Murder is Wrong?

It is unlikely that many people would disagree with the title phrased as a statement but the idea of it as a question will vex some.

Most of us (including me) would hardly stop to consider the question "is murder wrong" as it seems such an obvious statement. But why?

Why is it obvious is the question.

Clearly society doesn’t have a problem with killing per se as we routinely involve ourselves in wars with NZ troops currently involved in at least a couple of armed conflicts at this time. We sometimes make heroes out of those who involve themselves in active service such as Willie Apiata (who has succeeded Sir Edmund Hillary as “most trusted New Zealander” according to his Wiki entry and he certainly looks like a great successor) however we need to recognise the Willie was not “playing tiddlywinks” and received his VC because people were shooting at him and more than likely he shot back.

Some societies also sanction the death penalty for certain crimes (including NZ who still retains the death penalty for treason for some odd reason) most notably of course for murder which seems a touch ironic.

So in the right circumstances killing people is ok but not murdering them. So is the difference knowing the possible outcome, i.e. you go to war you know you might get killed, you do the crime you know the potential punishment so therefore these things are ok.

What about civilians that get killed in wars, presumably then that is not ok. Clearly the world was very concerned with Hitler’s attempts to wipe out Jews, presumably because they were innocent civilians who did not volunteer to be part of his war. On the other hand many innocent lives were presumably lost by the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden during WWII. This campaign was carried out with the explicit objective or weakening the populations resolve to keep fighting. i.e. civilians were the targets. Of course we all know about the atomic bombing of Japan. These examples seem to be covered by the greater good theory, i.e. some civilians killed today will save the lives of many others tomorrow. So killings ok as long as you have a good reason.

Which extends to self defence, it’s ok to kill people if they intend to kill you a variation on the “good reason” school of killing. Or assassinations where you are a political power and your world view clashes with another political power.

So to sum up killing is ok, if you are politically powerful or if you participate in an activity where you know you can get killed and or the person killing you has a good reason. (glad we cleared that up)

But what about gangs? We are against them killing each other even though they presumably know the rules, after all dealing in drugs and other illegal activities has always carried a high risk factor.

Yet even the murder of a gang member by another gang member strikes us as wrong (and to be fair war etc strike a lot of people as wrong too) but there doesn’t seem to be any reason for this other than perhaps vested self interest. We don’t want to get murdered so we see it as wrong as we might be next if it was tolerated. That seems a little simplistic but I can’t identify a reason other than that.

Lucky for me many other wise minds over the centuries have pondered the same or similar questions when trying to establish the basis for our ethics or distinguishing right from wrong so not having an answer puts me in good company at least.