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Justified Murder?

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I've been assigned Thomas Mann's The Last Town on Earth to read for college. Though I've only just started, the book poses an interesting question in the beginning of the story. Before I go into the question, I'll give you some background.

The book is set in 1918 and the Spanish Flu is ravaging many American towns. In an effort to keep the flu out of their town, the townspeople of Commonwealth decide to put their town under quarentine and forcibly keep all outsiders from entering it. To enfore this, they establish armed patrols to guard the town against intruders. While two guards are on duty, a clearly ill man stumbles across them and tries to enter the town. The guards, after some hesitation, shoot the man and kill him.

Is this morally justifiable? Both men had families to protect, and this sick man clearly could have infected the entire down with a deadly disease. However, the guards did NOT know exactly what was causing his illness. For all they knew, the man they murdered could have been infected with a harmless cold virus.

All input is appreciated, let me know if anyone needs more context to answer the question.

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Normally, this type of action is left to the government, but if it was not there to protect the town, the people had the right to defend it themselves, so it's not murder. It is a justified use of force, because the man was an actual threat to their survival.

I wish I had read the novel, now I would have a better answer. Was the local government ( or sheriff), in charge of this effort, or if not, why not?

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This falls under the category "what level of threat is necessary to justify deadly force?". For example, if a man were peacefully walking down the street carrying a rifle, that would not be a sufficiently grave threat to justify killing him.

The objective fact is that the Spanish flu was very dangerous (similarly, the Bubonic Plague). No man has a right to infect another with a deadly disease, and it would be proper to legally limit the threat. While a weapon such as a rifle poses a threat only in the context of particular behavior by man -- you may decide to not aim the rifle at others -- a highly communicable disease is an automatic threat which you cannot contain by choice.

So the question is whether a man has the right to defend himself against a threat to his existence, and the answer is "yes".

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Of course it is justified but one could ask if it was carried out wisely.

I don't know having not read the book.

It would seem wise to allow for circumstances such as the person being mute, deaf, seriously ill from something other than the plague the guards are trying to keep out, not speaking the same language, etc. as they could have been sent to convey important information which would now be lost.

So did they yell "stop!" in one language and open fire as soon as they seemed to be ignored or did they try other methods of communicating.

Not that that would change the justification in most circumstances but they could've been doing themselves more harm than good by reacting too hastily.

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Of course it is justified but one could ask if it was carried out wisely.

I don't know having not read the book.

It would seem wise to allow for circumstances such as the person being mute, deaf, seriously ill from something other than the plague the guards are trying to keep out, not speaking the same language, etc. as they could have been sent to convey important information which would now be lost.

Yeah, best not send a mute chinese guy to deliver the news about MJ dying to the folks in Commonwealth, next time. :lol:

Edited by Jake_Ellison
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Haha :lol:

Obviously not saying a neighboring town would be so stupid as to send a deaf-mute messenger... (well..I do live in pdx so...) but you know, circumstance.. last remaining survivor, situational inability to speak, dehydration, starvation, truama.. this is a work of fiction after all.

Not arguing against the justified killing, just mentioning that when feasible best to gather information before doing something permenant like shooting someone who may just have something important to convey.

Re: Chinese mute guy delivering

also.. justified killing could end in bloodying my spicy orange beef

that just won't do.

Edited by QuoVadis
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Ok guys, thanks for the input. But what if there are other options that the guards didn't think of at the time, but thought of after they killed the sick man. For example, one of the guards thought that he could have saved the sick man's life if he'd only give him some food and send him on his way to the next town. In light of this, does that make the murder that the guards just committed wrong?

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How much time did they have to act? If you have time to stop and think of options, do so. If you don't have time for that though, you do what it is you can think of. This is one reason you don't want to be going and exerting force on people. It's justified to kill them still because you do what is possible to you to protect your rights and if that means it is not possible for you to come up with an alternative answer in time then it doesn't matter what else may have been theoretically possible supposing you did have time to think of it. Besides, if all he wanted was food, the guy should have just stopped in his tracks and said so rather than trying to barge in.

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If they tried to tell that guy to stop and warned him and he just wouldn't stop still, I think they have cause to believe he isn't after less than getting into that place or else at least that he can't hear them so what they say doesn't matter. Combine that with that they can't go down and restrain him in person because then they'd catch what he had probably, I'd say they had sufficient reason still to shoot the guy. It seems to be they couldn't have stopped him otherwise without killing themselves too likely. If there is still anything else they could have done, I've sat here calmly and given it a few minutes thought and not had it occur to me yet, so I'm not about to say they were just being negligent and really should have been able to come up with that other answer in time.

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