3 ms·

Using antibiotics is a defensive reaction against an attack. It's not killing if you're legitimately defending yourself (even law considers this situation). In

by kaoD 13y ago

Using antibiotics is a defensive reaction against an attack. It's not killing if you're legitimately defending yourself (even law considers this situation). Indeed, you're a murderer for killing a mosquito without a reason. About the lion/fishing analogies, bringing law here doesn't make sense. Law is an artificial system. Punishment is essentially arbitrary. Both the lion and the fisher are essentially murderers anyway, regardless of their punishment. --- After some downvotes I think I have to say this again: I don't hold these views and acknowledge it's a muddy topic, but you can't ignore these facts! These are legitimate points. I'm just playing devil's advocate here. My personal opinion is: the lion would eat you. The mosquito would eat you (if it could). That's just how nature works. But then again, killing another person is just how nature works too, right? I eat meat and will eat meat forever, though I can't help but feel like such an hypocrite for doing so while condemning murdering people. Not killing people is just an implicit agreement. I won't kill you if you don't kill me. It's not "morally good" or "morally bad", not killing other people is just convenient! The punishment for murder is just the punishment for breaking this agreement.

coldtea 13y ago
>But then again, killing another person is just how nature works too, right? I eat meat and will eat meat forever, though I can't help but feel like such an hypocrite for doing so while condemning murdering people. I fail to see the hypocrisy. You condemn murdering people because a) they are your OWN kind, and b) they have brains capable of writing HN posts. How about just constraining our moral obligation to just: don't eat/murder your own kind? Let's get to that first, abolishing capital penalty, war, murder and such, and then we can worry about eating steaks and/or prawns...
simplemath 13y ago
You eat plants. This kills the plant.
direwolf 13y ago
I think the antibiotic example is quite telling. Let's press it a little further. As you correctly point out, killing in self-defense is considered legitimate by most (but certainly not all) people. If someone pulls out a gun and starts shooting at me, most people would agree that it is morally acceptable to pull out a gun and shoot my attacker. But the legitimacy of that self-defense is limited by the principle of proportionality. If instead I pull out an AK-47 and rake back and forth with indiscriminate automatic fire, killing not only my attacker but also 15 innocent bystanders, pretty much everyone would agree that I acted immorally. The death of my attacker would be in self-defense, but I'd still be on the hook for 15 murders. That second example is more akin to taking antibiotics. If we accept that killing microbes is wrong, and accept your argument that using antibiotics is moral because it's legitimate self-defense, we have a problem. Antibiotics kill a lot more than just the invading bacteria. So does radiation and chemotherapy. In fact, they kill a lot of microbes who live in a symbiotic relationship with me and live in my body because they help me break down food or fight infections. The point is, things are a lot more complicated than simply saying that all forms of killing are immoral. At some point we have to accept that there is an ordering of life forms, and killing some of them to save ourselves is acceptable. If we don't, using antibiotics, chemotherapy, radiation, or other similar forms of care crucial to modern medicine is immoral. Once we accept that not all killing is wrong, it becomes an issue of line-drawing.

by kaoD 13y ago

coldtea 13y ago

>But then again, killing another person is just how nature works too, right? I eat meat and will eat meat forever, though I can't help but feel like such an hypocrite for doing so while condemning murdering people. I fail to see the hypocrisy. You condemn murdering people because a) they are your OWN kind, and b) they have brains capable of writing HN posts. How about just constraining our moral obligation to just: don't eat/murder your own kind? Let's get to that first, abolishing capital penalty, war, murder and such, and then we can worry about eating steaks and/or prawns...

simplemath 13y ago

You eat plants. This kills the plant.

direwolf 13y ago

I think the antibiotic example is quite telling. Let's press it a little further. As you correctly point out, killing in self-defense is considered legitimate by most (but certainly not all) people. If someone pulls out a gun and starts shooting at me, most people would agree that it is morally acceptable to pull out a gun and shoot my attacker. But the legitimacy of that self-defense is limited by the principle of proportionality. If instead I pull out an AK-47 and rake back and forth with indiscriminate automatic fire, killing not only my attacker but also 15 innocent bystanders, pretty much everyone would agree that I acted immorally. The death of my attacker would be in self-defense, but I'd still be on the hook for 15 murders. That second example is more akin to taking antibiotics. If we accept that killing microbes is wrong, and accept your argument that using antibiotics is moral because it's legitimate self-defense, we have a problem. Antibiotics kill a lot more than just the invading bacteria. So does radiation and chemotherapy. In fact, they kill a lot of microbes who live in a symbiotic relationship with me and live in my body because they help me break down food or fight infections. The point is, things are a lot more complicated than simply saying that all forms of killing are immoral. At some point we have to accept that there is an ordering of life forms, and killing some of them to save ourselves is acceptable. If we don't, using antibiotics, chemotherapy, radiation, or other similar forms of care crucial to modern medicine is immoral. Once we accept that not all killing is wrong, it becomes an issue of line-drawing.