Is killing in itself and by definition wrong?

Question

This question is not supposed to have a religious/ Sociological taint, but if you must you must. thank you for your candor.

Answer 1

Intelligent question. Killing (the taking of a life) in and of itself is not wrong. We can see that in nature, one living thing is food for another, and that necessitates killing. We can also see that killing is necessary at times for survival. If you are attacked by another and must defend your life, or the life of your family, it may be necessary to kill. Because we are leaving religion out of it, I'll say that everyone dies, and SOMETHING kills us. When we have an infection, we take anti-biotics to kill the bacteria that is making us sick. Killing is not wrong. It becomes a matter of discrimination: What to kill, and when to kill.

Answer 2

In the natural world, to take another organism's life is neither "right" nor "wrong." It is a neutral act. The right-ness and wrong-ness of actions are human concepts and labels placed on these actions so as to make it easier to determine the type of effect an action has on the survival of the entire human species, and on the proper functioning of human society.

In this point of view, killing of fellow humans (or other species we view with similar level of intelligence and consciousness) is "wrong" because it runs counter to our survival instinct, and introduces a lot of chaos in society.

However, killing of animals is /generally/ not viewed as "wrong." And yet, why is killing of animals for no obvious reason (say, for sport) viewed as wrong? I'm inclined to think that it is because it wastes resources, and thereby may adversely impact future resource availability and hence, the "survivability" of our species.

We should note that the definition of the right-ness and wrong-ness of killing has evolved over time - often times expanding or generalizing a specific wrong-ness to other areas.

These are my personal opinions.

Answer 3

My Thoughts: If you are referring to the termination of a human life, I feel it is wrong. However, it is acceptible under circumstances such as War (and I realize I am delving into both social and religious aspects with war), Self-defense (my opinion, as well as legal opinion) and in the non-human realm killing for food is a basic necessity (vegetarians notwithstanding) Killing for sport has historically never been acceptible except for survival (be it food or defense,) and I tend to stand by that way of thinking. Hope my opinion was something you were looking for.

Answer 4

No, every organism on this planet that is not autotrophic is designed to kill one form of organism or another. The more complex thereof have an internal system for killing intruders in a sophisticated way (immune defenses).

Yet when people kill eachother, fairness and equality - new age crap- start to kick in. If someone tries to harm you, you think of killing him/her, that's normal. It's also normal that we don't want you to do that, because it hinders economy, and economy and the sophisticated systems we have today would be impossible to maintain without a justice system that controls the amount of killing going on.

Answer 5

I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean when you say "killing"... Do you mean to kill another human being, or do you mean every form of killing, as in the act of killing a cow as a source of food? Is it evil for a lion to kill to survive? Well, if it's wrong to kill for food, then survival is evil, and plants are the only creatures on Earth that are not evil. They are the only creatures on Earth that do not kill to survive. They use photosynthesis to produce their source of food (excluding weeds and venus fly traps).

Is it wrong to survive? To kill an animal and put it's death to good use, it's fur for warmth, or it's meat for food may be "wrong", but it is necessary, and the animal did not die in vain... And then, let's consider plants, does the fact that they don't have a brain or have emotion make it anymore ok to kill them for food than animals? There is a reason some plants have developed thorns or spiky leaves; it is because they do not want to die. Of course, some animals in farms are treated terribly, and that in itself is extremely evil. To treat an animal as if it has no emotions...

I think killing is always evil, but it is necessary for survival, and is therefor acceptable.

Answer 6

No. Killing is necessary, a part of life. Animals kill to eat, and who are we to judge? Humans kill for food, protection, and sometimes revenge. The first two are resonable, but killings for revenge are murder. Murder is wrong.