When is it necessary to kill another being?

just me said:
... Violence with more violence? Depends on the situation. It is the only language some people know.
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What do you think would make a person feel that solving violence with more violence is the only way?
 
I forgot to add my general opinion on the original topic. I am of the belief that if something inherently does not have a consciousness and never will (such as a plant as opposed to a fetus, not touching that topic if I don't have to lol) then there is nothing wrong with killing it for your own benefit. Our body has cells whose entire purpose is to die to carry out some of the most mundane functions. When doing so encroaches on things that have a consciousness, I take it on a case-to-case basis.
Past that, things get a little blurrier.
I think that when it comes to non-humans killing for killing's sake is wrong, but when there is a purpose it is a case-to-case basis.
 
I put humans and everything else into different categories though.

As for the everything else, I would say that it's fine to kill if you're hungry. I do not agree however with killing endangered species, killing for sport or animal sacrifice.
I'd also agree that killing another being is ok if it's threatening your own or your families safety, and that goes for your emotional wellbeing also, hense killing bugs is fine.

As for humans, I do not believe there is any just reason for killing another human being apart from self-defense, and even in most self-defense situations I feel that your aim should not be to kill, but to disable that person from attacking you.

I will accept that it's necessary in a war situation to kill another human being, especially if you are defender, but that doesn't mean I like it.
 
A Person said:
I don't know if your being serious or not, but fish do feel pain. Maybe not emotional but they do feel physical pain. there are studies that prove this. So knowing this is there ever a time where it is wrong to kill a fish? and if so when?
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No they don't, small creatures don't feel pain. Ugly creatures too like snakes, they don't feel any pain. Just mainly fury creatures like dogs and stuff.
 
Griffin said:
I forgot to add my general opinion on the original topic. I am of the belief that if something inherently does not have a consciousness and never will (such as a plant as opposed to a fetus, not touching that topic if I don't have to lol) then there is nothing wrong with killing it for your own benefit. Our body has cells whose entire purpose is to die to carry out some of the most mundane functions. When doing so encroaches on things that have a consciousness, I take it on a case-to-case basis.
Past that, things get a little blurrier.
I think that when it comes to non-humans killing for killing's sake is wrong, but when there is a purpose it is a case-to-case basis.
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So would you agree that it would be wrong to unnecessarily destroy a berry plant whose existence is the soul means of another beings survival?
 
donkeybals said:
No they don't, small creatures don't feel pain. Ugly creatures too like snakes, they don't feel any pain. Just mainly fury creatures like dogs and stuff.
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Show me proof of this statement. I need to know if it's true.
 
A Person said:
So would you agree that it would be wrong to unnecessarily destroy a berry plant whose existence is the soul means of another beings survival?
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That all depends on two things for me:
1)What this other being is. Are we talking about a person or a bacterium ( or where between), and from that how would that being's ceasing to exist effect its environment? I would need more details before weighing in on a solid answer.
2)What would be our reason for destroying the plant? What would define unnecessary? The plant could be sustaining that same being (a bacterium in this case) that in existing kills other things humans depend on (a crop that humans depend on). Nothing exists in a vacuum, so more details would be needed in this respect as well.

EDIT:
Reading my post over, it looked really wishy-washy, so as not to make it a complete cop-out, I think it would be wrong to unnecessarily kill a berry plant (that I will define as a being in and of itself, if going by the definition in the OP and just to complicate things :P) if doing so would stop a being from existing, but this is with just the two variables of necessity and dependence being known. As I said before, I would need to know more before coming to a strong answer.
 
I think also that it needs to be a necessary act, as in, killing the plant/tree has to make something that someone needs that can't be made any other way.

I mean, we need trees to survive, so it's vital that we don't just use all the plants and trees on the planet because we'll die.
 
Griffin said:
That all depends on two things for me:
1)What this other being is. Are we talking about a person or a bacterium ( or where between), and from that how would that being's ceasing to exist effect its environment? I would need more details before weighing in on a solid answer.
2)What would be our reason for destroying the plant? What would define unnecessary? The plant could be sustaining that same being (a bacterium in this case) that in existing kills other things humans depend on (a crop that humans depend on). Nothing exists in a vacuum, so more details would be needed in this respect as well.

EDIT:
Reading my post over, it looked really wishy-washy, so as not to make it a complete cop-out, I think it would be wrong to unnecessarily kill a berry plant (that I will define as a being in and of itself, if going by the definition in the OP and just to complicate things :P) if doing so would stop a being from existing, but this is with just the two variables of necessity and dependence being known. As I said before, I would need to know more before coming to a strong answer.
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Thank you, you've given me much to think about. Another question: does a bacterium have as much of a right to live as a human. Why or why not?
 
i don't think that treating violence with violence is terribly productive. i agree that it perpetuates cycles of violence. i also have a problem with the idea that punishment equals justice. i think if someone refuses to honour the contract that society proposes then society has a right to protect itself from this individual say by gaoling them or otherwise controlling their movements in the society but not to dishonour the terms of the contact they propose (based on equality and safety) by destroying that person.
 
invisible said:
i don't think that treating violence with violence is terribly productive. i agree that it perpetuates cycles of violence. i also have a problem with the idea that punishment equals justice. i think if someone refuses to honour the contract that society proposes then society has a right to protect itself from this individual say by gaoling them or otherwise controlling their movements in the society but not to dishonour the terms of the contact they propose (based on equality and safety) by destroying that person.
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So if someone killed another person how would you go about dealing with the killer if you do not believe that punishment equals justice?
 
Just to open Pandora's box a little wider, what about the livestock industry? The "necessary" killing of these livestock keeps us breeding them and keeps their numbers prolific, even if under conditions that are not guaranteed to be ideal. How important is a natural life with no guarantee of long term species survival? How does that mesh with your thoughts of importance on species going extinct?
EDIT: Didn't notice your reply, I'll type a response up ASAP.
 
Griffin said:
Just to open Pandora's box a little wider, what about the livestock industry? The "necessary" killing of these livestock keeps us breeding them and keeps their numbers prolific, even if under conditions that are not guaranteed to be ideal. How important is a natural life with no guarantee of long term species survival? How does that mesh with your thoughts of importance on species going extinct?
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I would have to think about this question longer, but as of now my answer is this: I believe that a natural life with no guarantee of long term species survival is just as important as any other being in the universe. Please challenge my response I want to learn.
I've never given much thought to the issue of extinction. what are your thoughts?
 
A Person said:
Show me proof of this statement. I need to know if it's true.
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It's common knowledge.

If you set an ant on fire with a magnifying glass people laugh. If you dog fight your thrown into jail. The reason is because ants can't feel but dogs can.
 
A Person said:
Thank you, you've given me much to think about. Another question: does a bacterium have as much of a right to live as a human. Why or why not?
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This is a surprisingly thought-provoking question for me. My thoughts may seem scatter-brained here.

I see right to live as being a question of one or the other. The right to live would only matter in a case of having to choose.
Something important to me when thinking about this is the scale of a bacterium and the scale of a full-grown person.
A single person is equal in scale to a countless number of a bacteria. If we consider this from a "no one life is any greater than another" perspective, a human would have a greater right to live from my point of view.

If we talk about potential one way or the other, it becomes much easier in that a human has a much greater potential (good or bad) than a bacteria does to change the world and as such the cultivation of human potential matters more to me than the potential of a bacterium.

Surprisingly more focused going down than in my head, very nice ^_^
 
donkeybals said:
It's common knowledge.

If you set an ant on fire with a magnifying glass people laugh. If you dog fight your thrown into jail. The reason is because ants can't feel but dogs can.
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So because people laugh at an ant being burned by a magnifying glass means that the ant doesn't feel pain? I don't understand. Please elaborate.
 
Griffin said:
This is a surprisingly thought-provoking question for me. My thoughts may seem scatter-brained here.

I see right to live as being a question of one or the other. The right to live would only matter in a case of having to choose.
Something important to me when thinking about this is the scale of a bacterium and the scale of a full-grown person.
A single person is equal in scale to a countless number of a bacteria. If we consider this from a "no one life is any greater than another" perspective, a human would have a greater right to live from my point of view.

If we talk about potential one way or the other, it becomes much easier in that a human has a much greater potential (good or bad) than a bacteria does to change the world and as such the cultivation of human potential matters more to me than the potential of a bacterium.

Surprisingly more focused going down than in my head, very nice ^_^
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What if a bacterium was discovered that could cure cancer. But before being processed to be able to cure cancer it is a terribly detrimental bacterium with the potential of creating a massive pandemic? In this admittedly obscure scenario which being would have a greater right to live, the humans that could be destroyed by the bacterium or the bacterium that could save countless lives?
 
A Person said:
I would have to think about this question longer, but as of now my answer is this: I believe that a natural life with no guarantee of long term species survival is just as important as any other being in the universe. Please challenge my response I want to learn.
I've never given much thought to the issue of extinction. what are your thoughts?
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I'm not one to attach huge importance to a species extinction or survival as a whole in it own right (besides the human race of course, rational self-interest :P), but would be opposed to a species as a whole going extinct based on the possibility of potential use lost. Like a plant with potentially useful chemicals that it creates naturally, that could be cultivated for the betterment of the world.
I am also opposed to the extinction of a species through human intervention, depending. If a species goes extinct through natural means of environmental pressures, it is phased out and besides an unknown potential use, the environmental consequences have been absorbed overtime and keeping the species alive through intervention may prove as harmful in the wild. When a species is hunted to extinction in short order, it leaves a hole in the ecosystem with consequences that maybe more far-reaching than we can perceive.

With that in mind, the livestock issue is one I myself see as a matter of quality of life. This is something I cannot measure without actually knowing, and figuring it out for sure one way or the other is going to depend on specific farms and the like, so I logistically cannot truly know. My policy is not to form strong opinions on something I don't know well, so I don't have very strong feelings one way or the other on this issue.
 
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