Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel
The murder thing is a good example for this thread.
I don't believe in justifiable homicide. Does that make me unethical?
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No, of course not. I don't think you can say it's unethical to hold yourself to a higher standard than the one society sets for you.
On the other hand, if you are saying you wish to hold everyone to that standard, and to have justifiable homicide laws stricked from the books, and make every death that results from human action but is not accidental a murder, there you might have a problem. It's not that your motivation-- holding people to a high standard, desiring to eliminate homicides-- might not be ethical, but you would be holding society to a standard that it is impossible to uphold-- at best-- and at worst, might result in unethical behaviors, since perhaps there is such a thing as justifiable homicide.
Laws, which are the legislative and judicial actualization of the social contract, are designed to uphold certain minimum parameters of behavior. That surely doesn't mean that it might not behoove individuals to aim for higher standards yet, but it also behooves the law both to set standards which are reasonably attainable by the majority, and which have a certain degree of flexibility in interpretation, since the risk is always that laws are general but situations are specific.
Thus, when I say that murder is always wrong, but I exclude justifiable homicide, that does not mean I am in favor of people killing one another; only that I believe that there could potentially arise situations which fall into gray areas, even in the realm of homicide.