Why do people kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?

[ultimatepsi]

I don't have a lot of principles that I stand by and won't be talked down from but "compassion is more important than ideology" is one of them. If you're moral code ever tells you that hurting someone is the right thing to do, something is wrong. Now I believe that sometimes hurting someone is the less wrong thing to do. If someone try to hurt me,

Comments

[lbmango]

Note that I agree with you.

However, I think that the argument (That I disagree with, I'm seriously playing devil's advocate here) is that if abortion is murder, then Doctors who perform a lot of them are mass murderers. So, you've got someone who is killing lots of people, and the government won't arrest them, or make them stop. Do you kill a mass murderer to make them stop murdering innocent people?

I'll let someone else invoke Godwin's rule here, but yes, that is the next step in this argument.

[ultimatepsi]

I think you have just made exactly the point I was trying to make.

[londo]

Do you kill a mass murderer to make them stop murdering innocent people?

That's often how we handle such things, yes. I mean, if I thought someone was out to kill people, and I had particular power to stop them, but I had to kill them to do it, I probably would.

[randysmith]

Thank you for saying this.

I do consider it terrorism (in a technical sense) rather than pure "killing someone who is killing other people", in that I think the primary intent is to scare other doctors away from performing abortions. But that doesn't change the moral logic, or the pain I feel around that moral logic.

[moozeale]

I've always felt the same way. Why is an unwanted embryo's life worth more to some people than an adult doctor who helps women make a very difficult and often painful decision?

[lbmango]

To be completely fair, it's HUNDREDS of unwanted (and assumed innocent) embryos lives are considered worth more than one adult doctor who (the person doing the comparison thinks) kills children.

I disagree with the assumptions, but with those assumptions, murder, and even terrorism isn't a completely unreasonable next step...

Also note that I see this single murder very differently than I see clinic bombings. This was an individual who thought that he(?) was killing a mass murderer. I disagree with him, but can envision situations where I might do the same. Clinic bombings kill and injure people who have no relation to the issue, and people who (the bomber thinks) have killed only one person (the mothers)

Also also note: I desperately need a "devil's advocate" icon. as I seem to be straying very far away from my own beliefs here...

[sirroxton]

Even if you subscribe to those ideas, it should still be seen as a moral dilemma rather than a math problem. The moment you delegate the moral decision to mathematics, you've lost your soul. Having the courage to do sad, unfortunate things is an important trait, but you mustn't lose your ability to see those things as sad and unfortunate, even though that makes the decision difficult.

[lbmango]

Oh, it's clearly a moral dilemma, but they have answered that dilemma in one way. Not the way I would have, but still.

Then again, a lot of these people are also pro-death penalty. So they have more of an "eye for an eye" morality than I do, and so maybe it isn't as much of a dilemma for them...

Oh, and DANGEROUSLY cute icon, BTW.

[dragontdc]

The death penalty brings in another aspect of the dilemma. If there is the death penalty for murder, then to kill someone you have to be willing to die for your cause. If you are willing to die for putting your beliefs into action, there is very little that can be done to stop you.

Without the death penalty, you get the psychological conundrum of being willing to live very uncomfortably and without freedom for your beliefs. In some ways, dying for them is easier, because it's over and then off you go to the afterlife of your choice.

[s13]

I agree with most of this, most of the time.

But... who defines what's hurtful? The person who is taking the potentially hurtful action, or the person who is or isn't hurt by the action?