Ethics of murder

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Many people assert that murder is unethical, perverse, or evil, but why should we consider it so? Why do we need to care about the stain left by a slain man? Why should our conscience care about such matters? If I killed a man because doing so saved the lives of many others, then am I a devil? What if I did so because I needed to provide money to support the lives of myself and my family? What if I only did so because it brought me great wealth? And what if I did this because of the base pleasure at seeing a man die at my leisure? What are your thoughts ladies and gents? Is this topic too dark to even consider, or are the ethics of murder something we need to consider or even already are dealing with?

Poll included. Explanations of answers appreciated.

some murders are justified.

during the world war ii, some german officials tried (and failed) to kill hitler. if they had been successful, they might have been hailed as heroes.

The reason murder is a negative is due to us living in a society. If we didn't, murder would not be unlawful. It would be the law.

To go by its definition, murder will always be murder no matter how it is applied. There is no such thing as a justified murder (in fact it is a contradiction). A man is still murdered and the the other still a murderer.

When factors come into play, there must be an interpretation as to what can be seen justified. In my "holier than thou" mentality, killing a person for food deserves nothing but equal retribution--we are not barbarians. Killing a person because he assaulted you is justified because the assailant was a barbarian. Killing a person over honor is barbaric and backwards, unless such a disgrace has very severe consequences (you can think of the possibilities). You can claim my "desire" in the death of a person to be barbaric but that isn't the case.

Now, we differentiate murders by calling them separate things: Assassination, Execution, etc. If the death of a person can be prevented, that is the best road. But there are times when society is better off with others dead. To add, I would fully support the death penalty for rapists, especially for those who have a sexually transmitted disease; even those who pass the disease consensually without care for the victim. I feel such people deserve not to live as they do not take their lives in this world seriously, instead living recklessly and with no regard.

Simple math. If by killing one person you could save two or more innocent lives, it would be unethical not to do it. There are of course exceptions, because you'd also need to take into account other factors such as the ages of those involved. For example, killing a baby (with maybe 80 years of life ahead of them) to save two elderly people (with 10-20 years of life left each) would be an unacceptable tradeoff.

However real life is not that simple, because you can never be certain that killing someone would actually save other lives. That is why murder is basically taboo in civilised society, no matter the reason.

Murder is NEVER right because a person has a right to their life. An inalienable right, one might say.

To arbitrarily take that away is immoral.

However, there can be reasons why "killing" someone is OK. But never murder.

Ok, who's the jackass who voted "Murder is right if I want to"??

I would only murder if it saved my own life.

Oscuria, under what circumstances would you murder somebody?

I voted unlawful.

It is wrong because society says it is. Otherwise it just comes down to personal perspective, and society needs agreement between people on certain issues if it is to function.

If I murdered someone it would undoubtedly cause me tremendous guilt, even without punishment. Ultimately I think this strong negative emotion associated with harming other humans is what stops me from murdering. I can’t give a hard reason why murder is wrong though. Utilitarian logic is good in practice, but I know that it isn’t what actually stops me from murdering.

On another note, I notice a lot of people think they can justify killing animals because they are “less sentient”. That argument peeves me a bit. The whole idea of sentience is so nebulous that I don’t know how people can make such a declaration. How do they know?

In the end it all comes down to an emotional response. We don’t like killing humans because we sympathize/empathize with other humans more than we do with animals. The emotional response isn’t there with life forms less advanced than humans. That’s really all there is to it I think.