Who "deserves" to die?

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I deserve to die! It would solve so many problems for everyone.

And moral relativism aside, rape and murder are wrong no matter where you are observing from. Now, I believe in Capital Punishment for such crimes, but I believe it should be done quickly -- as fun as it sounds when your venting to say you'd torture them slowly, Manus is right in that it would damage the soul of the torturer.

 

What about the soul of the executioner?

 

Same as Manus, and yet maybe a little more.

Everyone deserves something different from different points of views.
As to the whole terror thing, there can only exist something right and wrong if we play by the common rules. We don't, it's as simple as that. Thus what is right and wrong is determined by the ones with the biggest guns and the most power, and the victor will thus decide who deserves what.

Bottom line: There is no universal justice (right and wrong) since we're not one community. We're many and thus the justice is to be decided locally within each community.
If two communities comes to blows, the stronger community decides what's right and wrong.

Now how to change the problem of not having common rules, well that's a damn good question.
Conquest is one.. dunno what the other might be, slow integration/emigration of cultures perhaps, make everywhere a big mish mash of various points of view.


For instance, Death Rabbit's justice is vengeance. It's an emotional desire to see some balance/satisfaction in the world from his point of view. It's personal, it's emotional, it's vengeance, AND it's justice from his point of view. I cannot possibly see how you can distinguish these two from each other? (at least that's what I get from reading your post DR, please correct me if I'm wrong )

[ November 05, 2003, 23:43: Message edited by: Lokken ]

 

Would you be so quick to hand out revenge if your mother was watching you? I know I wouldn't.

 

Totally depends, dude.

right now, I don't feel like killing anybody

 

Some who live deserve to die. Twice. By my hand, alone. And have their heart and kidneys and livers cut out, and given to more deserving people.

Some who die deserve 72 virgins in the afterlife. Just not the ones who died while killing other people. Twice?

C'est la vie.

 

Hmmm, Chris Williams, did you actually read the whole of my post? I never claimed Osama to be misunderstood, I just don't consider him evil. If you then read the end of my post, you will then see that he still is my enemy, which means that if I had the chance, I would do what I could to bring him down. Justice has nothing to do with that. Mystra's Chosen is on to something about the casualties of the western imperialism, which makes the world trace center a minor incident.

Oh, and I did write about my oppinion on so called dictators and tyrants, so I really don't understand the last four or five lines of your post.

 

1 - Pleasure/happiness is the sole intrinsic value.
2 - Our fundamental moral obligation is to produce as much happiness as we can.

1+2 = therefore we should choose to achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

So, who should die? who deserve to die?
The person who when dead can produce the greatest amount of happiness in greatest amount of people.

If you have doubt about it, let me ask,
1 - how could an action that produces the most happiness possibly fail to be right?
2 - How could an action be right if another available action could have made can produce more happiness?

i don't really agree with all these. i just used them in my english class debate this morning on stem cell tech.

now what i really believed is,
treat all men as the end, not a mean to an end.
That should explain well enough itself.

[ November 06, 2003, 05:18: Message edited by: teekc ]

 

teekc, it sounds like you talk of a society where all humans would be reasonable. Well, I hate to burst the bubble, but they aren't.

Do you think it ok for the old free democracy to kill off Socrates? Just because majority wanted? I sure as hell don't, but that's just me.

And what is right? Try to define it, then you'll see how hard it is.

 

Yeah well the point's been said here already. This is my problem as well. Too much thinking on what's right and what's wrong and what do I have the right to judge and what not leads to a state of complete undecidedness. No opinions, so to say.

We humans aren't meant to go that far though. We can't encompass the entire concept of evil and good from all possible angles in the entirety of the universe. That's impossible, to even theorize about it.

How about the evolution? Let's say we get another Hitler. He slaughters half of the population on this planet just for the fun of it. But in doing so, saves the planet from being destroyed by pollution and actually refines and improves the human genes so much that the next time a new threat comes, instead of our entire race being destroyed in it, we survive and expand out into the space. There, we survive by fighting and defeating other alien species... and I don't have to go any further than that.

In that simplest of stories, it's quite hard to tell wether that one person deserves to die or not. If he did (and was killed), 3 billion people would remain alive, but soon after this entire planet would be near-destroyed by pollution, and after that completely so through the other threat. But if he didn't deserve to die, well the consequences are obvious. Plus, there's the alien species to consider, his 'deserving' of death determined their lives and deaths as well. How can you ever tell the difference between right and wrong decisions on this scale?

So who *really* deserves to die then? The one you think. Or the person you asked thinks. Ultimately there is no better answer than that. Law is not one to speak for this for law is different in each nation and country. Law also serves only that one community, not the world, the universe, or the individual. As individuals are ever-different, then no one can be declared being more right than any other. So yes, when any one person feels someone deserved to die, that someone deserves to die.

I'm not much into philosophy in truth, just for this reason. But it is the truth. You can go half-way and say that the opinion of the majority of individual people would decide this, but would that make any difference to the story of the 3 billion people dying? The point here is not to go in to that state of "no opinions" again. The point is to realise that you can only do decisions from your own personal point of view, and act accordingly.

 

Everyone! Were all going to die.

 

It started as our attempt to define moral. Of course we can always say God says what is right and wrong. But that bugs a lot of people. Why does God particularly want us to behave in those ways? Are these actions good in nature? Or God just like these actions that's why they are good? Then it goes back to the start of the search of what is wright and what is rong.

Throughout our history, several people attempted to define right and wrong, moral and immoral.

“we should choose to achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people"
This belongs to the consequentualist point of view, started by John Stuart Mill, aka utilitarianism, aka teleological ethics (goal, end driven). If killing Socrates can produce the greatest amount of happiness (not just happy) to the greatest amount of people (not just people of old free democracy), then, according to untilitariansim, he, Socrates, should die.
i have to stress that i don't really buying all these.

My greatest influence on moral issue comes from, the direct opposite of Mill's, Immanuel Kant's duty-based ethics, aka non-consequentualist, aka deontological (ignore goal, end).
You see, we should celebrate a good will more than a good action. An financially able person who donates just to get fame; another broke person who has a good will of donating but couldn't do so. The later, according to Kant,

As you can see here, for Kant, the highest good is the good will but not happiness. (i could go on and on for this, but in short), Kant has two methods to check if an action is good. Each will come to the same end. The second method, which i prefer, "treat all men as the end, not a mean to an end". Therefore, i should use Socrates' life as a mean to achieve my desire goal.

Of course, who can forget Aristotle. To Aristotle, eudimonia (roughly translated into happiness) is the higest good. Good is not a natural behavior or else we all will be born good. If you want to be a good archer, you learn from a good archer. If you want to be a good person, you learn from a good character. That's where we learn what is rignt and wrong. He than proceed to lay out his "doctrine of the Mean" (way far in China, Confucius had the same view). Mean is the middle range between Deficiency and Excess. To Aristotle, there are only two ways to go wrong, deficency and excess. To be good is to be in the mean.

All the above assume that we have responsiblity on others. Thomas Hobbes (and John Locke) had another view. There is no ultimate good nor wrong. It is naturally right for anyone of us to protect ourselves, maximize our benefits. However, if we act according to the Right of Nature, we will end up in the State of Nature. It is the most chaotic state, people killing people, people robbing people, no civilization, no nothing. It is the worst state possible for mankind (like what happened shortly post war Iraq then). To avoid falling into this state, we establish Social Contract between each other. Of course i can kill anyone i want to maximize my benefits but at the same time, others can do that too and that would be harmful for me. Therefore, we sign a socal contract, giving away our unrestricted freedom, so that i don't bug you, you don't mess me up. To maintain such contract, we need a 3rd party between us - Sovereign.

I am sure as anyone of you go through all these, you already form some critism. All these philosophers were not without oppositions too. This just proved how incapable we human are to define right and wrong, moral and immoral. Even if we managed to define morality, how do we ensure the enforcement?

In Woody Allen's "Crime and Misdeamors", Judah gotten aways with his crime. He then met Cliff near the end of the movie and told Cliff his "scary movie plot". He found out that we can commit crime and got away clear clean. There is no such things as "the all seeing eye". The rabbi in the movie was blind at the end of the movie! Bottom line, we still need God (or a cosmic mechanism) to ensure, enforce morality. And then this take us back to "God defines good".


-- i already knew the hardship in defining right and wrong. But there is a need, still, to define right and wrong. It's just a matter of choice. I cannot readily defend my belief, but it is still my belief and my guidelines.

 

No. You paint with too broad a brush. Utilitarianism has moved on since J.S. Mill. Also, J.S. Mill would reject the above position as well I believe. Perhaps Jeremy Bentham (who is more likely 'the' founder of utilitarinaism than JS Mill if just one had to be picked) would be forced to agree with the above but certainly not Mill. That was the entire point of Mill attempting to determine a qualitative approach to the utilitarian calculus in the first place - he was attempting to avoid having to say that killing Socrates was good.

Modern analytic philosophers who ascribe to utilitarianism have moved well on.

With regards to Kant:

Kant would never arrive at this conclusion in my opinion - it contradicts the sentence you used right before it as well.

You lump Hobbes in with Locke. Hobbes may believe something approaching this (though not really because Hobbes didn't think the state of nature was bad per se. he thought it was nasty, brutish, and short but it is the subsequent contract from which morality such as good and bad are derived - the state of nature is prior to these moral templates). Locke however thought man was fundamentally pretty good, but not perfect, and an all around cherrier fellow.

 

Why do we need anyone to enforce morality? (or rephrased, why do we need the enforce morality?)

 

People look outside themselves for God because they cannot yet see within themselves.

Kant is a very smart fellow. There are a lot of others out there as well (Leinbiz, Berkley, Plato, Socrates, Kung Fus Tse, and many many more who I cannot remember by name at this point.

I do regret Utilitarianism's influence upon telology, for it is a twisted view, and has caused most people's view of telology to also be such. Telology is not so much the worship of the final effect, but the belief that all things happen solely for that final effect.

If you understand morality it does require an outside source, for all sources are within and without - they are the same.

 

Not just Utilitarianism, many other approaches moved on. But between brief sentences and detailed info, i always look for an easy way out.

About Socrates death, i think i have put the conditions specific enough. People would of course reject putting Socrates to death. Shouldn't that itself proved that Socrates living produce more happiness than Socrates die?

It's a typo. i mean, "The second method, which i prefer, "treat all men as the end, not a mean to an end". Therefore, i should use Socrates' life as a mean to achieve my desire goal." Shouldn't that be obvious enough that i made a typo because the previous is inconsistent with the later?

i knew, but if i to seperate the two, then i will have to force myself to look into my notes and text. too much trouble. Few brief sentences to twist their similiar point of view serves my purpose better which is "a few brief looks at human's futile attempts to draw morality but at the end, there is still a need in God".

Of couse, i really wish we don't need morality to be enforced. That way i can cunningly commit a crime, kill lots of people in dark, and you know what, without the "all seeing eye" i have no problem taking my conscience and feed it to wild dogs. If i can escape human eyes, i escaped everything. Why should i behave good altogether anyway?

 

And why would you want to kill people?

Have you ever tried solitude for an extended amount of time?

Killing someone without being feared is often pointless.

 

1 - Why would i not kill? i had an affair with someone. she threaten to expose our affair. This might ruin my family, job and fame. Why would i not kill her? Why would i not kill? Someone laughed at me in school. Why would i not kill? Someone is competing a job with me. i have tons of reason to kill, i am not killing pointlessly. Killing is just one form of crime. Why would i not rob, theif, cheat...

Morality was built upon God as the enforcer and judge. Where is my conscience guilt if there is no all seeying eye?

2 - Solitude for an extended amount of time? yeah i did that, about 2 years, i never stepped out of my room. But i still don't get your point?

 

"Morality" exists because it from an sociological point of view makes sense from a society. A society agrees on that murder is bad because it benefits everyone. Each person gives up their power to murder whomever they wish to gain not needing to fear to be murdered by anyone for anything. That is the basis of all morality. It makes sense in human interaction and benefits the group as a whole, if such "morals" didnt exist humans wouldnt be able to work together at all and we would all be worse off each person trying to scrounge a living from the earth alone.

 

Well, obviously I can't speak for teekc, but my morality, my conscience, does not spring from fear of retribution or thoughts of personal or societal gain.

It comes from within, our innate sense of what is right, our leading impulses, and our empathy for anyone, or anything else, as the case may be.

Some may disagree, but this is where my ethics spring from, phisolophy cements them in choice, but they are always, and ever will be, present within me.

If this is not the case then I truly pity you, you do not know what it is you have lost.