[Simeron]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:

*shrug* the murderer is being reactive if he's, say, avenging an insult to his family's honor, or if the victim was was going to get a law passed that would make the murderer's current livelyhood illegal (to pull a situation out of history: whale hunting), or if the victim was tresspassing, and such. In such cases, the victim was forcing a small portion of his/her ethics on the murderer: In the case of the insult, from the victim's POV, that wasn't a deadly insult, it was a jape; such things should be limited to verbal sparring only - he should have just taken the insult or insulted right back. In the case of making whaling illeagal, the victim's ethics say courtroom battles should stay courtroom battles, while the murderer is responding to a threat to his livelyhood that he doesn't know how to fight in the originating arena (the field of law), and so brings the fight to an arena he knows (guns and brute force). In the case of the tresspassing, perhaps the victim believed that the ground doesn't belong to us, we belong to "mother earth", thus there are no property rights, and the victim believs he should be able to go where he pleases, regardless of the five foot chain-link fence with the "no tresspassing" signs. Sure, FOR US, none of those would be sufficient cause to kill someone - but those are our ethics, our morality - not necessarily the murderer's. For him (or her, I suppose, but most convicted murderers are male), the victim was forcing a portion of the victim's ethics onto the murderer, causing the victim to be a threat, and thus someone to take action against.

Remember also, however, in the case of accomplished murder, that the murderer is not forcing his ethics on those who hunt down the murderer (after all, the murderer has already applied all the force, and the person forced is no longer in a position to be reactive) - so those hunting down the murderer are being proactive, not reactive.

Few people kill others without some provocation (it happens a lot for many forms of money-related killings such as muggings, and it happens with certain kinds of insanity (sadisim, sociopaths, psychopaths, et cetera), but with most murders (most solved murders, anyway) there is some form of provocation, even if the only one who views the "provocation" as such is the murderer) - who is reactive and who is proactive is often (if not always) a matter of perspective. Whose perspective gets enforced? Who choses which perspective? Why that perspective? Why that person? Any possible answer to such questions is very likely to ultimately end up being a case of one person/group of people imposing a portion of their ethics onto others - which you stated you are against.

That, and there are other issues: what do you do about a factory owner whose factory is putting out waste products that are slowly poisoning the ground water that people's wells draw on? He isn't forcing his ethics on anyone - he's not forcing anyone else to pollute; he's not preventing anyone else from containing the waste products of their factories - and yet his actions are potentially fatal to many other people.

I just have the odd habit of finding bizzare angles to look at things from, usually for purposes of analyzing the self-consistancy of a viewpoint. [/QB][/quote]


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Oh, I don't mind at all, in fact I rather like doing the same thing myself *grins evilly*.

Now, back to what you were saying. Actually, in the case of the whale hunting the murder is in fact becoming the proactive part when they force a change in venue from courtroom to violence.

In the case of the tresspasser, they are being proactive by imposing thier view of "mother earth" on the person who owns the property.

In the case of someone that has murdered someone being hunted down for the murder, you are in fact being reactive because you are reacting to the fact they murdered someone though the arguement could be made that you are in fact being proactive in that you're attempting to stop them from murdering again thus imposing that on them.

In the case of the factory owner that is slowly poisoning the wells I have to disagree with the point you made that he is not imposing his ethics, or lack thereof, on the well owners as he is in fact doing just that by poisoning the wells. The method of poisoning does not matter so how he is choosing to do it doesn't matter be it through factory waste or dumping poison directly into the water table, which you could argue he is doing in the first place.

In the case of avenging the family honor, the murderer is being reactive indeed but being proactive in seeking out the one insulting the family honor and murdering them though, again, the arguement could be made they are justified just as someone would be seeking out the murderer in the first place.

But, the original premise was the current situation in the middle east which is clearly where some people are imposing thier personal views of Islam upon others and taking it to the extreme of punishing (including murdering) people in the name of the religion. (not faith of Muslim).

As a wise person once said, for almost every rule there will be some exception, even this one.



[ May 26, 2004, 07:42: Message edited by: Simeron ]