The Value Of Life

[Ferg]

Could you kill a person if you had a gun and they had a gun and they intended on killing you?

Could you kill a mother and child walking down the street in cold blood?

my answers are Yes for #1 and No for #2.

Killing in Cold Blood is the worst thing I believe I could ever do. A mob hit is one thing, there is underlaying circumstances to the death of that person. But to kill in cold blood, at random with no previous hate towards the mother and child, is sick. I believe the value of life has dimished these past few years and I wish it would increase again. I certainly value my life and I'm sure everyone on RevLeft does too.

So my question to you, what is your value of life?

[ahab]

well first off I think the value of life has been deminishing more than just a few years, it's been going down hill for a while. Since the dawn of man we have been killing eachother either out of hate, jealousy or pure pshychopathic behavior. My value of life is moderately strong I think, if someone was endangering my life or the lives of my friends or family, whether armed or not I would kill them. When it comes to my freedom or belief's I am a bit more agressive, as in I think anyone who claims, is or has any affiliation with nazi's should die, I think Bush and his whole administration should burn, the police who protect the ruling class blindly should be educated and if resist, die. I couldnt just kill out of cold blood, if i didnt have a reason to kill I wouldnt. If say I had a brother and he bacame a nazi I would have no problem killing him. My value of life depends on the value the other person has. If someone can take advantage of the working class just to earn money, if someone is racist to the extent of calling another humanbeing inferior, if a leader of a nation will invade, occupy and murder thousands just for oil, all these things condemn people to death.

[Jamal]

"the value of life" is an extremely important topic.
I vew life as one of the major compositions of the universe and therefor, its extremely important.
All people's lifes are important, not just your own.
even if the person is an enemy, imagine if you placed this enemy(nazi, facist, racist, zionist, multi billionare capitalist, serial killer...) on a chair and explained to himand even convinced him that what he is doing is wrong, so this so previously called "enemy' is now an ally, even more a good ally because he became to have these leftist ideas out of his own will and mind not just born in a leftist family.
and after all, who gave me the right to kill anyone, imagine a person having dreams and passion and love and ideas... and I for some reason come and kill him and put an end to all this, is it right?
I don't think so.
I would only kill in defence, self defence or defending a defence less person...

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

1. I would like to think I could easily kill someone threatening my life or the life of someone I care about.

2. I would not want to do this, but I could do so. It depends on your definition of cold blood. Everything has a rationalization behind it.

[Avtomatov]

If there was a valid reason i would do both. It all depends on why i had to kill the mother and child. If there was a valid reason, then just because they were mother and child wouldnt stop me. Im not an emotionalist, I place the same value on all sexes and ages.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I think any attempt to put a value on life is doomed... But here goes:

So if we start out with the value of life as 1. This is an average, normal, unremarkable life. 1.

From this, perhaps we can establish a moral bank. Taking a life without justification, using the basic unit of 1, would then mean you are minus 1 in terms of morality. But then, we have to take into account the further implications of the murder. I mean, death causes emotional fallout across a large area. You need to think about the family, friends, everyone. And once you take THOSE into account, the number becomes dangerously vague. And then, just to further confuse things, there's quality of life to consider. One life may be worth a sheep and a cow, another life might be rich and full of love and laughter. I hate myself for returning to this every time, but THERE IS NO OBJECIVE STANDARD. The value of life varies so wildly that there is no magic formula. You need to weigh up every case individually.

-Alex

[BurnTheOliveTree]

And surely sustained tortue is worse than cold blood murder?

-Alex

[Dean]

The value of life is equal amongst people. While I accept that certain circumstances warrant destruction of life, I still find it immoral. People are slaves to their minds; to say that a murderer deserves to die is tantamount to saying that those fallen victim to the consumerist brainwashing of capitalism should be imprisoned.

[7189]

In my view, a man who kills for self defence should not be killed yet all pedophiles should be strung up and beaten with hammers.