At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

[anunitu]

Mainly the question is this:On a scale of say 1 to 10,at what point do you feel the right to take a life,the 1 to 10 being the level of action of the other party.

Say you are a Quaker that believes killing is wrong no matter what,what could trigger you to go beyond this rule?

Tough question,but this is speculation at its best..

[Gleb]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

I don't know how to measure it from 1 to 10, but if I am being threatened with a knife or another cold weapon, I'll try to flee. If there is no chance of escaping, I'll do all I can to defend myself. I don't care how the attacker ends in this situation..

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

I am too old, too slow and too knackered to flee. If someone is going to attack me, I'll make sure I try and hurt them. And I had experience of something like this years ago when I was out with my children and a man came out of the bushes at me with a knife. All I had was a steel thermos flask full of tea that I was carrying in a plastic carrier bag. So I stood my ground, twisted the bag around my hand to give me a good grip and face him. And after a moment's hesitation he turned tail and left.
A few days later, in the same park, that man slashed and robbed two young women.
The police told me they would have had to prosecute me if I'd actually hit him with the flask of tea.

The mind doth boggle...

[B. de Corbin]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

Self defense, or the defense of another.

[Sean R. R.]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

Killing, according to my twisted ethics code, is allowed when killing has a more favourable outcome than not killing the person in question.

It really depends on each case.

[Rae'ya]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

Mainly the question is this:On a scale of say 1 to 10,at what point do you feel the right to take a life,the 1 to 10 being the level of action of the other party.

Say you are a Quaker that believes killing is wrong no matter what,what could trigger you to go beyond this rule?

Tough question,but this is speculation at its best..

When another entity is threatening my life/safety or the life/safety of things/entities/people I hold to be important, and when sufficiently subduing said threat in another manner is not possible or effective.

[DanieMarie]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

It would come down to my own life or the life of someone I love. If a person seriously threatened my life or that of someone I'm very close to (my family, for example), then I would kill in defense (as long as I couldn't get away or stop it in some other way). Otherwise, I'm totally against it.

I don't even think I'd kill a Hitler/Stalin/whatever. I think I'd let them rot in prison in a Hannibal Lecter suit. But if I had the chance to kill a Hitler or Stalin -before- they went on a mass-murdering rampage, I'd do it, as long as there was no other way of stopping them. So I guess I"m all for assassinating murderous dictators as well.

[Rae'ya]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

I don't even think I'd kill a Hitler/Stalin/whatever. I think I'd let them rot in prison in a Hannibal Lecter suit. But if I had the chance to kill a Hitler or Stalin -before- they went on a mass-murdering rampage, I'd do it, as long as there was no other way of stopping them. So I guess I"m all for assassinating murderous dictators as well.

I would. If I had the opportunity, and they were causing sufficient distress to me or those I love, I would kill a murderous dictator. To be perfectly honest, if I could get away with it scott-free, I'd probably find it easier and quicker to kill them than try and get them thrown in jail for life (I don't have the patience for politics and set ups). If I was likely to get caught it would be a different matter... so in that sense it's not the killing that would change my mind, but the legal consequences.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

Now I have a wonderment, thanks to Rae'ya and DanieMarie...

Is it just those whom you value that you would kill to save?

For example, that gentleman in Canada who killed the shooter saved the lives of people he didn't even know by shooting that man. Theoretically, if you found yourself in a similar situation, would you abstain from killing because you have no connection to those in danger?

[Rae'ya]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

Now I have a wonderment, thanks to Rae'ya and DanieMarie...

Is it just those whom you value that you would kill to save?

For example, that gentleman in Canada who killed the shooter saved the lives of people he didn't even know by shooting that man. Theoretically, if you found yourself in a similar situation, would you abstain from killing because you have no connection to those in danger?

I think that I value the lives of other people just enough to have an automatic 'protect' reaction... especially if it were children or something. I may not put my own life in danger to do so, but if the circumstances were right then I would kill.

What it comes down to is that my value of other people's life only goes so far... far enough for me to protect random strangers, but not far enough for me to have any particular issue with killing someone. And while I would put my own life at risk for my loved ones, I wouldn't for random strangers. And again, that's not about killing a person, but about the physical consequences to me.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

I understand - the truth is, one never knows what one will do in sudden, tight situation unless one has been in one.

I like to believe that I would lay down my life to save a child (I work in a school), but I don't really know. I hope I never have to find out...

[nbdy]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

This is difficult to answer because we really don't know what we will do until the situation is upon us, and there is no certainty that a course of action that has been taken in the past will be the same in the future. Who knows what is best in the big picture? Even with the luxury of premeditation, one never knows for certain the long-term outcome.

[Rae'ya]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

I understand - the truth is, one never knows what one will do in sudden, tight situation unless one has been in one.

I like to believe that I would lay down my life to save a child (I work in a school), but I don't really know. I hope I never have to find out...

As someone who deals with emergency life or death situations, as well as personally threatening situations, I often wonder how I would behave in a real-life (as opposed to at work) situation. As well as responding to medical emergencies, I've been threatened by dogs who could potentially maul me and had to find a way to safely get control of the situation. I've come down from adrenaline fueled quick-response situations and so far I've been a fighter. I've observed four kinds of people in emergencies... the proactive, world-slows-down, take charge people; the attentive tell-me-what-to-do people; the oh-shit-now-what-give-me-a-minute freezers who get in the way and cause problems while trying to be helpful; and the people who fall to pieces, lose all their training and get hysterical if you don't give them something easy to do.

How that translates into the sort of situations we're talking about here, I don't know. But in the past I've always been the proactive one barking orders at others while I body-wrestle the snapping dog. I can't say that I've ever feared for my life, but I've feared for my safety. And I've feared for the life of my patients. I hope I'd act the same in say, a mugging. But as you say, we can't know until we're there. I know a few very skilled and confident techs who completely lose it in an emergency... so you just can't tell by looking at someone what they'll be like.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

When killing is necessary, and unavoidable.

[anunitu]

Re: At what point is killing allowed in your ethics.

I would not have so much a problem with killing if that became the only solution,but as some have pointed out it is the after the fact legal stuff that might keep me to only seriously wounding said person...