waxing the killing floor

[mother engine]

can murder be righteous, justifiable, or socially viable outside of acts of war and the government sanctioned killings politically termed 'punishment'?

[Morphyous]

Yeh, if his names George Bush.

[Fishteacher73]

Depending in your POV, yes. Very easily. Look at any genocide. They almost were all considered righteous and justified. Morality is subjective so anything can be considered immoral or moral depending on your POV. Alcohol is considered taboo by Islam, but many Christian sects use it in their rites.

While morality I think can be considered subjective, ethics is more objective. Ethical code must be logically derived without theological inferences.

So is murder ethical? No. In any circumstance I think, murder is unethical and cannot be logically justified. There are alternatives that are non-leathal.

[Morphyous]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

There are alternatives that are non-leathal.

Not so permanent though

[Fishteacher73]

Would life imprisionment not be permanent?

Perhaps murder would have sounded better to Charles Robberts Swart (S. African President when Mandela was imprisioned for life), but at least life imprisonment is reversable....

[sanctus]

Fishteacher, I don't agree that ethics is objective (or as you put it more objective than morality).
Picture yourself for example a man a woman, the man sitting on a chair and eating the woman sitting at his feet eating as well. With the common ethics we would say that not right, why should the woman be lower than the man? Now this couple belongs to a tribe that veneres the ground as the source of everything, so it is actually a honor to eat on the ground. Now how do we put it with our "common ethics"?

And murder can be ethical. By your definition ethical it is if it is logically derived (without theological interferences), there are heaps of logical derivation why a nurder could be ethical. Example: if I don't kill him he might potentially kill me, I don't want to risk that, so I kill him (by this reasoning I should eventually kill all life). It is very logic and without theology.

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by mother engine

can murder be righteous, justifiable, or socially viable outside of acts of war and the government sanctioned killings politically termed 'punishment'?

No! Murder is the unlawful killing of one human by another. Unlawful killings can never be righteous, justifiable or socially acceptable. While people are killed in acts of war and by the government as punishment as approved by the people, these are not acts of murder because they are lawful killings.

[Fishteacher73]

Why would murder be neccessary? You can defend yourself without killing.

It is illogical to place people in a social hierarchy anyway, so the example is flawed. (not be argumentative). The fact that the two have been set in a caste system (at least while eating) removes them from a logical system. It is illogical to subjugate women, so the converse is true as well.

[IrishEyes]

I agree with C1ay - 'murder' is never ok.
Is ending someone's life outside of execution or war ok? Yes, of course it is. Sometimes, regardless of what Fish may say - ending someone's life is the only answer. Of course, the alternatives should always be explored. But in general, it's not a good thing to use "never" or "always", as there can usually be found an exception that will violate your "absolute" laws, right my liberal friends?

[orbsycli]

I would kill if i had to, even if it meant a life of isolation, it had to be done.
Maybe it's just my inner desires to be a cowboy and rob banks for a living, but for some reason I believe in some cases vengeance is good. I'm not going to go collect the heads of all the bullies in my life or anything, but if a cartel killed all my family and friends, you know his ass is mine
I suppose I got a bit off the point. It's all how you look at it, the point of view, as everybody has already said.