There is so much confused in your posted replies that it is very difficult to know where to begin. You assume connections that do not need to be the case and from there draw conclusions that are not substantiated.
Take the following regarding the word “malice.”
Not true. “Malice” is not part of definition, though sometimes they add the phrase “with malice aforethought”. But that is nonsense. No one has access to the internal thoughts of the person. A professional hit-man may not feel any “malice” toward the victim.
There is no presumption that a hit man must “feel” anything with regard to the ends he has in mind in order for the act to be malicious. You assume the law must prove the “internal” state of a perpetrator in order to find “malice.” Not true. If the perpetrator intended an evil outcome, that is sufficient to show malice.
In other words, if a killer willed the death of a victim and can provide no exculpatory reasons or evidence, malice is assumed. There is not need to prove that the hit man felt “malice” towards the victim. Nothing “personal” need exist - no feelings of hatred or anger - in order for the hit man to intend the evil of the man’s death for unjustifiable reasons - which is the moral and legal definition of malice, i.e., intending an evil outcome (death of the victim.)
If that is the case then the phrase is superfluous. The law already specifies that killing in self-defense is allowed. But of course, when one points a gun to the attacker’s head and pulls the trigger, then the intent to kill is already there - malice or not. You may try to say: “I did not really want to kill the sucker, I simply shot him point blank in the face. The death was a foreseen, but unintended consequence of pulling the trigger”. And no sane person will accept this cop-out.
If the intent to kill is unjustifiable, then it involves malice (willing the evil end or death of the victim) without just cause. Your example is simply irrelevant. The phrase is not superfluous because killing another person for justifiable reasons is possible and demonstrating any of those would show malice need not exist.
Not so. The presumption of innocense [sic] stipulates that the defense can just sit quietly, and the prosecution must prove its case - beyond a reasonable doubt. Of course, if you are not an American citizen, you might be unaware of this practice. In certain times the base principle was: “it is better for a thousand innocents to suffer needlessly, rather than have one guily escape unpunished”. Today the principle is the opposite. We say: “it is better for a thousand guilty ones to escape unpunished rather than have one innocent to be punished unjustly”. I rather like the second one. Do you?
Actually, neither. I prefer justice is meted out in proper proportion.
I’m not sure what the significance of the above is to your argument, but it is beside the point.
How naive you are. The goverment enforces its laws by force (what a surprise!) - no matter what the population thinks. If the population does not like it, it can resort to “ballots or bullets”, whichever is available, but the final authority is always “brute force”.
Apparently this demonstrates a great deal about the deplorable inefficacy of the education system with regard to the teaching of ethics that seems the norm in modern western societies.
By admitting the above, what you are essentially conceding is that morality does not exist and governments are not, in principle, accountable to any oversight. They essentially inherit, by ascendancy to power, the right to govern in whatever manner they decide. Sheer absurdity.
Not in my opinion. But again, opinions do not count for much, if one does not have the power to do something about it. In Singapore there are laws about caneing someone who puts a chewing gum where it does not belong to. … Most Americans would abhor such a legal system, and most Singaporean would abhor our freedom. So who is right? Which legal system is “objectively” better than the other? It’s all relative, you know.
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I included both of them, without “assuming” anything. According to the dictionary here are the synonyms of sentient: “alive, apprehensive, aware, cognizant, mindful, sensible, conscious, ware, witting”. There is no “line in the sand” between these two categories. … There is nothing special about the DNA of humans.
Your assumption is that sentience necessarily includes the ability to examine, intend, foresee, analyze, signify, judge, conceptualize, argue, create, etc., etc.
If there is nothing special about human DNA then you are left bereft of any explanation at all concerning the lack of technology, language development, art, music, mathematics, learning, discourse, development, self-reflection, etc., etc., among non-human animals.
Why on Earth would I need to resort to reading these navel-gazers about something that is perfectly obvious to anyone who is willing to think? These people are still taken seriously as if nothing had happened in the last hundreds and thousands of years. Sheesh.
Of course, you are NOT compelled to read anyone who will challenge or disturb the security of your thinking and show the error found therein since you are content with wallowing in the safe delusion of what is “now certain to be true.”
It must give you great consolation to think that what you are now certain of MUST be true because it is modern and everyone coming before must be wrong because …well…ancient. Much easier than actually figuring out whether or why modern thought is correct or not. Let’s just assume it is because, well, it is modern and we are smart.
