What’s Wrong With Killing People?

The fundamental reason as to why killing is wrong can vary amongst individuals. Essentially killing is wrong(and this has become cliché in moral arguments as of the past century) because it does not respect the sanctity of human life. Highlight human. In modern times(in the west) the morality of killing is very anthropocentric… life is essentially most valuable if it is that of a human, as opposed to traditionalistic views and philosophies that have much more of an emphasis on the idea that all life is sacred. I will be focusing on this more modernistic approach as to why killing is wrong, simply because I live in a western society, which is not to say that I personally do not value non-human lives. A more secondary argument that follows as a subset of this is that to kill someone else is morally wrong because you are taking away that person’s right to life without their consent. This now poses a problem. There are now two categorical types of killings present;

1. assisted killings(Euthanasia, sucide)

2. purposeful murder(genocides, homicides)

I will be focusing on the former, and how it relates to abortions.

All human beings possess an inherent right to life. Killing is to violate this fundamental right. There is an ongoing debate as to whether such a premise exists(that humans possess a right to life), and what prerequisites must be in order for a life form to deserve this inherent right to life. From a practically ethical stance (disincluding notions such as metaethics, and the abstract), a key pioneer in this area, Michael Tooley;is adamant upon the conceptual notion that there is a direct correlation between the right that a being could have(consequentially how they can be violated), and the possession of the intellectual, of lifeform of actually possessing the correlated desire. Hence linking back to beginning premises of this essay, to “frustrate” a desired right that an individual does, factually possess( not could possibly possess, under different cirmustances), at any given point in time, is to violate that right. Essentially this statement provides a dilemma; must an organism desire to have a right(such as the right to life) in order to possess said right, or are these rights ultimately already there regardless of whether an individual wants them or not. If yes than abortion (and euthanasia, but let us not diverge) is not the violation of a human life forms right to life, because that life form never possessed a desire, or a envisaging of its own future, to live. Ultimately one must desire to possess life, in order to possess a right to it. A foetus cannot yet think. It cannot possess a desires. Therefore it has no rights On the other hand of the spectrum, in keeping the arguments as simple and binary as possible, if one does not agree with Tooley; that one does not need to desire to have a future, or desire to live, that individual still possesses an inherent right to life, regardless of their desires. By this former definition; suicide, euthanasia, infanticide and abortion all become morally unethical and lower life forms(such as animals) have rights to life(albeit arguably more limited). An easy counter claim to Tooleys statement, that could quite quickly shut it down, would be that an individual under torture, a person asleep, a depressed individual or a one suffering from a condition such as bipolar, would at the moment of their torture, or mood plateau, genuinely wish to die, and hence they would as of that moment have forfeited their right to life. Unfortunately Tooleys claim cannot be so easily shut down there because… his statement specifically elaborates, that a persons situational desire(such as one asleep, one under torture) does not define that persons ulterior motives/desires, rather these situational desires are a state, and not a stance.

The right to life is but one of many reasons not to kill. Another is the ultimate realisation of a beings future or life purpose… what happens when one violates another’s right to life, harms that person, or causes violates another fundamental right? Does that person in doing so forfeit life for themselves? While some murderers are sentenced to jail, or given a death sentence, others are treated as heroes. Role models. This new dynamic makes the simple binary analogy not so simple. To use two cluiche analogies to demonstrate the point; if one could go back in time and find baby Hitler, should one kill him. Should batman kill the joker, despite his most admamnt rule; not to kill. By enacting both of the above scenarios in such a way that the antagonist (or antagonist to be, in Hitlers case), meets an untimely demise, one would have saved the lives of thousands, if not millions of people. For the price of one. Without diverging into the tenets of hedonism, utilitarianism, or consequentialism, and remaining in the realm of practical ethics, the above examples demonstrate that the question of “Why is killing wrong” is not always quite so simply answered. Who decides ultimately whether a life form deserves to live and die, or possesses a desire to live or to die. How do we know. A simple counter argument (presented by Nagel) that can be presented for reflection would be to argue from the other side. That DEATH is intrinsically evil. If death is intrinsically evil, then life must be good. Or that LIFE must be intrinsically good. That must mean that death is intrinsically bad. Whichever is the cause or the effect is irrelevant. This simple relationship demonstrates, that regardless of whether a being possesses “ rights or desires”, in order to act the most morally one must will the good, and not the bad. Hence the continuation, and prolongation of life, in a being that attains to be morally good, is inherently an imperative. This can be interpreted to support claims that the more good a person is, bright the future looks, or how much they desire to live, than the worse death is for taking their life from them…Not at all! To agree with the prior statement creates a paradox in and off itself; life and death are not 2 different things. They are complete opposites of each other. You cannot have one without the other. If life makes death bad, then death makes life good. Death without life is ultimately meaningless. (Nathan Tamblyn, 2014)

Abortion is when a pregnancy is ended so that it doesn’t result in the birth of a child. (British Pregnancy Advisory Service, 2015) Essentially certain question will influence ones decision; does a desire to life bear a correlation to right to life? Is there a human right to life? Is a foetus a human being? And finally if a foetus is a human being and does in fact possess a right to life, despite Tooleys argument, does this foetus right to life, come as a priority to a mother’s right to be in control of her own body. The secular case against abortion( in keeping things as practical and simple as possible) is as follows; that Tooley is incorrect(as an individual, I do not find his logic to be sound), there is such a thing as a human right to life, a foetus is human being(and an innocent one), and hence a foetus possesses a human right to life. As established earlier, killing a human being is always questionable, whether that human be Hitler, or an innoncent 1 year old baby. Since deliberately killing an innocent human being is always morally wrong (or in certain cases questionable,) from the viewpoint of the majority of the population of human beings, if a foetus really is an innocent human being, then abortion is no different from murder. It is the intentional murder of an innocent human being. It therefore follows that it is wrong, The simple counter argument that would shut down the consequential chain of these events is simple; a foetus is not a human being. It cannot think. It does not possess a desire to live…ultimately it does not possess a human right to live, since it is not yet a human being. This produces a serious dilemma. At what stage is a foetus no longer a foetus and a human being? Is it somewhere along the pregnancy? Is it in fact at birth? Or is it when it develops a conscious desire to live? If the latter case is true than not only is abortion permissible, but then so is infanticide. The question then becomes, what does one mean by a human being.

Presume for a moment that a foetus is beyond the question of a doubt a human life form. A supporter of abortion(pro choice) would say that a foetus right to life, comes second to a mothers right to control her own body. Personally I am not convinced by the argument for abortion from the stance that a mothers right to “choose” or “control her own body’ are valid arguments for the termination of a human life for the simple reason that a human life definitely comes above such trivial notions. Again, personally, I am of the stance that the responsibility to not murder comes before the right to control your body for a temporary period of time. I will demonstrate via an analogy. I am fully aware of the violinist analogy, but it does not fully demonstrate the issue at hand, I will use a less widely known (but still correlated) analogy; say that suddenly you become linked to another human being, randomly and without cause. It is established that the duration will be for a year. Should you destroy this link then the person who you were linked to will die. You will not, be affected…however the longer the link remains, the less control you will have over your own senses, and the greater your feelings of pain. Do you terminate? I am of the stance that to terminate, would be an act of evil. I am convinced that pain and temporary loss of senses (basically ones temporary leisure) do not come before the life of another person. Essentially a baby in the womb, shares this relationship with its mother. Penultimately I am convinced that human life, comes before the right to choose. Ultimately the question is not whether abortion is murder or not. The question is whether a foetus is a human being, or not.

Killing is wrong, because it violates the fundamental right to life, limits potential, and does not value life. The desire to live is but one of many influencing factors as to whether a human being has the RIGHT to live. All living things this have this inherent right (albeit to differing degrees). Killing poses serious questions that invoke thought as to whether killing is always bad, such as to kill a murderer, euthanasia, and abortion. Abortion becomes a question of what makes something human. These grey areas have defined the fine line between death and murder in the 21st century.

References:

1. Young, R. (2018). What is so Wrong with Killing People?.

2. Nathan Tamblyn (2014) Why is Killing Morally Wrong?, King’s Law Journal, 25:3, 426–439, DOI: 10.5235/09615768.25.3.426

3. Bpas.org. (2018). What is Abortion? | BPAS. [online] Available at: https://www.bpas.org/abortion-care/considering-abortion/what-is-abortion/ [Accessed 27 Sep. 2018].

4. Bbc.co.uk. (2018). BBC — Ethics — Abortion: Introduction to the abortion debate. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/legal/introduction_1.shtml [Accessed 27 Sep. 2018].