to kill or not to kill

I was chit-chatting w/ a girl at a local bar where I was playing and she asked me this question. I thought it interesting enough to share here.



Is it better to kill a man and repent for it?

or

Is it better to desperately want to kill a man (and experience a malicious pleasure from entertaining the thought), but not actually do it?

Discuss.

Well, in the second case, the object of one's desire to kill gets to keep his life. So I'm inclined to say the second case is better. Even for the one wanting to kill, the second scenario is better because he (or she) can still eventually repent of the desire. In scenario number one, they're repentant, but it's too late--the person is dead. That's a terrible weight to carry around for the rest of one's life (to say nothing of the obvious legal repercussions of being charged for murder and the like).

I would normally agree with you in a heart beat Rew, however:


Let us say that the second does not ever repent of the desire.

Would this not sway your opinion on the matter at all?

Again, because of the person's life being spared (however grudgingly), I'd still go with the second option.

How about you, Erasmus?

From the Christian frame of reference it's quite the quandary (especially since the person being killed remains a mystery).

Regardless, I am thinking the first is the better of the two.

Would you mind entertaining me with the reasoning as to why the new amendment of the anecdote begrudges you?

I think the second is better than the first. Hatred of somebody in the mind is one thing, but in death, even if you are repentant, it doesn't do a damn thing for the one that was killed, and certainly nothing for the people whom the deceased may have known/been related to. Thoughts =/= action.

^true, which is the clincher of the first option, but I'm viewing it from a deistic frame of Reference.

As for your position, I forget which book it is, but it talks about how a man's thoughts effect his actions in everyday life and can even go so far as to reshape the social environment in which he lives.

Taking both those things into account and judging them by Utilitarian standards, they both seem fairly equal in my eyes.

*edit*

and technically we haven't presumed that the mystery person has any friends or family just yet.

but for the sake of discussion, I went with it so as to respond to your stance.

Better ethically, or better for yourself?

Without a doubt I say that the second option is ethically better; hate is fairly harmless without acting on it. Murder is... less harmless. A man loses his life; doesn't really matter who he is (unless, perhaps, he was a terminally ill patient and the murder was an act of euthanasia, which we keep hearing about on the radio here in the UK), a life ended prematurely is ethically wrong.

From your point of view... the second option. Though psychologically some might argue that hating is unhealthy, he sounds quite happy harbouring his "malicious pleasure". It would be a much greater emotional blow to have to come to terms with having killed someone, I think.

I'm not entirely sure what angle you want us to approach this from, Erasmus.

I would definitely say that the second is the better choice. You may have all possible evil thoughts, but without turning them into actions, you create no wrong for anyone other than yourself.
Once you go ahead and actually kill someone, no matter how much you repent, that person is dead, and nothing can bring him/her back. Human life is on a whole different level than a thought, and no matter what thought, or what action, in my book, the action is always the worse (or better in case it's a good deed).
So, beating the **** out of someone, and then repenting, is still much worse than thinking about killing them.
The fact that thought can become action is a completely different subject.
And, for a diestic point of view, I'd think it would still be much better to just think about it. Wouldn't resisting the craving to do something wrong, purely because of the knowledge that it is indeed wrong, be rewarded?

It all pretty much comes down to whether it benefits the society or not. A man that desperately wants to kill, but never does it poses no threat to that society at all. Who has he harmed by just thinking about killing someone? If someone had killed someone, but was sorry about it, the damage has still been done. The person is dead, and that would have been a detriment to that particular society. There is absolutely no harm done by thinking about killing someone, which many people do anyways. It is best to keep those thoughts contained within their own minds, before they go off on killing sprees and then repent later.

Kill the mother ****er!
Really I'd say the 2nd. It really is a question you have to think about. But I feel having a hatred towards someone is easier to live with than really killing them. I'd chose the first one if it was in self defense. You'd still have to live with having killed someone (something I think has gotten easier these days) but it would have been in self defense. So at the least you could justify it.

Well, killing someone ends another persons life. Desperately hating someone can cause all kinds of psychological damage to a person, but it only affects them.

Given this, I'd say the choice if fairly obvious: the second one is preferable.

There is not enough information to make up my mind.

I want to throw something else out there. If someone kills someone, they are (with a few rare exceptions) thrown in jail. Thus, a very angry and messed up person is removed from society. If that person never kills someone, and they just desperately want to, they are still within the society.

So is it better to have an innocent crazy person on the loose in a society, or a crazy person who has killed locked up?

I think it's pretty clear which option is better.

obviously, the second option. In the first option you are guilty of committing murder. In the second option...you haven't actually done anything wrong.

Originally Posted by AttackAttack

I want to throw something else out there. If someone kills someone, they are (with a few rare exceptions) thrown in jail. Thus, a very angry and messed up person is removed from society. If that person never kills someone, and they just desperately want to, they are still within the society.

So is it better to have an innocent crazy person on the loose in a society, or a crazy person who has killed locked up?

But the crazy person never poses a threat to anyone, so it's irrelevant; the only reason we would want him locked up is if he is a risk to society. And he isn't.

What are the terms of the repentance? Would you do good after repenting?

Is the guy important? Is he evil? Is he good?

Very clearly, the latter is a better situation.

The former may be better in moral character, now, but there's no avoiding that the better overall outcome is for no murder to occur.

It's unclear in the way you presented the situation what is preventing the latter person from commiting murder -- I'm interpreting it to be simply a logistical problem when I grant the former the higher moral ground. If the latter is actually restraining himself from murdering, despite a strong desire to kill, then that's bonus points for him.


(Catholic doctrine, at least a while ago, would have sent the first guy to purgatory and the second guy to hell. I think that's really an unfortunate way to approach this).

Obviously the second one is preferable. Thoughts are harmless unless they are put into action. Acting upon evil thoughts is evil, but just having evil thoughts but not not intending to do them is not.

the thing is, committing murder is a bad thing to do and being sorry for it doesn't fix anything except in your own mind.

thoughts are harmless and as long as you never put them to action everything is fine.