@ShadowDragon8685 "Shooting them dead right then and there is a morally good thing to do"
Well, I'm not that much into philosophy, but I'm pretty sure you're going to have a hard time finding a renowned philosoph that would say exactly that. If you're a devout man, I'm pretty sure you've got a "you shall not kill people" written somewhere if you read the bible carefully...
"You're ignoring intent with your argument and presuming that someone who means to harm or kill someone, unprovoked, has as much value to their life as the person they mean to kill"
Yes I am, for 2 reasons. Firstly, because it is how you roll in utilitarianism. You only consider the greater good on a large scale and mostly deny individuality, so a life is a life, and they all have the same value. Be it the life of Hitler or Gandhi. As the self-defense argument is an utilitarian argument, I treat it as such.
Secondly, because thinking that the life of someone that harms people has a lower value is just your point of view and most moral systems disagree with you on that point. Mostly because it is impossible (or very hard) to value life in an objective way, each individual has its own way to value certain lives over others in a subjective way (for example, I would value my friends and family higher than complete strangers, you probably would too, except it is YOUR friends and family and they are not the same people) and you can't reconcile all these subjective valuations into a coherent system.
An other example to illustrate this : someone that robbs you may be stealing the money to provide food for his family, so in your eyes he's a person that harms you and that you probably value poorly, but in the eyes of his family, he takes risks so that they don't starve to death and they value him positively. Both valuations seem pretty legit, but they are inconsistent with each other.
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@ShadowDragon8685 "Shooting them dead right then and there is a morally good thing to do"
Well, I'm not that much into philosophy, but I'm pretty sure you're going to have a hard time finding a renowned philosoph that would say exactly that. If you're a devout man, I'm pretty sure you've got a "you shall not kill people" written somewhere if you read the bible carefully...
"You're ignoring intent with your argument and presuming that someone who means to harm or kill someone, unprovoked, has as much value to their life as the person they mean to kill"
Yes I am, for 2 reasons. Firstly, because it is how you roll in utilitarianism. You only consider the greater good on a large scale and mostly deny individuality, so a life is a life, and they all have the same value. Be it the life of Hitler or Gandhi. As the self-defense argument is an utilitarian argument, I treat it as such.
Secondly, because thinking that the life of someone that harms people has a lower value is just your point of view and most moral systems disagree with you on that point. Mostly because it is impossible (or very hard) to value life in an objective way, each individual has its own way to value certain lives over others in a subjective way (for example, I would value my friends and family higher than complete strangers, you probably would too, except it is YOUR friends and family and they are not the same people) and you can't reconcile all these subjective valuations into a coherent system.
An other example to illustrate this : someone that robbs you may be stealing the money to provide food for his family, so in your eyes he's a person that harms you and that you probably value poorly, but in the eyes of his family, he takes risks so that they don't starve to death and they value him positively. Both valuations seem pretty legit, but they are inconsistent with each other.