Presented for your appraisal, seven senarios of seven murders. Each murder is very much the same. The killer comes up behind the victim and shoots the victim in the back of the head, execution style. The victim dies instantly, almost painlessly.
Here are the seven senarios:
1 The killer is the lover of the victim, and the killer feels jilted by the victim.
2 The killer is the business partner of the victim, and feels cheated by the victim.
3 The killer is a robber, and takes the victim’s valuables and runs.
4 The killer is a gang member, and thinks the victim is from a rival gang.
5 The killer does not know the victim, but wants to feel what it’s like to kill someone.
6 The killer is a racist, and kills the victim because of the victim’s race.
7 The killer is a necrophiliac, and wants to have sex with a dead body.
From least evil to most evil, how would you rate these killers?
1 probably and 2 possibly are hot-blooded, and can perhaps be shown some leniency on that account: The killer is overcome with emotion, and does something he wouldn’t have done normally. Beyond that, though, I can’t see any distinction to draw.
Potentially the least evil, since the motive is a desire for perceived justice. Exactly how evil it is depends on why they didn’t take it to the courts and how realistic their perception of being wronged is.
Second least evil, since the target is an enemy and in a shared subculture and likely follows the same (murderous) rules. Not much different than most wars. Can edge out the scenario above or drop down to the next layer of evil depending on the details (like how much care is taken to avoid hurting bystanders, etc).
I rate these as all equal; pure sociopathic selfishness of different flavors. They want something, so they kill to get it or in revenge for not getting it.
Pure malice; murderous bigotry. The worst of the options.
Interesting, so the level of evil intent is determined by how much suffering the killer inflicts on the victim? Since all the victims died instantly, the evil cannot be assessed?
No, not in so many words. But if all these evils are equal, then is the only thing that would cause one murder to be worse than the other is the suffering that it brings to the victim? In other words, since all these victims died alike, the evil intent that killed each one of them is equal?
Who cares? Evil is an imaginary concept. What matters is that the fuckers get put away somewhere far from the rest of us so I and anyone else I care about don’t have to run into the same fate as their victims.
1 The killer is the lover of the victim, and the killer feels jilted by the victim.
Selfish deceitful betrayal by the killer.
5 The killer does not know the victim, but wants to feel what it’s like to kill someone.
Definition of evil, the lack of empathy; this would be #1, but I think betrayal is even worse.
6 The killer is a racist, and kills the victim because of the victim’s race.
Well, at least there is some twisted kind of reason, so it’s not pure evil as in #2, and by the killer’s world view no betrayal as in #1.
7 The killer is a necrophiliac, and wants to have sex with a dead body.
This is so far beyond my understanding, it ended up here by elimination
4 The killer is a gang member, and thinks the victim is from a rival gang.
Redress of #6 and there is the assumption the victim is no innocent.
3 The killer is a robber, and takes the victim’s valuables and runs.
I assume a very unstable and drug-raddled killer; not forgivable, but not pure cold evil.
2 The killer is the business partner of the victim, and feels cheated by the victim.
Reading that, I assumed the killer was correct.
None seem really justified… although 4 could be argued to have acted out of some sort of pre-emptive self-defense. Btw, isn’t that basically why the US attacked Iraq, because they might at some point pose a threat?
