to kill or not to kill.

[MercuryAndy]

Is it ethnicaly right to kill?
What if you kill one person to save many?
What if you kill many bad people to save one good person?
What if you kill many people to save someone important such as the president?
what if you have to kill yourself to save others?

 

[relaxeus]

Is it ethnicaly right to kill?

You mean that, say, a white person has the right to kill a black person because he thinks he is superior? No. That white person should be stopped and should go to jail.

What if you kill one person to save many?

Like assassinating hitler? I'm all for it.

What if you kill many bad people to save one good person?

Are the bad people always going to be bad? Is there hope for them to change?

What if you kill many people to save someone important such as the president?

No. He may be more important politically, but the value of his life is equal to the rest of us.

what if you have to kill yourself to save others?

Depends. In some situations I wouldn't think twice and I'd sacrifice myself for them, like if there was a highly explosive bomb in a crowd and I was the first to realize it, Id pick it up and try to get it somewhere with no people, regardless of the risk of the bomb blowing me to pieces. However, tommorow I'm not willing to give away all my organs to save strangers. If it was a close friend or family member, I would certainly consider it, particularly if they are younger than me. Im 22, but Id sacrifice myself for someone I cared about who is 16 or 17 and younger. If they were, say. 40, I probably wouldn't, because they have already experienced so much life compared to me.

 

[MikeMcK]

Is it ethnicaly right to kill?

It depends on the situation. The Bible doesn't classify all killing as sinful or morally wrong, so I'd need a little more information than that.

What if you kill one person to save many?

Again, not enough information.

What if you kill many bad people to save one good person?

Not enough information.

What if you kill many people to save someone important such as the president?

It depends. Because there must be continuity of leadership (and, yes, I know that "continuity of leadership" doesn't mean that the president must always survive), I do believe that there are cases where that may be justified, but of course you're getting into Jack Bauer territory there.

what if you have to kill yourself to save others?

I don't believe that would be morally wrong. Not very smart, perhaps, but not wrong.

What I can tell you is that if I had to kill someone to protect myself, my family, or defend my country, I wouldn't have any problem doing so.

 

[Arnold_Philips]

ethnically?

 

[SH89]

ethnically?

I think he meant ethically.

 

[quatona]

Is it ethnicaly right to kill?
What if you kill one person to save many?
What if you kill many bad people to save one good person?
What if you kill many people to save someone important such as the president?
what if you have to kill yourself to save others?

I personally feel that the question "is this ethically right" adds more confusion than it helps me sorting things.
Each action, each situation is unique, and it deserves to be considered as such. Subsuming millions of (potential or factual) actions under the term "killing" may have its merits for making communication easier, it certainly is not a good starting point for making conclusions from this abstraction on a particular action.
Your questions are interesting, yet they seem to point a general problem of ethical rules. By labeling a certain situation or action with an abstract term (like "killing") we emphasize one particularity of it, and thereby signify countless of other particularities as (comparably) irrelevant or neglectible. E.g. another way of describing a particular action that someone describes as "killing" might be "saving someone´s life", "protecting the security of the society", "protecting oneself", "serving justice", "helping me to get some sleep" or countless others. In emphasizing the aspect of "killing" we have already applied certain priorities, which themselves are based on our ethical ideas. IOW, long before we judge a situation ethically, we have already determined the result by emphasizing certain aspects and neglecting others. I tend to think that this (mostly unconscious) selection of considerable aspects is telling more about our ethical ideas than the final decision whether a certain action is right/wrong, good/bad.
Questions like the ones you have asked demonstrate that in fact ethical questions deal with weighing up certain aspects of a situation, rather than with making generalized statements of the "[insert abstract term] is right/wrong" sort, in the way rules like the ten commandments would us believe.

I suggest a different approach: When having to decide whether to take a certain action or not, I ask myself: "Will this action - all things considered that I am currently capable of seeing - really have the results I desire? Will it contribute to make the world the way I would like it to be?
With this approach, I personally realized that I have come across hardly any situation in which an action covered by the abstracted term "killing" matched those requirements.

 

[Emmy]

Dear MercuryAndy, your questions are not easy to answer, I sincerely hope that I would never have to make a decision in any such situation. I can only say for sure, if any of my loved ones was attacked, or in danger, I would not hesitate to kill. But I hope and pray, such a situation never arises. I say this humbly and kindly, MercuryAndy, and send greetings. Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[shinbits]

Is it ethnicaly right to kill?
What if you kill one person to save many?
What if you kill many bad people to save one good person?
What if you kill many people to save someone important such as the president?
what if you have to kill yourself to save others?

No.
Yes.
Yes.
No.
Yes.

 

[kopilo]

Is it ethicaly right to kill?
What if you kill one person to save many?
What if you kill many bad people to save one good person?
What if you kill many people to save someone important such as the president?
what if you have to kill yourself to save others?

I have a feeling that the overall question is, when is the life of the individual worth more then the many.

Which of course depends on the situation, if the life of many is dependant on the individual, or how many is many, etc.

 

[justanobserver]

to kill or not to kill.

Is it ethnicaly right to kill?
What if you kill one person to save many?
What if you kill many bad people to save one good person?
What if you kill many people to save someone important such as the president?
what if you have to kill yourself to save others?

Ethically right? That would be a personal view/interpretation on what is ethical. If your basing the question just only on the scenarios presented, it could only be based on my personal view of what is ethical. But to define the ethics - you would have to narrow it down some: To kill just to kill? To kill in self defence? To kill in time of war? To kill to relieve extreme suffering?

but to your examples posed:

1 - depends on the situation - a break in in my home? a drug dealer neighbor theatening to kill me?

2 - depends on the situation - as in who decides who is worthy to live and who must die for that person

3 - depends - who are the "bad" and who is the "good" and who is giving the order?

4 - depends - am I a member of the US Secret Service and thats my job???

5 - depends - but if its for my kids, no question in my former military mind.

 

[Pogue]

No to all except the last one, which I'm unsure about- it depends on the situation.

 

[AlanGurvey]

But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! -Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[tocis]

Is it ethnicaly right to kill? [...]

It is never right to kill. It just is the best of all the bad options sometimes, like in the case of killing one person to protect many others. And the case isn't always as clear as in this example... sadly.

 

[Moros]

Is it ethnicaly [sic] right to kill?

Depends on the situation.

What if you kill one person to save many?

Depends on the situation.

What if you kill many bad people to save one good person?

Good and bad are largely relative/subjective terms with no objective definition.

What if you kill many people to save someone

Depends on the situation.

important such as the president?

Meh. Not really appropriate for discussion.

what if you have to kill yourself to save others?

Who would but a sap? One less sap.

 

[Yusuf Evans]

Is it ethnicaly right to kill?

Ethically? Depends.

What if you kill one person to save many?

Depends on the cause, but in most cases yes. If I have to send a Marine or two to stop the enemy in a suicide mission, their lives lost may save allot more lives than our squad.

What if you kill many bad people to save one good
person?

Who defines bad persons?

What if you kill many people to save someone important such as the president?

As a Marine, that would be my job. As Joe Citizen it's all on you.

what if you have to kill yourself to save others?

Doing that is the greatest sacrifice any individual can make. Jesus said that "No greater love than a person lay their life down for their friends." or something to that effect. Notice who always wins the Medal of Honor in the U.S.: Military servicemembers who sacrifice themselves for their fellow brothers-in-arms.