Can the killing of innocents ever be morally justifiable? (1 Viewer)

[Harry Manback]

our innocents, or their innocents?

Is this an important distinction for you?

Do you pretend it is not?

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The insistence on placing this in the context of "wartime" is another reason this is a nullity. The situation is no different than the bank robber who is holding a hostage and on the brink of killing a hostage because he has not gotten what he wants a police officer on the scene shoots and kills the robber but the bullet passes through the robber's body and hits a child who was at the bank with her mother. Ascribing motives as "political" inherently confuses a situation where a soldier acts on behalf of his country which is trying to stop another country or group from acting in an unjust, immoral or amoral way way towards actual innocents, which is really what's going on in almost all situations that are being considered here.

Police action and war is fundamentally different. We, or more accurately, our political leaders choose to go to war. While that individual police officer chose to be a cop, he did not choose the place or circumstances of the robbery. The other actor created the circumstances in which the cop chooses whether to respond with force or let the situation continue.

I don't understand your last sentence.

Morality is applicable across all situations. The king or prime minister or president who goes to war defensively acts just as the cop does, IMO, to restore order, protect what is good, and that begins but does not end with the (true) innocents under their care. - As for the last sentence, well Tim is positing a specific situation where a country acts because of just "politics". That ascribes a motive like some dispute over a policy or law of some kind, that almost never happens. Politics and policy are always just means to accomplish a moral or pecuniary goal. Countries go to war, at least defensively, over moral issues and self-preservation, which is itself a moral issue. Describing war as based on just "politics" frames the discussion as any war being unjust in the first place. Wars happen because of a failure of politics most frequently (Clausewitz or someone like that said that). How you judge the motive for the war affects how you judge the death of innocents in the furtherance of that motive.

 

[Jack White]

This is a spin off from the Taliban thread. I offered some choices, but the truth for most people is probably somewhat in-between, and if you feel you need to make a longer and more accurate answer, please do so.

Essentially, IMO, if you checked the first box, that no killing of innocents is ever justifiable, you are a pacifist, since there is no means to conduct human warfare without killing innocent people. If you checked the last box, and believe that the killing of innocents is justifiable to achieve a political goal, then your views are basically synonymous with terrorism.

Essentially, IMO, if you checked the first box, that no killing of innocents is ever justifiable, you are a pacifist, since there is no means to conduct human warfare without killing innocent people.

I don't think this is correct. Pacifism is opposition to war and violence.

Though I do object to war (mass murder), I am not a pacifist. Violence, if employed in defense of person or property, is justifiable. It's the initiation of violence that is morally reprehensible.

 

[Spin]

Wasn't John Travolta in a movie about this dilemma?

 

[proninja]

My take:

No. The killing of innocents is never a morally justifiable act. It is always immoral to kill innocent people. 100% of the time.

It is very hard for me to speak in absolutes about it never being justifiable for any reason, however. Say to prevent an even worse immoral act like has been kicked around in here. But that is not a choice between moral and immoral. It is a lesser of two immoral acts.

Yes, it's semantics, but it's important. If we kill innocents in war and believe it was justifiable for some reason, it doesn't make the loss of innocent life any less tragic and we should only have solemn regret that we felt we had to be involved in such a horrific act. It was not justifiable because the act that killed innocent people somehow became a good, moral thing to do. If we believe that our killing of innocents is somehow good, right, moral, or upstanding, then we will have a really tough time thinking of the innocents who died as innocent, which puts us in a morally repugnant position, unfortunately one that we see regularly where people are very cavalier about the loss of innocent life.

 

[kface]

This is a spin off from the Taliban thread. I offered some choices, but the truth for most people is probably somewhat in-between, and if you feel you need to make a longer and more accurate answer, please do so.

Essentially, IMO, if you checked the first box, that no killing of innocents is ever justifiable, you are a pacifist, since there is no means to conduct human warfare without killing innocent people. If you checked the last box, and believe that the killing of innocents is justifiable to achieve a political goal, then your views are basically synonymous with terrorism.

Terrorists do not believe in "innocents" or the innocence of their victims. Nor did the SS officer who led their victims to the firing squad or gas chamber due to ethnicity or religion or political beliefs, and the same goes for the several other evil ideologies that have plagued this earth for lo these many millennia but especially so much since the start of the 20th century.

The poll is a null because it's based on false assumptions.

How do terrorists not believe in innocents? You don't think their sons and daughters are innocent? All those group you mention think that they are the innocent ones...I know it is a shocking revelation

Funny calling these evil ideologies. They are what they are - ideologies trying to achieve a goal they will believe will purify/help/whatever the earth because their religion/nationality is blinding them otherwise. All hardened ideologies are based in ignorance and can very easily go down these slippery roads. Unfortunately most people aren't very self reflected and can easily get caught up in the passion of these movements...it's sad for humanity as a whole.

 

[tommyboy]

would it be morally justifiable to kill a person known to have the most viral form of black plague

in a community of 100 people on a small island where everyone shares quarters?

 

[msommer]

would it be morally justifiable to kill a person known to have the most viral form of black plague

in a community of 100 people on a small island where everyone shares quarters?

The Walking Dead - Carol did that, right?

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

This is a spin off from the Taliban thread. I offered some choices, but the truth for most people is probably somewhat in-between, and if you feel you need to make a longer and more accurate answer, please do so.

Essentially, IMO, if you checked the first box, that no killing of innocents is ever justifiable, you are a pacifist, since there is no means to conduct human warfare without killing innocent people. If you checked the last box, and believe that the killing of innocents is justifiable to achieve a political goal, then your views are basically synonymous with terrorism.

Terrorists do not believe in "innocents" or the innocence of their victims. Nor did the SS officer who led their victims to the firing squad or gas chamber due to ethnicity or religion or political beliefs, and the same goes for the several other evil ideologies that have plagued this earth for lo these many millennia but especially so much since the start of the 20th century.

The poll is a null because it's based on false assumptions.

How do terrorists not believe in innocents? You don't think their sons and daughters are innocent? All those group you mention think that they are the innocent ones...I know it is a shocking revelation

Funny calling these evil ideologies. They are what they are - ideologies trying to achieve a goal they will believe will purify/help/whatever the earth because their religion/nationality is blinding them otherwise. All hardened ideologies are based in ignorance and can very easily go down these slippery roads. Unfortunately most people aren't very self reflected and can easily get caught up in the passion of these movements...it's sad for humanity as a whole.

No, you're right, I agree, they think some are innocent, adults or children, just not the people they target. Probably just not infidels and those who belong to apostate states. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

About ideologies, I know what you're saying, but you can't think of one truly, evil, irredeemable ideology, not one? The easiest is usually from WW2 and naziism. Let me hear what you think about what you think is misunderstood or on the "slippery slope" of naziism, because, again, to use a clear example that we know happened, the concentration camp guard or SS officer who led let's say an innocent child to the gas chambers or the execution squad did so based on their ideology, that the child was subhuman, not deserving of sympathy, not innocent at all but actually deserving to die. So, go ahead, fire it up, let me know how that whole "thing" was misunderstood.

 

[Fennis]

What if a terrorist had a nuclear device and said he wouldn't blow up a major city if you would kill a random small baby in China?

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Wasn't John Travolta in a movie about this dilemma?

would it be morally justifiable to kill a person known to have the most viral form of black plague

in a community of 100 people on a small island where everyone shares quarters?

The Walking Dead - Carol did that, right?

What if a terrorist had a nuclear device and said he wouldn't blow up a major city if you would kill a random small baby in China?

Maybe the movie is Batman - Dark Knight, in which (IIRC) Batman is forced to blow up one of two ferries filled with people at his choosing or he has to witness both blow up. Horrible, sick premise, but there it is if you want the Hollywood version.

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

My take:

No. The killing of innocents is never a morally justifiable act. It is always immoral to kill innocent people. 100% of the time.

It is very hard for me to speak in absolutes about it never being justifiable for any reason, however. Say to prevent an even worse immoral act like has been kicked around in here. But that is not a choice between moral and immoral. It is a lesser of two immoral acts.

Yes, it's semantics, but it's important. If we kill innocents in war and believe it was justifiable for some reason, it doesn't make the loss of innocent life any less tragic and we should only have solemn regret that we felt we had to be involved in such a horrific act. It was not justifiable because the act that killed innocent people somehow became a good, moral thing to do. If we believe that our killing of innocents is somehow good, right, moral, or upstanding, then we will have a really tough time thinking of the innocents who died as innocent, which puts us in a morally repugnant position, unfortunately one that we see regularly where people are very cavalier about the loss of innocent life.

Yep, it is semantics but I don't think "morally justified" means making an immoral act moral, but that choosing the lesser of immoral choices when there are only immoral choices is moral. Or at least can be.

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

Terrorists do not believe in "innocents" or the innocence of their victims. ...

I completely disagree with this. Terrorist, at least today's depend on the randomness of the immediate victims, the randomness of the act to create the terror among others which are the true targets that result in the kind of irrational responses that are counterproductive to the victims. "innocence" of the immediate victims is almost a requirement.

I think they're aware of the moral pain it causes us but they act feeling themselves right and that there is no such thing as an innocent. The terrorist hates x government, the citizens of x support that government and enjoy their benefits and do nothing to stop their actions, thus they are not innocent. As I said another example is the SS officer who led a prisoner to his/her death. They may further view the victim as subhuman or hated by their god because of their ethnicity or religion. They all "deserved" to die in that officer's mind.

I understand, I still disagree. Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of examples of terrorists that view the enemies as "subhuman" or "deserving" of their fate, but again in many cases the goal is to use "random nobodies" to scare the real targets - everyone else.

 

[Mr. Know-It-All]

What if a terrorist had a nuclear device and said he wouldn't blow up a major city if you would kill a random small baby in China?

Girl baby or boy baby?