Killing consistently

Great Debates
1

There are many threads on this board that discuss abortion, animal rights (re killing), murder, genocide, and capital punishment. There is less mention of infanticide, corporate killing, war, justified homicide etc…

Without wishing to start an internal debate on any of the above subjects (although I am sure that we will deteriorate into that), I am interested in moral and philospophical and religious views on the interaction between all these types of killing.

Given that killing is the extinguishing of life (and as such alone is morally unexceptionable outside a sentient and moral being’s social context - we don’t blame cats for killing birds), what social contexts make killings by humans excusable or culpable?

Each of the above examples have slippery slope extremes:

Abortion: IUDs- first trimester, near term, infanticide

Animal Rights: Food for meat, humane slaughter practices, hunting for sport, dog fighting and torturing animals to death.

Murder: First degree etc all the way to justified homicide

Genocide: Ancient Britons, American and Australian aboriginal populations, Armenians, Tutsis, The Holocaust

Capital Punishment: As revenge, as necessity, as just deserts, degrees of doubt of guilt

Corporate Killing: Necessary within current technology (nineteenth century railroad workers), avoidable, reckless

War: Aggressive war, war for internal control purposes, defensive war, just war.

Given that ‘killing is killing’ without a social context, how can we build a coherent approach across all these areas to Killing?

Please try to avoid the specific- look for interesting comparisons between groups of people- anti-abortionists who are pro-capital punishment, Animal rights activists who would kill people in war, people who would kill to defend their children but who would deny third world activists who violently oppose western industries whose pollution is killing their children.

Complexity, not simplicity please.

2

Just a few suggestions:
Narrow the scope of your debate.
Take a position, participate in your own debate.
Give some examples to support your position.

3

just a brief thought.
as long as you define all the mentioned items as killing then you have to rationalize each instance.
for example: I think abortion is by definition killing. I have judged that killing unborn babies is preferable to letting them live in some instances.

I think hunting is killing. I justify it if the meat of the animal is used as opposed to just the antlers,horns,skull,hide…

I have an emotional attachment to capital punishment for some unknown reason. I know it is killing but not only justified by desireable. If all the people in prisons for crimes that resulted in the death of another human were executed tonite, I would feel better. Don’t know why , its probably a clink in my armour.

My point is, I can be rational or semi-rational about some forms of killing but not others. I didn’t conscienciously make a decision about the merits of each type of killing. Its just my moral fiber. ( I shoot squirrels in my back yard all year long to save my pecans - as long as they dont suffer then I dont feel any remorse)

4

Thanks for promoting this back to the top of the board.

I tried not to take too clear a position on the issues in order to get others to address the question rather than start to disagree with my position.

However, I will take your suggestion as no-one seems to have ‘bitten’ over the past few hours.

I am pro-choice, but as a defence against even worse outcome for people as a whole if abortion is pushed underground. However, I find the concept and practice of abortion repugnant. I tend to see infanticide in a similar vein historically, and support the modern British reaction to infanticide- counselling and support rather than criminalization, rather than the US reaction which has tended toward overt criminalization.

I am anti-capital punishment because of uncertainty of the legal system and because I do not believe it is a deterrent. I find it as repugnant as abortion.

I adhere to the concept of Just War, but recognize that I am more likely to assign Justness to conflicts that meet with my pre-conceptions.

I have major problems with corporate homicide and genocide- realizing that I tend to excuse older examples and condemn recent ones.

I find it difficult to construct a rational and socially acceptable and practical framework that is internally consistent.

How about you others- nearly a half century of views and only one reply. Let me share your struggle if you have one.

5

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Pjen *
**

Taking a position is what makes it a debate.

**

I’m going to take the radical position of being completely anti-genocide. Can you give some examples of excusable corporate genocide and murder?
**

A-ha! Something to chew on. You started with examples but what is your underlying framework of values? Under what conditions is killing okay? Merely justifyable? Excusable? Encouraged?

6

Right, here we go on Genocide and Corporate Homicide.

Genocide has been morally acceptable in most historic societies. Warrior societies felt no need to defend their opponents rights in war. At the time, no-one (or almost no-one) spoke out against the genocide of Australian Aborigines, Native American People, Ancient Britons etc. etc… In the last hundred years, Genocide has become the great unthinkable, mostly IMHO because of the cool and scientific methods employed in Nazi Germany. You will find few people willing to support genocide currently.

However, is what the US/UK is doing in Irag genocide? Is the action of Russia in Chechnya genocide? Is the action of Israel in the occupied territories genocide? Is the abortion of mentally impaired fetuses genocide? All of these actions will be supported by politicians and pundits using moral, philosophical and religious reasons for excusing the above behaviours as ‘not genocide’. How will history judge this. Even the Holocaust raised little comment from most of the German nation at the time. Is Genocide only a concept applicable after the event and from far away?

Corporate Homicide: 6000 plus Chinese laborers were sacrificed in building the Central Pacific Railroad; no problem at the time. Many thousands of people are put at risk in third world countries by Western corporations wishing to use outdated technologies with dangerous pollution which is unlawful in their home countries. Shell possibly collaborated with the Nigerian Government to criminalize Ken Saro-Wiva and execute him and his colleagues for essentially lobbying against oil extraction. Modern industries calculate the likelihood of death caused by their processes and make actuarial calculations about profit and exposure to financial/legal risk. People die because of all of the above, yet all were/are ignored excused in their own societies. Will our current industrial practices eventually, historically, be seen as careless and unacceptable, and seen retrospectively as corporate homicide, but just as too expensive to categorize as such?

7

I’m not ready to post an actual reply to this thread yet, but I am curious if anyone can recommend any good books about genocide and corporate homicide throughout history. I can’t explain it - I’m just morbidly fascinated.

8

A good book (still in print) is Century of Genocide by Samuel Totten, William Parsons and Israel Charney, Garland Publishing NY, 0-8153-2353-0. Although mainly about the twentieth century, it references earlier histories.

As far as Corporate Homicide is concerned I have no references.

9

Pjen,
first, I have tried to throw out subjects to start a debate and then wade in with my comments. It didn’t work. Here people want a point of view to debate.

I took your post as looking for examples of where a person justifies some killing while opposed to other types. I think that most people don’t oppose certain type because they redefine it as something else entirely.

10

Do you agree with any of these statements? If so, it’d be interesting to hear your definition of genocide.

Given the general lack of adequate job safety standards throughout much of our industrial development, where did the term “corporate homicide” come from? What’s your definition of it? How does the specific example you cite (Chinese railway workers) differ from deaths due to disease in the building of the Panama Canal, deaths due to cave-ins and airborne hazards in mining over the eons, etc.?

The insistence on developing a consistent standard for judging human behavior has led many a philosopher to drink. Don’t let this happen to you.

11

I have a point offer on the whole idea. Saying “killing is wrong” is all well and good, but you are wishing to examine the grey areas in the human mind. These exist due to the fact that morality is a luxury. When there is very little food, people eat what is available, meat or no meat. When having a child means the destruction of your life, getting rid of the infant seems resonable.

“Killing is wrong” becomes less useful the narrower the margin of survival is. If you knew that every member of a race was focused on killing off the rest of the world, even genocide can start to look palatable. When circumstances are less dire, you have the space to take morality into consideration.

Add into this the differing levels of stress individuals can survive, hence making the points at which morality would leave them fluid, and you get the anti-abortionist who is pro-captial punishment. (Fear of criminals is able to overcome the moral where fear of destroying other’s quality of life doesn’t.) Everyone does this, businesses do it in plotted out numbers, people do it by intuition and an occasional rational thought.

For the record, I’m a prochoice meateater with no plans to kill off entire races or small children. I waver on capital punishment, as it really doesn’t matter to me whether a criminal sits in jail until they die or the State helps the process. I make most judgements on the quality of life of those affected. A long life of boredom seems pretty equal to death to me. (Personally, I’d rather be dead.)

12

I’m not sure exactly what the point of this debate is, but what about euthanasia?
It’s an acceptable form of killing when it involves our pets, but it’s hotly debated for people who suffer an incurable ailment. Should this not be a decision made by the person suffering? Why do we insist on keeping such tortured people alive? Why do we shoot the injured horse (who has no say) to “ease its suffering” and keep the terminal cancer patient living to suffer another day even when they beg to die.

Like other responses to your OP, I think different scenarios will get different opinions. Perhaps you should start a separate thread on each form of “killing” you have listed and express your opinion from the start.

13

To Jackmanni:
Corporate homicide is self defining. Homicide is where a person sets out with the intention of killing, or being reckless of the results of his/her actions, acts so as to cause killing. Corporations are persons in law. Hence, corporate homicide is where a corporate body sets out intentionally or carelessly to act so as to kill people.

Societies response tends to be- one person sets out with a gun and kills a mess of people- fry him. A corporation sets out with a business plan and kills a mess of people- shucks, that’s just business/government. I don’t see the moral difference between the two events, but society seems to react very differently to each.

I take on board you comment about consistency- that’s what started me on this debate!

To NiceGuyJack
The reason I kept the debate broad is that I have noted that single strand debates become vituperative and aimed at self-justification. My hope was that if people pondered on their own varied responses to killing people, we would get some discussion of the basic subject rather than a telling of defensive stories about why they hold particular views about abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment etc…

To Medea’s Child- your description of cultural relativism over time and place is at the root of my uneasy feelings about a conclusion to this debate in practical and ethical terms. Many current societal answers to the question of killings seem hopelessly confused, as do individual stances. Attempting to gain coherence and explainability about an approach to the taking of life is at the root of personal and societal morality, yet we seem able to ‘believe six impossible things before breakfast’ about this matter. If we are so hopelessly confused about the termination/continuation of life (what makes morality possible) how are we able to make firm statements about less important issues?

14

I agree that the OP as stated is overbroad and does not put forth a specific enough position for debate. Comparing different types of homicide and trying to draw a line of “consistency” betweeen them ignores the inherent differences between each general and specific type of killing. For instance, crushing a kitten’s skull for sport is morally reprehensible, but is still a far cry from aborting an early-term, unviable fetus, or committing acts of mass genocide against minority peoples (i.e. the Holocaust.)

By the way, what is “Corporate Homicide”? I can’t figure this one out, even with the examples given.

15

JET- “Homicide and Co.” A company making a business plan where they know people are going to die and they go on with it anyway. They pretty much plan for people to die and set aside money to give to the families because its cheaper than putting in better safety measures.

“Lets dig a hole through this mountain with pick axes and dynamite!”
“But if we do it that way, won’t there be cave-ins and worker deaths?”
“Eh. A couple. But not very many and if we go the next step in safety we can’t afford the project. Its okay, we can still afford to settle with the families for $x.”
“Ah. Very Well then.”

If a person made a plan that included knowing that z number of people were going to die from his actions that day, that would be Murder 1. But businesses taking reasonable care are not held as responcible.

Pjen- What needs to be understood is that people are being consistant. Just not where you are looking. They are not consistant on “Killing is wrong” They are consistant on the amount of fear they can handle before morality ceases to matter as much. Firm statements are possible based on the dividing line between needs (food, air) and wants (morals, PlayStation II). The fact that very few can agree on where exactly that line is will complicate things, but the line is there.

16

I continue to see problems with the use of the term “corporate homicide”.

For instance, the automobile industry has introduced more safety features in cars - but still turns out lightweight designs, when using heavier structural materials (unacceptable in terms of mileage and cost) would undoubtedly save lives. Are the automakers guilty of “corporate homicide”? Are makers of household chemicals culpable for not designing complex safety caps (difficult and annoying for consumers to use, perhaps impossible for people with physical handicaps) to prevent accidental poisonings or inhalant abuse?

On a more personal level, if you rely on a public utility to heat and light your home, wear synthetics etc. you are supporting technologies that will account for a certain number of deaths. If you drive a car you are increasing the chances that some innocent (say a child darting out into the street) will be killed by your actions. Are you a murderer?

I understand the [gross corporate negligence = murder] argument. But it doesn’t lend itself to easy, consistent application.

17

To expand on this…

I think the underlying need vs. want is the key here. We first have certain needs required for our survival. Most of us want to feel that we are doing the right thing, that we are good people, and each of us has our own concept of what a good person does and doesn’t do. So it is a personal balance. Ultimately what the OP really demands is a discussion on the foundations of ethics and morality.

IMHO, much (but not all) of the individual’s moral basis for acceptable/unacceptable killing comes from the conflict between selfishness and selflessness. The completely selfish person will kill anything and everything without regard for anyone else’s welfare but his own. The completely selfless person will give up his life rather than take another’s.

This does not mean there is a linear spectrum between the two–that is too much of a simplification. Instead, there is a degree of personal interpretation for each instance in between the extremes of homicide in self-defense and genocide based on what a certain person holds valuable. For example, the person who believes an unborn child is important enough to supercede the mother’s choice will support legislation to end lifestyle abortions. However, if that same person recognizes that the mother’s life is in jeopardy, they might reasonably think that the abortion is OK; it would be her choice whether she wished to take that risk. Another person might not see the child as a person until it has left the womb and therefore would support the mother’s choice until that point.

Coincidentally, I happened to be watching a philosophy program on PBS yesterday that discussed where we derive our systems of ethics from. The better part of the half hour was devoted to Aristotle’s concept of virtue ethics (toward the bottom of the page). Except for the elitist part of the “intellectual virtues”, I’d tend to agree. (I’m sure you could find more info on Aristotle if you want to look…)

That said, I do believe there is an absolute, universal morality, but I do not believe it is completely determinable by logic or reason as Kant suggests. And therefore I don’t think there’s any logically feasible reduction of ethics (into a set of consistent axioms and derivable theorems) that will work perfectly in all situations. Situational interpretation will always be necessary.

18

I continue to see problems with the use of the term “corporate homicide”.
**
[/QUOTE]

All I can do is to repeat and expand what I have said above again:

‘Homicide is where a person sets out with the intention of killing, or being reckless of the results of his/her actions, acts so as to cause killing. Corporations are persons in law. Hence, corporate homicide is where a corporate body sets out intentionally or carelessly to act so as to kill people.’

This does not mean that all products have to be completely safe, only that the corporate intention must not be to commit homicide by recklessly choosing risky production methods or by causing pollution which is known to kill. The distinction is the same as with homicide- if you drive a car with reasonable care and skill, yet kill a pedestrian, you are not usually charged nor convicted of homicide- you have an excuse; if you drive recklessly, or with an intention to kill, you would be charged and possibly convicted. Similarly if a corporate body exercises due care to avoid killing people, then there would be no case to answer. However, if the corporate body acts recklessly, or intentionally, to act so as to kill people, it would seem to be homicide, but is in fact not usually treated as such, either legally or socially.

I feel that there is a moral equivalence between the armed gang that raid a bank and kill people in order to gain money and the corporation that cooly calculates that making a profit requires the needless death of employees or residents nearby. That would seem to be corporate homicide and should be treated similarly to individual homicide.

19

I’m not sure I buy into some crisp distinction between want and need. Do we need water to live? Yes, of course. Do we need ethics to live? Well, maybe not in the same sense that we need water, but certainly moreso than we need Play Stations, Cinnabons, or Monday Night Football. Yet, a society without ethics will not be long of this world. Regardless of how these ethics are derived (a different topic altogether), they are a necessity for individual and group survival. Hobbes talked about human life without some sort of social contract–it would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Ouch! So, short answer, we do need some system of ethics–even preliterate, hunter-gatherers had systems of ethics. Differences emerge when we describe how these ethics are operationalized.

Example: in no culture has it ever been acceptable to kill within the group. Abortion and infanticide simply offer different interpretations on what is fully human–or considered within the group, if you will. A long-standing belief in some cultures is that infants are not fully human, and thus not objects deserving of complete moral consideration until their first birthday. As a result, killing a 9 month old baby is ontologically different than killing an adult. Of course killing outside the group (however the group is defined) historically carried little normative power–the old Us versus Them argument. Thus it is somehow “okay” for Hutu’s to kill Tutsi’s and Nazi’s to kill Jews and for Pizzaro and Cortez to kill the Incas and the Aztecs respectively.

In reference to the topic of corporate homicide or even genocide in some instances. I’d suggest referring to the work of Stanley Milgram (sorry no reference at my fingertips). Briefly, he concluded that people can feel absolved of doing horrible, horrible things if they feel they can shift the responsibility of action to someone else (known as agentic shift). A quote I often toss out by him goes, “It’s easy to ignore responsibility when one is only an intermediate link in a chain of action.” In this instance killing somehow becomes “okay” because it is not really my fault–someone else (my supervisor, employer, government) is responsible.

20

Milgram S 1965 Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority, Human Relations 18(1)57-76
Milgram S 1974 Obedience To Authority, London: Tavistock