With widesrpead disageement over muder being wrong?
I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean. Are you agreeing with me? Because there is disagreement over whether murder is wrong, and even if there wasn’t, I’m not sure that would be a very powerful factor in my judgement of whether or not Objective Standards exist and are knowable.
Mackie’s Error-Theory is the first that springs to mind. One could make the case that no Non-Cognitivist theory allows us to say that ‘murder is wrong’. Various versions of Divine Command Theory would not necessarily believe that murder is wrong. I would link to the corresponding pages on SEP, but I’m terrible at the code on this site, so I’ll trust that you can find them...
That’s disagreement about whether anything is wrong, and it isn’t widespread.
You asked for examples of theories where ‘murder’ is not necessarily considered ‘wrong’. I provided you with three, of which two have been at one time or another, or are currently, very widely held. I’ve already understood, thanks to my conversation with thomblake which I linked to earlier, that we aren’t having a substantive disagreement here, so I don’t know what more you want from me.
If there were actual Objective Standards for things, and we could know them, it would be very surprising to me that the world functions the way it does.
..seemed to me to be a standard objection to moral objectivism on the basis of disagreement about first order ethics. I responded that there are aspects of first order ethics that are in fact agreed on by most peopleie murder is wrong, and charity is not-wrong. You then replied in terms of meta ethics. Was that a change of subject, or were you talking about metaethics all along? If the latter, why would metaethics, an academic specaism understood only by a few, affect “the way the world functions”?
I don’t actually recall referring to ethics or metaethics at all, just making an (epistemological? metaphysical? I’m not quite sure what to call it...) claim about my perceptions and beliefs of the difference being at odds with what I would expect to find in a world with Objective Standards. Do you think making that kind of statement thrusts us into a conversation about Ethics, or were just changing the subject when you brought up murder and value judgments? If the former, please let me know what I’m missing here...
A world with objective standards for some things, or nothign, or everything? You were confidently claiming that “crappy” is alwasy subjective. But there are at least some objective standards. Several examples have been given.
There is literally no disagreement over whether ‘unjustified killing’ is ‘justified’.
In so far as that statement is true it is a tautology akin to saying “Everyone agrees that the not A is not A”. If one tries to make it non-tautologous by say referring to specific subclasses of killing, then one is going to run into problems like sociopaths.
There is widespread disagreement over which acts constitute murder.
“Everyone agrees that ~A is ~A” is not a tautology, any more than “Everyone agrees that second-order logic is sound.” is a tautology.
“Unjustified killing” (Murder) is already the intersection of acts which are killing and acts which are not justified. The problem is that different people have different sets of “Acts which are justified” and “Acts which are morally wrong”.
In the legal sense, murder is killing which is not legally justified.
Can you provide a citation? I was under the impression that legal killing is not considered murder, even if it is not legally justified. For example, a judge might sentence a criminal to death for unjust reasons, but that would not be considered murder, even though it could be a sort of wrongful death. Or is there a more technical sense of “legally justified” at play?
The criminal code defines things very explicitly, even though sometimes circularly. For example, the USC defines murder: “Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.
The major distinction is from manslaughter: “Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice.”
Manslaughter is defined in such a way as that it is not an act, but rather either the unintended result of negligence or a reaction which does not constitute a decision.
The moral sense of murder includes many things not included in the legal sense, such as the execution of an innocent person.
There is disagreement over whether it even makes sense to call things ‘justified’ or ‘unjustified’, in addition to disagreement over whether actions in general can ever be ‘justified’ or ‘unjustified’.
I agree that if one where to concede that something is P, it would be very difficult for him to also assert that ~P, but I don’t really see how that’s relevant, since, as I said, there is in fact disagreement over whether killing can ever be unjustified, is ever unjustified, or whether that word even means what most people think it means.
Full Disclosure: I’m still not sure I really understand how definitions and differing opinions on definitions are treated and handled here at LW, so if you could enlighten me in this area in general, I’d really appreciate it.
That being said, I’m positive I’ve seen people use the word murder even when they believed the act was justified. Obviously, had they used the words ‘unjustified killing’, there would be very little room for argument, but be that as it may, I’m still not positive that ‘murder’ has to be / is usually defined as ‘unjustified killing’.
Further, I think it is a fairly consistent position to not believe that things can be ‘unjustified’, define ‘murder’ as something like ‘killing without explicit consent of victim’ and believe in murder at the same time; I’m not seeing anything wrong with holding that kind of position.
I’m still not sure I really understand how definitions and differing opinions on definitions are treated and handled here at LW, so if you could enlighten me in this area in general, I’d really appreciate it.
Ideally, the sides of a debate figure out whether there is a substantive or definitional dispute. Personally, I think there is value in figuring out the most useful definition for a particular conversation, but I’m not sure if that is the local consensus.
There is pretty widespread consensus that arguing by definition is not productive in figuring out what is true.
Full Disclosure: I’m still not sure I really understand how definitions and differing opinions on definitions are treated and handled here at LW, so if you could enlighten me in this area in general, I’d really appreciate it.
The standard approach is to:
notice you’re having a definitional dispute
find / make up new words to refer to the two definitions under dispute
go back to the substantive discussion, without threat of equivocation
Ah, so I guess my dispute is not with him, rather with Peterdjones. I just don’t believe that ‘murder’, as Decius is defining it, ever happens. Also, how this is at all relevant to the matter we were discussing earlier is still somewhat unclear to me.
I’m positive I’ve seen people use the word murder even when they believed the act was justified.
That’s a pretty clear case of using the word wrong, unless you’re getting into really fine distinctions. If you spot someone doing that, it’s probably worth pointing out that most people would be confused by using the word that way.
In a particular context, you might want to make use of the distinction between unjustified killing and unlawful killing, in which case murder would be the latter.
That’s a pretty clear case of using the word wrong [...] it’s probably worth pointing out that most people would be confused by using the word that way.
I’m certainly not confused when someone uses ‘murder’ without meaning ‘unjustified killing’. Is this just me?
I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean. Are you agreeing with me? Because there is disagreement over whether murder is wrong, and even if there wasn’t, I’m not sure that would be a very powerful factor in my judgement of whether or not Objective Standards exist and are knowable.
Give examples
Mackie’s Error-Theory is the first that springs to mind. One could make the case that no Non-Cognitivist theory allows us to say that ‘murder is wrong’. Various versions of Divine Command Theory would not necessarily believe that murder is wrong. I would link to the corresponding pages on SEP, but I’m terrible at the code on this site, so I’ll trust that you can find them...
That’s disagreement about whether anything is wrong, and it isn’t widespread.
You asked for examples of theories where ‘murder’ is not necessarily considered ‘wrong’. I provided you with three, of which two have been at one time or another, or are currently, very widely held. I’ve already understood, thanks to my conversation with thomblake which I linked to earlier, that we aren’t having a substantive disagreement here, so I don’t know what more you want from me.
Your comment:
..seemed to me to be a standard objection to moral objectivism on the basis of disagreement about first order ethics. I responded that there are aspects of first order ethics that are in fact agreed on by most peopleie murder is wrong, and charity is not-wrong. You then replied in terms of meta ethics. Was that a change of subject, or were you talking about metaethics all along? If the latter, why would metaethics, an academic specaism understood only by a few, affect “the way the world functions”?
I don’t actually recall referring to ethics or metaethics at all, just making an (epistemological? metaphysical? I’m not quite sure what to call it...) claim about my perceptions and beliefs of the difference being at odds with what I would expect to find in a world with Objective Standards. Do you think making that kind of statement thrusts us into a conversation about Ethics, or were just changing the subject when you brought up murder and value judgments? If the former, please let me know what I’m missing here...
A world with objective standards for some things, or nothign, or everything? You were confidently claiming that “crappy” is alwasy subjective. But there are at least some objective standards. Several examples have been given.
Hmm. That’s a good point. I’ll have to think on it for a bit and get back to you. :)
There is literally no disagreement over whether ‘unjustified killing’ is ‘justified’.
There is widespread disagreement over which acts constitute murder.
In so far as that statement is true it is a tautology akin to saying “Everyone agrees that the not A is not A”. If one tries to make it non-tautologous by say referring to specific subclasses of killing, then one is going to run into problems like sociopaths.
Yet that’s the entire crux of the issue.
“Everyone agrees that ~A is ~A” is not a tautology, any more than “Everyone agrees that second-order logic is sound.” is a tautology.
“Unjustified killing” (Murder) is already the intersection of acts which are killing and acts which are not justified. The problem is that different people have different sets of “Acts which are justified” and “Acts which are morally wrong”.
I don’t think you and JoshuaZ are having a substantive disagreement.
If you want to be pedantic, note that murder generally means unlawful or extralegal killing, not unjustified killing.
In the legal sense, murder is killing which is not legally justified. In the moral sense, murder is killing which is not morally justified.
There are certainly disagreements as to whether violations of any law are inherently immoral.
Can you provide a citation? I was under the impression that legal killing is not considered murder, even if it is not legally justified. For example, a judge might sentence a criminal to death for unjust reasons, but that would not be considered murder, even though it could be a sort of wrongful death. Or is there a more technical sense of “legally justified” at play?
The criminal code defines things very explicitly, even though sometimes circularly. For example, the USC defines murder: “Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.
The major distinction is from manslaughter: “Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice.”
Manslaughter is defined in such a way as that it is not an act, but rather either the unintended result of negligence or a reaction which does not constitute a decision.
The moral sense of murder includes many things not included in the legal sense, such as the execution of an innocent person.
There is disagreement over whether it even makes sense to call things ‘justified’ or ‘unjustified’, in addition to disagreement over whether actions in general can ever be ‘justified’ or ‘unjustified’.
I agree that if one where to concede that something is P, it would be very difficult for him to also assert that ~P, but I don’t really see how that’s relevant, since, as I said, there is in fact disagreement over whether killing can ever be unjustified, is ever unjustified, or whether that word even means what most people think it means.
‘Murder’ is defined as ‘unjustified killing’.
Killing is not always murder.
If one believes that acts cannot be ‘unjustified’, one does not believe in murder. (In the same sense as ‘I don’t believe in telepathy.’)
Full Disclosure: I’m still not sure I really understand how definitions and differing opinions on definitions are treated and handled here at LW, so if you could enlighten me in this area in general, I’d really appreciate it.
That being said, I’m positive I’ve seen people use the word murder even when they believed the act was justified. Obviously, had they used the words ‘unjustified killing’, there would be very little room for argument, but be that as it may, I’m still not positive that ‘murder’ has to be / is usually defined as ‘unjustified killing’.
Further, I think it is a fairly consistent position to not believe that things can be ‘unjustified’, define ‘murder’ as something like ‘killing without explicit consent of victim’ and believe in murder at the same time; I’m not seeing anything wrong with holding that kind of position.
Ideally, the sides of a debate figure out whether there is a substantive or definitional dispute. Personally, I think there is value in figuring out the most useful definition for a particular conversation, but I’m not sure if that is the local consensus.
There is pretty widespread consensus that arguing by definition is not productive in figuring out what is true.
The standard approach is to:
notice you’re having a definitional dispute
find / make up new words to refer to the two definitions under dispute
go back to the substantive discussion, without threat of equivocation
In your opinion, am I having a definitional dispute with people in this thread, or are we disagreeing about something else?
Yes, starting here. Decius is just noting that murder means “unjustified killing” and so claims about the wrongness of murder are tautological.
Ah, so I guess my dispute is not with him, rather with Peterdjones. I just don’t believe that ‘murder’, as Decius is defining it, ever happens. Also, how this is at all relevant to the matter we were discussing earlier is still somewhat unclear to me.
Anyway, thank you, this has been most helpful.
That’s a pretty clear case of using the word wrong, unless you’re getting into really fine distinctions. If you spot someone doing that, it’s probably worth pointing out that most people would be confused by using the word that way.
In a particular context, you might want to make use of the distinction between unjustified killing and unlawful killing, in which case murder would be the latter.
I’m certainly not confused when someone uses ‘murder’ without meaning ‘unjustified killing’. Is this just me?
EDIT: See the discussion me and thomblake just had