Objective Morality and Murder

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Atreju

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I was thinking about this conundrum this morning.
Murder is often used as an example of something clearly objectively evil. But what does it mean to be objectively evil, and what does it mean to murder?

Usually, by saying something is objectively evil, it means that it is evil regardless of anyone’s opinion, and regardless of the opinion of society. If it is independent of society, then it should also be independent of the laws of a society. But murder is “the unlawful killing of another person”, so how can it be independent of the law? For an extreme example, I think we would like to say that the killings in the holocaust were objectively evil, but they were not unlawful killings. For a more common example, the killing of abortion is lawful in much of the west. And also it is usually considered lawful to kill in self defense. So how do we determine which lawful killings are objectively evil and which are objectively acceptable?
 
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They were legal and in fact state sanctioned killings under the nazi regime.
 
Atreju said:
They were legal and in fact state sanctioned killings under the nazi regime.
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Philosophers will have a more precise definition, but objectivity takes the good that we are considering and considers it apart from the determinations of an individual.

In the case of murder, human life is a good that is not subject to anyone’s determinations. It is set apart as an objective good.
 
So then would the death penalty always be objectively evil? Or are there certain cases in which it is justified?
 
I can tell right now that I’m going to get a lot of confusion thinking I am arguing in favor of the holocaust by saying it wasn’t illegal under the law. The point is that I don’t think we can tie morality to legality, and murder by definition is a legal term that is dependent on society.
 
What does “lawful” mean? I take it to mean the same thing as legal, and the holocaust, while evil, was not illegal under the laws of the countries in which it took place.
 
Atreju said:
What does “lawful” mean? I take it to mean the same thing as legal, and the holocaust, while evil, was not illegal under the laws of the countries in which it took place.
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You are trying to be too legalistic. I don’t think anyone on the planet, apart from right wing extremists and racists, believe that anything Hitler and his thugs did was lawful.
 
Atreju said:
I can tell right now that I’m going to get a lot of confusion thinking I am arguing in favor of the holocaust by saying it wasn’t illegal under the law. The point is that I don’t think we can tie morality to legality, and murder by definition is a legal term that is dependent on society.
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Here’s a foundational principle, without which you will go in circles:
Anytime you speak about morality, it’s in reference to an objective good. In this case that objective good is human life.
And you start with that. If you don’t have that as a starting point you go in circles about prohibitions.

Obviously, civil laws do not always serve the objective good. The Nazi policies you reference are an example of civil policies that violate The Law.
Another obvious example is legalized killing of the unborn. That law is unjust.
 
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“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.” - Rev. Dr. Martin L. King, Jr from “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”

you have many nations sanctioning the mass murder of helpless children;
progressing from Lenin’s Russia around 1920 then gained more and more momentum in Western Europe in the late 1960s, the U.S.A. in 1973 and getting more and more radical & heinous like recently in New York State.
There is an official N.G.O. proposal in the U.N. to label pro lifers as
oppressing women and girls.
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41.9 million in 2018 excruciating painful executions of helpless children in the world. More than double that of psyches damaged, considering that many who are not reprobates increasingly have their consciences oppressed by the pervasive ‘air of acceptability’ purveyed by the media and other facets of society.
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This is a widespread epidemic of the culture of death.
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May God reach many more to prevent them becoming reprobate on this.
 
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Atreju said:
I think you’re confusing lawfulness with goodness.
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Not at all.

Abortion is legal in many states in the US but the Church considers abortion as the UNLAWFUL killing of human life.
I do not equate legal necessarily with lawful.
 
You mean in the sense that it violates God’s law or natural law? I can see that reasoning. So is there guidance on which state sanctioned killings are unlawful? Would it be objectively evil for the state to kill people in drone strikes, or to kill someone for stealing, or to kill someone for being gay?
 
Atreju said:
You mean in the sense that it violates God’s law or natural law? I can see that reasoning. So is there guidance on which state sanctioned killings are unlawful? Would it be objectively evil for the state to kill people in drone strikes, or to kill someone for stealing, or to kill someone for being gay?
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Morality is an evaluation of human acts in reference to the objective good. So do the evaluation.

These evaluations can be exceedingly difficult.
Is it good to kill terrorists?
Start here:
Human life is sacred.
We do not take the innocent lives of others, but we protect them.
A terrorist is a human being.
A terrorist also kills other human beings.
Those other human beings deserve protection.
In order to protect other innocent lives, we are justified in taking the life of a terrorist.
If there are other means available like capture and imprisonment, we should take those instead.

You can see that these scenarios can be extremely murky and difficult.
 
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If I do that evaluation many things commanded by God in the Old Testament become objectively evil.
 
Atreju said:
If I do that evaluation many things commanded by God in the Old Testament become objectively evil.
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Ah here we go.
Now you get into a long discussion about sound biblical interpretation vs fundamentalism.
Catholics are not fundamentalists. We do not read passages of God commanding slaughter as literalist expositions of God’s will.

This is a long and complex topic and there are reams of discussion about it here if you search.

Here is a good reference for you:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedi...ts/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini.html
Para 42 specifically “The dark passages of the bible”
 
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Atreju said:
But murder is “the unlawful killing of another person”, so how can it be independent of the law?
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Read the fifth commandment in the Catechism.

I’m not sure where you got that quoted phrase but it wasn’t from the Church.
 
So the commandments to kill disobedient children or gay people or people who worshipped other gods were not given by God? The biblical authors were in error in saying so?
 
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