The right to kill?

[WagesofSin]

I often hear the following statement:

"No one has the right to take someone else's life."

And I ask you, why not? If the above statement is considered true, then does this not assume that human existance is bound by, for lack of a better word, a "Higher Order"?

Now, by higher order I don't necissarily mean a god. It can mean many things, such as a universal law which may even be metaphysical in its nature.

So what if a person's ideals do not follow such an order, is he not entitled to take one's life?


Just thinkin' out loud people, gimme some feedback.


-WoS

[xorbie]

Well I think you have to define "right." Does this mean the moral right, or the legal right? I see these as the only two types, but if there are any other, this might just add to the confusion.

I personally see very good reasons for you not to have the right to kill (except in certain cases) either legally or morally.

[Keith Russell]

Greetings:

If someone is acting in a way that threatens my life, my property, or the lives and/or property of others, I certainly do have the right to kill, if that is necessary to remove the threat.

K

[SlateGreySky]

Hobbes says that we all have the "right" to kill any number of people, even just to take what we want. As relatively intelligent creatures, though, most of us see the double-edged nature of this sword of "rights" and agree to a mutual suspension of those rights in order to insure our survival.

So, for Hobbes, you do have the right to take someone else's life. You'd just better beware that everyone else has the right to take yours though.

[Scorpion]

My not-particularly-refined view about "rights" is that it is meaningful concept only in the context of social contracts (wow, that's three con-words in one sentence - hat trick!), and I'm not aware of any social contract in which killing is approved. Sure, some countries still have death penalties, and every country (that I know of) has death penalty under martial law, but I tend to interpret those as acknowledgements of situations where the possibility of handling the relation between two parties by any sort of agreement is deemed impossible and the whole "contract" talk (along with "rights") becomes irrelevant.

...so, in that sense no-one has any right to kill anyone; as long as "rights" apply to the situation at all, killing is out.

-S-

P.S. Hmm... euthanasia might actually be an exception to this...

[Satan]

Just because one believes one thing while the majority does not does not make it right. Personal beliefs and rights are all well and fine but we must still conform to the rules and laws of the society we live in whether or not we agree with them. Otherwise, the body that made those laws and rules can often times put the non-conformist to death if applicable. ;)

No one has the right (in most societies) to take another's life, except for the governing rule that runs said society. A reversal of many death row decisions is taking place right now because a judge handed down the sentence with no jury. I guess if a few people say you should die, it's acceptable, but no one person has the right to take another's life. ;)

[Keith Russell]

Satan, you don't believe we have the right to kill in self-defense?

K

[NonHomogenized]

The way I see it, rights exists only in the context of a social situation, and then according to a social contract (as do some other people who have spoken here.).
As I would not wish to have any less rights than anyone else, so neither would I attempt to gain any more rights than anyone else. Therefore, each person's rights end right at the point that they would conflict with another person's rights. As such, killing another person is a violation of their rights, and is immoral,
except in cases of self-defense, or the necessary defense of one's rights, (which, in a social context, amounts to the same thing) and which is always a last resort.

[Robert Anthony]

Originally posted by WagesofSin
I often hear the following statement:

"No one has the right to take someone else's life."

And I ask you, why not? If the above statement is considered true, then does this not assume that human existance is bound by, for lack of a better word, a "Higher Order"?

Now, by higher order I don't necissarily mean a god. It can mean many things, such as a universal law which may even be metaphysical in its nature.

So what if a person's ideals do not follow such an order, is he not entitled to take one's life?


Just thinkin' out loud people, gimme some feedback.


-WoS

You hit upon the problem of moral dualism, a prevalent ideology among judeo-christian westerners. Ancient hebrews and Plato were the main originators of this menace. Modern liberalism has inherited moral dualism in a particularly disastrous fashion, with its manic political dogma about 'all humans are equal', which masks actual anthropometric variability in the neurotic drive towards a hyperemotional yet empty idealized world of unending paradise. (--What does the concept of Heaven--Kant's 'noumenal realm'--actually mean? Ego-gratification; the frightening, pesky inequaties of biological reality magically transcended--) All this leads to an unnatural (i.e. metaphysical) sociopolitical policy of ultrahumanitarian egalitarianism, effectively sabotaging a progressive and earth-based relationship to genetics and culture. Liberal politics is essentially watered down judeo-christianity. In modern America's goofy civilization, moral dualism and its ego-gratifying promise of a perfect, joyous Beyond appeals conveniently to the judeo-christian demographic bulk, the People, who conceptualize themselves as chronically oppressed and the world as 'unfair' and 'evil'-- enter 'freedom-fighter' Martin Luther King Jr. as saint.

Therefore, your questions are entirely innocent.

[wiploc]

Originally posted by WagesofSin
I often hear the following statement:

"No one has the right to take someone else's life."

And I ask you, why not? If the above statement is considered true, then does this not assume that human existance is bound by, for lack of a better word, a "Higher Order"?



1. If there is a moral rule, there must be a higher order.
2. There is a moral rule.
3. Therefore, there is a higher order.

You are saying that the first premise seems probably true, right? It's a common position, but I've never seen it defended.

(Okay, Theophilus, I've seen it "defended" on a hit and run basis, but I've never seen a serious or rational argument that there is some kind of linkage between the metaphysical and the moral. Come to think of it, I've seen William Lane Craig use that line, but he didn't defend it either. (It wasn't his fault that he didn't defend it; his opponent failed to put him to the test.))

Perhaps, WoS, you could offer us a reason to think that ...

1. If there is a moral rule, there must be a higher order.

is more plausible than ...

1b. If there is a moral rule, there must not be a higher order.

or ...

1c. If there is a moral rule, there must be a bicycle.

If there is a linkage between morality and the supernatural (or between morality and bicycles) I'd love to learn about it.

crc