Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[smigenboger]

It would be completely subjective. As a very basic example, people tend to put most of their eggs in one basket. A person who bases their life on hoping a prince (or princess) charming is going to save them from all their personal troubles while taking their virginity is going to be traumatized by the removal of that hope/delusion/way-of-life more so than someone who doesn't rely on others to make them happy about their own life. The financial contender who loses his money or realizes his plans are fruitless would be another example, compared to someone content with averageness or is already financially stable.

I'd prefer for counterclaims to be against the idea, compared to my literal generic, fairy-tale examples : P

[Leafsnail]

Personally... I feel that, to some extent, you just cannot rate crimes at the higher end of the spectrum in any meaningful order.  It depends on circumstance, and rape and murder are both terrible crimes that should receive large punishments.  Can't we just leave it at that?

[Jude]

In order to have a reasonable system of sentencing criminals, you have to rank the crimes. Or at least assign ranges of "badness value" to them which correspond to punishment and amount to a ranking of the crimes.

[Leafsnail]

Yes, but is it necessary to say "Crime x is always worse than crime y since..."

[Jreengus]

Yes it is, a law system needs to be objective as a subjective one will result in horrible unfairness.

[Creaca]

      Firsty, Murder can be justified, unlike Rape. I don't think it would be very far from the truth to say that every single person on earth has heard a story of someone murdering another person and felt that the murder was just. Had the attempted assassination of Hitler succeeded, I don't think too many people would have shed too many tears. If a robber came into your parents or siblings home, and they defended themselves by killed him in cold blood, you'd likely think that would be justified. Murder is a common activity for Heroes in any tale, whether past or present.

      That doesn't mean we always exalt murderers as the good guys(Certainly not as much in modern society), of course they're sent right of to jail (sometimes to be killed themselves) unless it was made abundantly clear that they where defending themselves.

      Rape, on the other hand, can't be justified.


Side Note: Now, I'm not saying all listed Sexual Offenders as Rapists. Just throwing in my 2 cents on the whole "Why is Rape worse than Murder" bit.

[Jackrabbit]

Not that I don't agree that murders can be justified, but defending your own home counts as self defense or manslaughter (I think?) at worst.

[Realmfighter]

All of Hitlers loyal countrymen would shed tears. Nearly everyone in the country loved and thats why they let him get away with all of his shit.

You cannot value life and still call murder justifiable (I'm going to assume you value life here.), who are you, or Anyone for that matter, to say what is punishable by death or not? Who are you to say what is right and what is wrong?

[Cheddarius]

Guys, we totally need urinals in the street, or pay a small tax that will go to business establishments that have urinals to convince them to let non-customers use their bathrooms. Seriously, sometimes I'll be swaggering about in the city, and I will be struck with a sudden urge to pee. I don't want to have to find some urinal or wait till I get home, I want to be able to just walk into a fast-food place and use their bathroom.

[Jackrabbit]

Actually, you're right. I cannot in good conscience pretend I value life and call murder justifiable. What I mean is, if one death saved billions of lives, then that one death should happen, no question but you can never know that. But then it gets muddled from peoples viewpoints. I mean, terrorists who really believe in their cause would save lives at the expense of others.

[sonerohi]

The system is very hair trigger, and that gets in the way of things. As of now, myself and 5 other guys are going to the principal because we've been getting threats from a girl who doesn't like us that if we talk to certain people, dress like guidos ironically, etc. etc., she will shout 'rape' and get us screwed over for life. Thing is, even if I were twenty feet away, bound to a chair, with no means of even looking in her direction, I would get that sex offender label faster than the cops could call me a 'motherfucking scumbag', or whatever hardcore, gritty cop line they would use.

[Aqizzar]

Actually, you're right. I cannot in good conscience pretend I value life and call murder justifiable. What I mean is, if one death saved billions of lives, then that one death should happen, no question but you can never know that. But then it gets muddled from peoples viewpoints. I mean, terrorists who really believe in their cause would save lives at the expense of others.

There is a simple solution to your conundrum.  You can say that life has no inherent value.  Harsh, but it does solve the question.

Or just accept that morality is inherently contradictory, and that we as sentient beings possess the power of judgment for a reason, even if we can't make perfectly solid or even tangible rules about how we exercise it.

[Jackrabbit]

I could, but I won't, because I value human life.

That second part I do, however, agree about though I wish you wouldn't use so many big words.

I accept that, if a murder is examined enough it could be that the murder was a good thing for everybody who wasn't the victim and saved lives But only then.

[Realmfighter]

Actually, you're right. I cannot in good conscience pretend I value life and call murder justifiable. What I mean is, if one death saved billions of lives, then that one death should happen, no question but you can never know that. But then it gets muddled from peoples viewpoints. I mean, terrorists who really believe in their cause would save lives at the expense of others.

But thats were thing start getting iffy. Who are you to say that those thousand people deserve life more than the one? Are we going to leave things that should be debated over and over to simple arithmetic?

There is a simple solution to your conundrum.  You can say that life has no inherent value.  Harsh, but it does solve the question.

Or just accept that morality is inherently contradictory, and that we as sentient beings possess the power of judgment for a reason, even if we can't make perfectly solid or even tangible rules about how we exercise it.

When you start thinking like this then you start debating whether people are more important than things, and then when you say that a thing is more important than a human, and you believe it, that is the point when you no longer have the right to call your self a human being.

[Jackrabbit]

Fuck, stop making me think about these things! I'm supposed to be playing Halo and typing 'ur a fag' everywhere on Youtube, not contemplating morality!

Could it maybe be possible that each murder is an individual occurrence and must be viewed as such?

I DON'T KNOW. I'm flopping around here like a drowning fish.