How would you feel if you were standing over the body of the man you just killed, and you discovered that he was only hours away from perfecting a serum that would cure cancer, restore youth, and keep cute li’l dogs puppies forever?
The problem with “how would you feel” questions is that once you get into the specific feelings of a crime victim, the objectivity of what constitutes justice gets lost. I’d still like to wring the neck of the guy who broke into my car 10 years ago and stole my toolbox, but that doesn’t make it justice.
For me this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with either “justice” or “revenge.” It is simply a matter of prevention. If the killer is loose - a killer who I personally witnessed murder someone, so there is no doubt whatsoever as to his guilt - this means that he could murder other people as well. He has to be stopped.
But the hypothetical of the OP is a ridiculous, outlandish situation.
But do we know they’ll kill again? I mean, by this rationale, we should shoot everyone who has killed but is found not guilty. Should the family of Ron Goldman or Nicole Brown Simpson have shot O.J.?
Actually, it could make it justice. After all, it made enough of an impact in your life that you are still using it as a cite, so to speak, today. Wouldn’t be legal though.
Justice, to me, really isn’t anything but a feeling; of equity or morality or however you want to phrase it. It’s when you change the discussion to “legal” that you start talking in objective terms.
No, I would not take the law in my own hands. It is not up to me to decide whether someone will kill again. I don’t believe in pre-emptive killing any more than I do preemptive wars.
Did they see OJ do it? Were they there at the time and I just missed their testimony on Court TV? If I see someone actually do murder, that’s one thing. If I’m just “sure” someone is a “killer”, that’s another.
OK – the OP was badly worded and framed. But its still an interesting thought.
This is a false dilema. The only way this statement can be true in the context of this hypothetical is if your “internal” ethic held it is always wrong to kill someone, no matter what, no exceptions, ever, period. As it is, the choice is not (necessarily) between “situational ethics and internal ethics.” The choice might just as likely be between two ethics - one without an absolut prohbition on taking life. Most people, when stretched, would concede that their personal ethic does not place an absolute prohibition on the taking of life (especially by proxy).
That’s assumes an answer to the question. I am not so sure it’s wrong.
I’ll go. No. Revenge fantasies may be diverting way of occupying my mind in a time of distress, but actual killing for the purpose of vengeance is contrary to my moral code.
Does the OP have any interest in answering his own question? From his conflation of the concepts of “revenge” and “justice”, I can draw some inferences about his answer, but I don’t wish to leap to conclusions.
It’s someone you’ve known for years. You see him strangle your nine year old daughter to death. At that moment, with no time for camera tricks, you address him. He acknowledges you and says he killed her so she wouldn’t reveal that she was being molested by him - you are as sure of his identity as you are of your own. He escapes but is captured. He pleads not guilty and does no testify in his defense. He is acquitted.
But that’s the thing. From your own POV, it seems reasonable. But it has to seem reasonable to other people. Like, if it’s me and my nine year old daughter being killed, I can say, “I KNOW he did it.”
But what if it’s you telling me, “I saw this guy kill my nine year old daughter but they can’t prove it in court–don’t you think I should totally ice him?” Of course, I’m going to think what if you’re insane, what if you’re lying, etc.
this is the problem with these debates. folks are leary of admitting to something in the chance that admission will be extrpolated to support of something else. I can answer this question yes and still for a number of legitimate and consistent reason think that vigilante justice and capital punishment are wrong. A twin? Really? Use my hypo to Freudian Slit. You’ve known the guy for years. He doesn’t have a twin.
It’s part of the reason I said screw the pardon. And even if I was young and healthy I would say the same. In the question raised by the OP, I gave myself the authority. Along with that comes the responsibility and the possibility that someone from his/her family may do the same to me. It could happen.
Yeah – I hear it now. An eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind. Well, I will admit that I don’t have a problem with that. But going back to the hypoothetical we were given, risking a world of blindness beats risking a world without a sense of justice.
Two different hypos. One is “would you kill him?” The other, “do you condone vigilante justice?” I’m sure Cutris thinks there’s a trap in here but there’s not. I can, wihtin the parameters of the hypo as I defined it, say I would kill the guy and still be opposed to vigilante justice and capital punishment.
Gonzo, with all due respect, you are going way past the OP. But its still interesting.
Let’s say they are twins. It could be they have used this ploy before to escape legal punishment or may do so having discovered it in this instance. By removing one, whichever one, I have cleared the future table of that possibility. And if I do the time, so be it. In a sense of the word, justice will have been served.
It depends on who was killed. I think I might only do a revenge killing if it was my SO or one of the little children in my family.
Either way, it would be purely emotional and knee-jerk and I’d bettre have a gun in my hands that second because I doubt I would have it in me to hunt him down.
