First I would like to discuss the notion that soldiers are murders. After that I would like to discuss the notion that there is little to no grey area when determining whether a killing is just or unjust and that there is no grey area when determining whether an unjust killing is murder or something else. Then finally, I would like to discuss whether the beliefs of those who do the killing are relevant when we assign blame for unjust killing. I hope I am not misrepresenting any views, if I have then it is that I have only misunderstood.
Killing is either just or unjust.
Not all unjust killing is murder.
Killing in war is either just or unjust.
Not all unjust killing in war is murder.
If soldiers are the ones doing the killing, then even those soldiers guilty of unjust killing are not necessarily murders.
What is your definition of murder? According to the official dictionary entry:
…the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder).
I don’t think any libertarian would argue that all killing is “unjust”. It certainly is just to kill another man threatening your life, killing for self-protection, with the caveat that you are not the aggressor. In Iraq, American troops are the aggressors, especially since they are not being coerced by the State to deploy—the current military is all-volunteer, and if you have a change of heart it’s worth considering that I got around deploying and was never threatened with arrest or jail-time.
So would you agree with the first section of my post?
The same.
There is a grey area. Someone corners you and initiates a fight. You decide you dont want to fight and shoot him. Seems like it is unjust. But what if the man a is 300lbs gorilla. Its very likely that a physical assault from him could be lethal force. So are you justified in shoot him? I dont know. Depends on the judge or jury.
However that does not mean all killing they do is unjust. And from that not all unjust killng that they do is murder.
Basically this. Should we hold those who are ignorant of thier sin to the same standard as those who embrace it?
That not all killing in war is murder? Yes. Although, for aggressor states all soldiers on deployment intend to kill the enemy and so the action of killing another comes dangerously close to murder, if not murder outright. So, while not all killing in war is immoral or murder, for the aggressor army most killing can probably be categorized as murder.
This seems like one of those lifeboat situations, and I’m not sure that the situation in a war will be this cloudy except a very small proportion of the time.
Give me an example of a just killing, by part of an American soldier, in Iraq. American soldiers are on foreign, sovereign soil; they are the aggressors. They are the 300lb. bully of your previous example.
Premeditated versus accidental. What soldiers accidentally kill a foreign person? All soldiers become soldiers that they may have to kill, and they accept it.
I agree that unjustified killing is not necessarily murder. From what little I know from television unjustified killings fall within varied categories like “murder in the first degree”, “murder in the second degree”, “manslaughter”, “neglected homicide”, “murder through depraved indifference” and possibly many others.
I would be interested to see if we can determine into what category would a killing of an enemy soldier in combat fall into, when the said killing is done by someone on the side which is clearly the aggressor. Would it be one of the mentioned categories? An existing category that I omitted here? A totally new category all to itself?
Maybe it would be better if we tried using less current and therefore more neutral, less emotionally charged examples. For example Soviet soldiers in 1980s Afghanistan or Portugese soldiers in 1970s Mozambique.
Then whatever we figure out using such examples we can later apply to the current ones.
And the reason for the different categories is because the circumstance surrounding the killing is different. So we assign different levels of blame due to the circumstances. I would argue that war is the most extreme circumstance anyone could find themselves.
I am not currently refering to the wars in Iraq and Afganistan. I am talking about the millions of people who have killed in war under the banner of a state. v I would like to try and establish some common ground then examine the current conflicts.
I have gathered that many here believe that soldiers are nothing more than hired killers for the state. If so, is there anything immoral or unjust about on hired killer killing another hired killer? Is that murder? Along the same lines as, is there anything wrong with a thief stealing from another thief? Is that stealing?
I am not talking about premeditated vrs accidental. I am talking about those who believe that they are acting in self defense when in reality they are the aggressors. Do we treat them any differently from those who know and relish the idea of being the aggressor and kill because they desire to establish their dominance?
I agree. But the point is really to what an extent is the soldier responsible for being in these circumstances himself. If there was a soldier who joined only because his family was being held hostage and threatened with death by authorities and then fought on the aggressor side side solely as a matter of self-preservation then I think he would have to be cleared fully.
But if there on the other hand was a soldier who joined the aggressor willingly and without being a victim of deception then it being a war is no mitigating circumstance for him at all. He can not hide behind the extreme circumstances of “kill or be killed”. What crime is he guilty of? As what do we categorise the killing he does?
Once we have the verdict on both of these we know the verdict for others have to be in between the two extremes.
No. That would be violence between willing participants. A duel.
This indeed applies to many wars but only where neither side is a clear aggressor. For example the British and the Germans fighting in their African colonies during WWI, since neither had the right to any of that land in the first place.
I think it depends on ‘objective’ circumstances. How easy is for this person to gain access to truthful information? And how good a reason he has to doubt the version they are being fed?
For example someone in a totalitarian society would have little to no access to truthful information, but he would have good and obvious reason to doubt the version he was being told. Someone in a less controlled society would have much better avenues to pursue alternative, truthful information in, but seemingly less reason to need to.
Also, how big are the holes in the official narrative? Is it possible to pick holes in it and question the morality of actions suggested by it without taking into account any special information, simply by examining it a little bit on your own and applying some common sense?
I think that if someone were a victim of a very elaborate deception that would make it all but impossible for him to know the truth (totally controlled environment and what not), that then we would need to conclude that his crimes are not his own, but solely the responsibility of his deceivers. However I think such a scenario has to be the domain of science fiction.
I think in reality usually only a part of deception is of this type, and the other part is self-deception. As an extreme example lets take someone who has the ability to access truthful information, who has every reason to doubt everything his government says and whose government provides a rationale for war that is clearly lacking, jet still believes the war to be just. Such a person is not so much a victim of deception, as he is the victim of self-deception. I think his crime would be only slightly less than that of someone who relishes the thought of being an aggressor.
(I think this is a similar case to someone who was conscripted, but who would have volunteered anyway, had he not been conscripted. In that he was not really a victim of conscription. Just like the soldier in the above paragraph was not really a victim of deception.)
So we would agree that, in general, drafted soldiers would fall into this category and that we should be lenient in our judgments. Though we I think we would also agree that it is no excuse for blatant acts of violence against unarmed and non threatening innocents.
I would agree for the most part. However this does raise another question. When war is instigated by those in power, it is coming regardless of whether it is just or unjust. If your state begins to loose and enemy soldiers are approaching your home, bringing death and destruction with them, should we treat those who pick up a gun and fight side by side with the aggressors the same? These people are defending their home, yet killing those who were aggressed against.
I would think those with no mitigating circumstances would be guilty of murder.
I agree up to point. However, no state has a legitimate claim to any land. So wouldn’t that mean that it is irrelevant as to where the fighting took place? As long as it is between the hired killers of two states (professional soldiers) then there is nothing immoral about killing an enemy soldier.
Definitely having access to the truth is important. And today there is no doubt that people have access to more information than they ever have in the past. This should mean that they are able to make better decisions. But the volume of information available has also created a problem. How do you sort through the vast amounts of contradictory information? In order to do so you must have a base to draw from. Most here have dedicated their free time to acquiring knowledge of history, philosophy, etc. The average person has dedicated their free time to football, celebrities, family, etc. They lack to knowledge to pick the false information from the truthful. Unfortunately, they rely on public opinion and those who are elected by public opinion. So do we treat these people the same as those who know the truth and create the lies?
In not sure that it has to be an elaborate deception where someones entire base of information is controlled. It may also be a problem of not just lack of information but also of an overload of information.
I would agree that people will most definitely blind themselves at times. But we have to be careful I think. Sometimes things as so clear to us, that it is absolutely unbelievable that another can’t see it. But in many cases we are making assumptions that are not true. We assume that they are just as intelligent or have access to the same knowledge.
No. There is a difference between someone whose family is threatened with death. And a regular conscript. Being conscripted takes away only a smaller part of the blame. The greater part remains.
A person has no obligation to become a martyr but in most circumstances deserting is not martyring yourself. It exacts a smaller price on the deserter than it would on the person he would kill in combat. If he does not desert then he must be determined not to take a life but to intentionally shoot wide regardless of the danger to himself.
In general I would caution against seeing a too wide gulf between conscripts and volunteers. Unless we are talking about virtual slave armies like that of 18th century Prussia, then every soldier is to some extent a volunteer.
This is well spotted. You are right, this is perhaps the most tragic thing about having a state. It places people between a hammer and an anvil. Such people have to be cleared. I liken this to defensive voting.
No. That would be sophistry. If the date is September 1st a German officer is not the equal of a Polish officer. The Polish officer is not a willing participant to the war. He has no choice but to defend his people.
We judge them the same as those who do not care whether their cause is just or not, for they obviously do not, but go to war blindly. They are the same as those who see through the lies but join the aggressor anyway because they have no philosophical qualms about committing aggression. The people in our example have qualms in theory, but not in practice.
Also, even if their initial self-delusion could be rationalised away, what then is to be said of them when they fail to desert even after a period of time served? Surely after some time spent in the actual war, all that they need to deduce that they are the aggressor they have available.
Luckily we are not assigning blame to any actual people. We are assigning blame to theoretical people who are a construct of our imagination. So we are in the position to know.
Yes there is a difference. But in a strictly moral sense it could be seen as more unjust to participate in a war to protect your family from the state. To kill an innocent 3rd party to protect yourself from the state is bad. To kill an innocent 3rd party to protect another innocent 3rd party from the state equally as bad if not more.
Historically, deserters are executed. I don’t believe they kill deserters today but I do know that you will serve a long prison sentence. Once you are in your options only become worse.
I don’t think culpability should be linked to how voluntary the action is. I think it is more linked to the options available to the individual. After all, every action is voluntary. People choose one condition over another. Even slavery is voluntary. The slave chooses subservience over death.
But is the Polish soldier killing for his people or killing for the Polish states control over a particular piece of dirt? I don’t know the answer to this. We have to remember that there were millions of Germans in Poland who wished to be part of Germany. And a great deal of the land occupied by Poland had been traditionally part of Prussia. So it could be seen as the Polish soldier fighting for the Polish state to retain control of people and lands that it did not have a right to. All states are aggressors. Trying to determine which the bad guy is and which is the good guy is a confused business that I try to stay away from.
I think they do care if the war is just, only that they lack the sophistication to understand. I don’t see it as willfully turning a blind eye to an unjust war, but as making the best judgment they are capable of given their abilities and resources. I liken it to something about Christianity that always bothered me. Everyone who has not accepted Jesus goes to hell. What about those who knew nothing of Jesus? Seems awfully unfair and unforgiving to me.
Fair enough. I shouldn’t get ahead of the discussion.
Forget the Polish soldier. When you refuse to weight guilt but instead purposely limit yourself to “all states are aggressors”, you equalise the far more guilty and the far less guilty and do not allow for a possibility of a clear aggression as long as one side is not immaculate. With that kind of attitude there is nothing further to talk about since all combatants ever have already been assigned to the same moral plane.
Well that is not what I meant to do. I only attempt to illistrate that it is irrelevant to me whether a state is an aggressor or not. What is important to me is whether the individuals that fight in wars are guilty of crimes. What those crimes are and to what extent are the soldiers responsible. You suggested in the other thread that we look at individual actions. That is what I am trying to do.