@Isdaril > 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...
The exact phrase in the Bible is "thou shalt not MURDER." Not "Thou shalt not kill;" it's "thou shalt not MURDER." You'll also find such gems as "thou shall not suffer a witch to live."
But even moreso, the original meaning, "thou shalt not murder," in context, means "do not kill people within your own tribe." Those guys the next valley over, those heathens who worship heathen gods? Yeah, go right ahead and kill the men and take their women and children for slaves and their goats and stuff in raiding, and hell, if you're successful enough, just go head and kill 'em all and take their land! That ain't MURDER, it's not like they're part of YOUR group, after all!
So forgive me if I DON'T take THAT book for a guide to morality.
> 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.
I'm only attaching lesser value to their lives in that, as the aggressor, they forfiet the right to NOT be stopped with the most immediate and effective means available. Today that means firearms. Should phasers out of Star Trek, with EFFECTIVE and RELIABLE less-lethal "knock this guy right the hell out" settings become widespread, I would advocate for widespread phaser ownership, especially of models which were only equipped with stun settings - unless the means to render oneself immune to stun settings (such as combat drugs or personal force fields) became commonplace. In that case, I'd want a phaser when drawn to default to a heavy stun setting, but for it to be trivial to set it to "vaporize holes in someone."
> 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.
If he's prepared to do violence, then he must be stopped with violence. Too bad for him, but I don't know if he's robbing me, or if he wants to cut me up for thrills, or if he only WANTS the money without meaning me any personal harm, but he's willing to kill me to prevent me from testifying as to his identity. I don't know, I can't know, and frankly I don't care; he has initiated violence, therefore all methods of stopping his predation, immediately, which do not lead to unacceptable risk of collateral damage are automatically authorized.
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@Isdaril > 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...
The exact phrase in the Bible is "thou shalt not MURDER." Not "Thou shalt not kill;" it's "thou shalt not MURDER." You'll also find such gems as "thou shall not suffer a witch to live."
But even moreso, the original meaning, "thou shalt not murder," in context, means "do not kill people within your own tribe." Those guys the next valley over, those heathens who worship heathen gods? Yeah, go right ahead and kill the men and take their women and children for slaves and their goats and stuff in raiding, and hell, if you're successful enough, just go head and kill 'em all and take their land! That ain't MURDER, it's not like they're part of YOUR group, after all!
So forgive me if I DON'T take THAT book for a guide to morality.
> 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.
I'm only attaching lesser value to their lives in that, as the aggressor, they forfiet the right to NOT be stopped with the most immediate and effective means available. Today that means firearms. Should phasers out of Star Trek, with EFFECTIVE and RELIABLE less-lethal "knock this guy right the hell out" settings become widespread, I would advocate for widespread phaser ownership, especially of models which were only equipped with stun settings - unless the means to render oneself immune to stun settings (such as combat drugs or personal force fields) became commonplace. In that case, I'd want a phaser when drawn to default to a heavy stun setting, but for it to be trivial to set it to "vaporize holes in someone."
> 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.
If he's prepared to do violence, then he must be stopped with violence. Too bad for him, but I don't know if he's robbing me, or if he wants to cut me up for thrills, or if he only WANTS the money without meaning me any personal harm, but he's willing to kill me to prevent me from testifying as to his identity. I don't know, I can't know, and frankly I don't care; he has initiated violence, therefore all methods of stopping his predation, immediately, which do not lead to unacceptable risk of collateral damage are automatically authorized.