Moral justification in killing?

[desales09]

(Spoiler alert: If you’ve heard of this book, which I will leave unnamed, I give away a plot detail which occurs about halfway through the book, because this detail has raised the question I am addressing.)

I’m reading a book about a post-nuclear America, where the characters (a man and his son) live in a burned-up wasteland. Basically, they’re trying to go south, and along the way they encounter horrible people they are trying to avoid. In one scene the man, desparate to get food (which is extremely scarce) stumbles upon a house where the people are engaged in cannibalism. He and his son hide, and come very close to being found by these horrifically depraved people - who, without going into much detail, cause their victims to suffer very much (not necessarily out of sadism, but for reasons of preserving the meat as long as possible where refrigeration isn’t available). While they’re hiding, on the verge of being found, the father is preparing to use the last bullet he has in his gun to shoot his son - because he’d rather him die quickly, then have to suffer at the hands of these monstrous people who treat their victims worse than slaughterhouses treat livestock.

I’m wondering: Is what he was preparing to do morally justified, given the extreme circumstances? Or would faith require a different response?

 

[Nelka]

I’m wondering: Is what he was preparing to do morally justified, given the extreme circumstances? Or would faith require a different response?

No, murder is never justified.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

No, murder is never justified.

Murder is an unjustified killing so the above is a tautology. The question, more properly framed, would be whether mercy killing is always murder, an unjustified killing. My understanding is that the Catholic view is that mercy killing is never justified and is always murder.

 

[Skeptic92]

Murder is an unjustified killing so the above is a tautology. The question, more properly framed, would be whether mercy killing is always murder, an unjustified killing. My understanding is that the Catholic view is that mercy killing is never justified and is always murder.

The only time that killing is justified is to defend yourself, such as in the case someone draws a weapon on you, and you believe they are aiming to kill you, for survival like that, killing is seen as justified, aslong as you atleast try to subdue your attacked non-fatally.

And maybe the death penalty is justified in the case of Serial killers, who will just reoffend nomatter what we do, so for the protection of society, whether those incarcerated or not, their killing is justified.

 

[promethius]

My understanding is that the Catholic view is that mercy killing is never justified and is always murder.

This is correct. Mercy killing is a sin against hope. Often known as euthenasia, it has NO place in Christian morality.

His moral duty would be to fight to defend himself and (more importantly) his son, fighting until his very last breath, if need be.

 

[desales09]

Thank you very much. I found your answers quite good, especially the one pointing out that it is a “sin against hope.” That’s what’s lacking in this book - faith and hope, at least as far as the father is concerned. He acknowledges the existence of God, but doesn’t pray and is a self-reliant, practical atheist. That’s why his choices confuse me at times in the book…

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Thank you very much. I found your answers quite good, especially the one pointing out that it is a “sin against hope.” That’s what’s lacking in this book - faith and hope, at least as far as the father is concerned. He acknowledges the existence of God, but doesn’t pray and is a self-reliant, practical atheist. That’s why his choices confuse me at times in the book…

While this is, of course, a work of fiction, such choices occur in real life. The most common example is terminal illness which can often be very painful. But I was reading a book recently on WWII and it quoted a German soldier who shot his best friend after he had become mortally wounded.

It’s not merely that we should hope for a miraculous cure, though that does happen from time to time, but that we should never be in a hurry to end human life no matter the circumstances.

In fictional works such as you describe, and occassional in real life situations, I find myself similarly frustrated by lack of faith even in the secular sense.