezing molester hasn’t wronged them if there was a very low possibility of them ever finding out that they were molested by him. What he’s doing is still sexual assault though and he’s definitely taking away the women’s ability to choose to get touched sexually by him but it only matters if he either makes them feel suffering and deprives them of pleasure.
Quoting Philosophim
I agree that getting murdered is not completely equivalent to dying a natural death and this is why I still think you can say that murder is wrong. My point is that we would likely consider murder to be a far smaller wrong if we also consider that we will have to face our mortality at some point anyways. It seems to me that your argument here boils down to a deprivation of life span which the murdered individual happens to value. In that case, I would argue that the reason why most people would rather get raped rather than get murdered has more to do with their fear of imminent death rather than a desire to live longer. I think we can maybe agree that if people prefer rape over murder because of a fear of death then it would be an irrational preference because they will have to confront their mortality at some point anyways. I could give you an argument for why I think it’s motivated mostly by the fear of death if you would like to hear one but I’m trying to keep my posts reasonably short for now so I’ll just let you respond first.
Quoting Philosophim
Well, I never claimed that having someone murder you painlessly is less wrong than something as minor as theft. Rather, I only claimed that it isn’t as bad as rape or long term imprisonment.
Quoting Philosophim
I am including all the positives in life as well. My point would be that unless you believe that a particular person would experience far more good things in life if he hadn’t gotten murdered than bad things in his continued life, you couldn’t say that getting murdered is extremely bad for that person. You can say that it’s still significantly bad though like the equivalent of having to serve a 5 year prison sentence or something.
You would rather be murdered than raped, personally?
Economic value is limited to confinement and care of Bob.
Consider the economy of Rape: Bob rapes Jim. Jim carries on living, employing various sectors such as acute healthcare, on going counselling, family services, possibly divorce lawyers (substantial trauma is life changing), Jim may need additional training for alternate employment, his family may need counsellors, etc. Bob goes to jail, employing essentially the same people as the previous murder example.
Economic value consists of confinement and care of Bob, plus all of the supports that Jim and his family require on an ongoing basis as a result of the rape.
Mathematically there is less employment, and therefore less societal benefit, to murder than other violent crimes, therefore murder is the worst crime as it has the least long term benefit for society.
Well, I don’t think that we should assume that economic prosperity is purely defined by productivity. Rather, I think makes sense to think of it in terms of productivity relative to the desired consumption of consumer goods and services. For example, suppose you have a society full of financial minimalists who don’t work very often but also have little desire for consumer goods. I think it’s fair to say that this society would be just as prosperous as a society of hardworking people who have a high level of desire for consumer goods even if they might have a lower level of employment or lower work hours. Murder reduces the productivity of a society but it offsets this negative effect by reducing the consumption of that society as well. In contrast, the trauma caused by rape tends to make its victims less productive at work since it’s hard to have your shit together at work if you are dealing with trauma and it also increases the resource consumption of the victim because they now have to pay for therapists to deal with their trauma and that therapist could be helping us build more computers if rape didn’t exist.
It seems sanctions against murder are required for the establishment of civilization. The law is an attempt to apply sanctions from the outside, while morality is an attempt to apply sanctions within each person.
I think you could approach this topic from another perspective. You can use any branch of moral philosophy under moral irealism / anti-realism to question the proposed moral "fact" ; "Murder is wrong" as not being a fact at all. According to all sub branches of moral anti-realism, moral statements are not facts, so we can either suspend judgment regarding them or allow disagreement in assigning truth value to moral statement.
You will obviously have to face moral realism but you can also get around it by criticizing the coherence theory of truth if we are supposed to know which moral facts are true or false. Coherence theory of truth allows contradictory ( not necessarily moral statements ) to be valid and that's a shortcoming.
I agree, I’m not trying to say that murder isn’t bad at all. I’m arguing that it isn’t as bad as most people think. I think murderers should get like a 5 year prison sentence or be sentenced to death.