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Killing another in the course of self defense

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VECT

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Need to distinguish between murder and killing. 

 

There is nothing wrong with killing qua killing (ending life or to cause death). Killing in self-defense, for example, is proper. Killing animals for food is fine too.

 

Certain types of killings are immoral -- murder being one of them. Murder is when you intentionally initiate the killing of an innocent, non-consenting human being. Think Jeffrey Dahmer.

 

When someone murders someone else -- they have proven that they are unwilling to act rationally within society by initiating force against others.

 

Nothing "happens" to their right to life... you can't take that away from a someone, it is inalienable by virtue of being man. They simply have lost their claim to have their rights respected by choosing not to respect others'.

Edited by thenelli01
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So far what is said is along the line of what I was thinking. However, if the mechanics involved here is that by violating another's right the attacker loses their their own claim on such rights, consider these:

 

-If an attacker kills a member of my family, then by this logic they would be open season to revenge killing, either by me or bounty hunters.

 

-If a thief steals one of my property, all of their property would be fair game to everyone else.

 

Now I think the argument next would go along the line of government been the only entity with the power to enact punishment in above cases, so my question again comes back to that in terms of the mechanics of objectivism ethic, what is the concept that allows a person themselves to retaliate with force during self defense?

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Okay, that makes sense.

 

And the appropriateness of the time when retaliatory force is allowed to be reaquistioned, magnitude and duration of it's allowed usage..etc. will be determined by the specific legal system built upon these ethical concepts.

 

I would guess then the same applies to the magnitude and duration of an attacker's rights not been recognized due to the violation in question, all will depend on the legal system.

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Can someone explain (or point to a relevant link) what exactly happens to a person's right to life when they (in this case, the attacker) decide to kill another?

"Rights" stem from the fact that rational people share similar values.

 

Rational people may not have identical goals.  For example, one man may want to build a factory on a specific hilltop, while another man may want to farm it; in such cases they cannot both get their way. . .  But notice something about that.

Assuming the second person is rational, they would not want to arbitrarily blow the hill up; they would not want to pump Chlorine gas into the air and they would not want to breed Tetse flies there.  Although they may not want the same thing as the first person, they would want to do something else to make the world slightly more human.

So among rational people it is immoral for anyone to deliberately harm anyone else, or to impede their productivity, regardless of how their specific goals may differ- because our broader goals should be the same.

 

Now, when one person is respecting other peoples' rights and someone else deliberately violates theirs (hurts or hinders them), this can only mean that the second person is not rational and has no interest in improving anything at all.

 

In such cases, it's not really about their rights becoming something else or being transported to some political sort of limbo; it simply becomes clear to the rest of us that we have no good reason to treat them as if they were rational.

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"Rights" stem from the fact that rational people share similar values.

 

I think that it's true that rational people often share the same values but that is not the fundamental that gives rise to rights, as your statement says it is. It's an effect of the fundamental I think. Wouldn't a better way to say it be: rights stem from the fact that all people, by their nature, acquire values using the same method, or: Rights stem from the fact that reason is man's means of survival.  Or just something that would get across the idea that it's because man uses his mind to create values that we have rights- so our faculty of survival can function. The fact that people do have common values is itself also a result of man's nature. It's an offshoot of the fundamental. The more I understand Objectivist epistemology the more I've realized how important it is to think in fundamentals.

 

I agree with everything you go on to say. I agree that it's true that it becomes clear to most people that there's no good reason to treat the criminal as if he's rational when he's clearly not. But accepting that as the explanation is just going to lead to later problems in your reasoning.

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Or just something that would get across the idea that it's because man uses his mind to create values that we have rights- so our faculty of survival can function.

That assumes that other people's faculty of survival is your concern.

And to an extent I think that it is; in order to respect the rights of others one must allow their rational faculty to function (even if this means nothing more than yielding for pedestrians), but why should it be your concern?

 

I believe that your explanation implicitly assumes mine.

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That assumes that other people's faculty of survival is your concern...

 

but why should it be your concern?

 

I'm saying why you should be concerned is because reason is the method by which man chooses and creates values and you are a man. Rights protect your ability to use your mind.

 

I'm agreeing with you I just think your cause is not fundamental because it depends on this cause. And so when you say, 'this is where rights come from', you should supply the fundamental cause and not just any cause. 

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Here's from my understanding:

 

Rights are actions undertaken in a society by an individual that should be free from coercion or force by other individuals.

 

Objectivism's Individual Rights stems from human nature, since a human survives on reason and productivity..etc, a human society that want to ensure prosperity and stability must recognize the rights that will allow its members the ability to use reason and productivity to lead healthy lives.

 

My original question really has to do with mechanics of objectives rights in operation around self defence rather than where they fundamentally comes from.

 

As for Harrison, I can't really agree with your statement that objectism rights stems from rational people sharing similar values. A counter example would be a person who willingly lead a miserable life through addiction and abuse, however immoral and irrational, would still retain their rights.

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Here's from my understanding:

 

Rights are actions undertaken in a society by an individual that should be free from coercion or force by other individuals.

 

Objectivism's Individual Rights stems from human nature, since a human survives on reason and productivity..etc, a human society that want to ensure prosperity and stability must recognize the rights that will allow its members the ability to use reason and productivity to lead healthy lives.

 

My original question really has to do with mechanics of objectives rights in operation around self defence rather than where they fundamentally comes from.

 

As for Harrison, I can't really agree with your statement that objectism rights stems from rational people sharing similar values. A counter example would be a person who willingly lead a miserable life through addiction and abuse, however immoral and irrational, would still retain their rights.

 

One thing to consider are that rights are not intrinsic (although they are based upon are facts of reality) they arise in a social context for a purpose. 

 

You and I would, for example, agree to respect rights or freedoms of action, when we form a society.  The default position is then in accordance with the trader principle and the principle that the initiation of force (a breach of that agreement to respect each other's rights when the society is formed) is wrong.  The use of retaliatory force is one which is arises to "remedy" the breach caused by the initiation of force, it is used to defend or in fact restore the rights of the victim which have been violated.

 

The degree of retaliatory force to protect the rights of the victim of course should be proportional in the sense that a victim is not to "profit" from being attacked or violated.  E.g. If a person steals $3 from me, my restitution is $3 plus maybe interest and any hardship I otherwise would not have undergone, I would not have the right to say, take his car ... which would amount to theft in the amount of the value of the car minus $3 and change.  I would have every right to take back.. that it would NOT be stealing, $3 plus interest and a penny for my worries.

 

In the same way, when someone breaches his agreement to respect your freedom to live by directly threatening your life you have the right to protect your life to the degree reasonably necessary.  If you are a 10 foot tall behemoth and a 125lb weakling tries to choke you, you would be overstepping your right by ripping his head off. 

 

Your rights to use retaliatory force end at restoring the your original rights violated or threatened. 

 

You could probably swat him away or knock him out or tie him up.  BUT if any of those things meant he was still a risk to your life, and it was reasonable to assume he still wanted to kill you, you would be right to use more force... in an amount until the threat was eliminated to a reasonably insignificant level. 

 

In the same vein if you are a 125lb woman with a gun, and no martial arts training, and a 10 foot tall man with a knife runs at you saying he is going to kill you, you have every right to shoot him with your gun.  You have no duty to try to wrestle with the man, or trip him, or anything else, unless taking that course would ensure reasonably that you would be safe. Now, if you are a perfect shot even when under extreme stress you should shoot him in the legs/knee, if you are a normal untrained shot you have every right to aim for the biggest area, the chest.

 

I think it is safe to say that, to the degree a rights violator acts and/or directly threatens/intends to act, to take away rights of a victim, that victim has the right to "suspend" same "rights" of the perpetrator and has the right to retaliatory force to the degree required to restore the rights violated.

 

There is the further caveat that self-interest does require some consideration to the value of a temporarily insane, misinformed, or however mislead person, who although acting now to kill you may act to benefit you greatly in the future (maybe he mistakenly thought you were attacking him, and he might be on the verge of curing cancer...).  Since this value is in the self-interest of anyone, killing (which is a final solution that cannot be taken back) in self-defence is the last resort, a last resort completely justifiable if the alternatives risk your life.

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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Thanks for the post, what you have wrote answered some questions I didn't even know I had. The purpose of retaliatory force should be limited to protecting one's individual rights and restitution for damages. Guess that's in the spirit of saying vengeance is not justice.

 

Then by this line of logics, I suppose there is no place for punitive actions and capital punishment in a society.

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Cthinker:

Reason is indeed man's method of choosing and pursuing value, and I am a man, but I am not all men; I am me.

Suppose it were actually, objectively beneficial for me to rob an innocent person. If that could actually lead to my own prosperity then, "rights" or no rights, it would be rationally selfish.

So while it is also true that one should respect rights for the sake of one's own rights, that can only function where it is NOT POSSIBLE for rational people to benefit from cannibalism; if that were at all possible then the same principle would manifest as "do unto others before they do you!"

Since the fact that rational goals complement each other, is quite necessary for individual rights to hold any meaning at all, I think it must be the more fundamental matter.

VECT:

There is a difference between immorality and injustice, you're correct; it's the difference between a teleologically null being (like a drug addict, who neither helps nor hinders rational men) and a teleologically anti-being (like Hitler or Stalin).

And since human beings are capable of volitional change and deliberate self-improvement, teleologically null people are still worth respecting for the sake of their potential.

---

I do not believe punitive justice is valid. Capital punishment, however, is sometimes quite necessary.

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Thanks for the post, what you have wrote answered some questions I didn't even know I had. The purpose of retaliatory force should be limited to protecting one's individual rights and restitution for damages. Guess that's in the spirit of saying vengeance is not justice.

 

Then by this line of logics, I suppose there is no place for punitive actions and capital punishment in a society.

 

That is a logical leap which is not logically implied by what I said.  Actions, which are also punitive in nature can be valid because they are preventative of immediate continued violation and can serve as a chance at rehabilitation (prison as such in their current forms may or may not be effective), and as for capital punishment, consider the following:

 

a psychopathic killer (serial killer) has been found almost certainly to kill again, without a certain treatment A, or imprisonment B;

 

this killer represents an actual threat to your life;

 

I think it moral that you give the killer the option to work while obtaining treatment A and/or imprisonment B, and pay for treatment A and/or imprisonment B, and the costs of maintaining some agency to monitor and ensure he is obtaining A and/or B.

 

If the killer will not agree or cannot work such that he can afford A and/or B and the monitoring, I think capital punishment is both moral and logical.

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@StrictlyLogical I was thinking along the line of punitive action only as a means of revenge when I made my post. However if designed and used under the purpose and spirit of prevention, then it makes sense.

 

@Harrison 

 

VECT:
And since human beings are capable of volitional change and deliberate self-improvement, teleologically null people are still worth respecting for the sake of their potential.

 

I am currently under the concept that these people's right should be respected because:

1. They are human with free will (as opposed to mindless robots) despite whatever effect their choices had on their own lives

2. They are not violating the individual rights of other human begins

 

Even if for a person so engrossed in their addiction or abuse that hypothetically they will never achieve self-improvement, they would still retain their individual rights to pursue such a path.

 

Any other individuals are well within their own right to despise the subject for his choices, but I don't think the subject's own individual rights stems from the fact he have the potential to make better choices later on.

 

(As for the question above, if that was directed at me I would need an example)

Edited by VECT
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Even if for a person so engrossed in their addiction or abuse that hypothetically they will never achieve self-improvement, they would still retain their individual rights to pursue such a path.

 

Any other individuals are well within their own right to despise the subject for his choices, but I don't think the subject's own individual rights stems from the fact he have the potential to make better choices later on.

You have a valid point.  I maintain that the underlying principle ("rights" as a function of complementary values) is true, but I must have some derivative error in my reasoning.

 

I'm saying why you should be concerned is because reason is the method by which man chooses and creates values and you are a man. Rights protect your ability to use your mind.

Firstly, I believe that my explanation must accurately reflect the fundamentals involved because I do not know of any satisfactory alternative.  I am not satisfied with the alternatives described by several others here because they seem to reduce down to an equivocation between acting on others and being acted upon; a variation of the golden rule.

 

P:  Reason is your method [as a man] of pursuing values

C:  It is valuable to respect the reasoning of others

     implicit=>  What others do to you is dictated by what you do to them

 

I do not consider this a valid basis for "rights" because, while many people tend to "do unto others", many others simply don't; hence in any unrequited interaction the concept of "rights" would not be applicable.  Unless, of course, I have misinterpreted it; in which case I would greatly appreciate some correction.

 

There is a difference between immorality and injustice, you're correct; it's the difference between a teleologically null being (like a drug addict, who neither helps nor hinders rational men) and a teleologically anti-being (like Hitler or Stalin).

And since human beings are capable of volitional change and deliberate self-improvement, teleologically null people are still worth respecting for the sake of their potential.

I do not yet know where the error lies in this, but if we assume that the underlying principle is valid (as I am) then I believe it must stem from the concept of a "teleologically null" person who has absolutely no effect on other peoples' pursuits.

 

So that's what I've got so far.  If anyone sees something I've missed then please point it out.

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