Omar wrote "I made the argument to Larry Kramer once, on the Phil-Lit of yore, that I think that killing humans is also wrong by definition, i.e. in itself. It might be justified only in special circumstances when committing the wrong would prevent a greater wrong. Larry in contrast argued that there is nothing right or wrong with killing in itself, but its moral value is determined by the context entirely. This proved to be not a purely semantic distinction. From my position, the one who wishes to justify such acts has the burden to prove that they are/were necessary. From the other position, the killing of, say, foreign nationals in war would be justified unless proven otherwise." Is anything wrong _by definition_? Only, I suggest, a definition can be wrong by way of a definition - and even here the definition is just a stipulation that we are not compelled to accept - it being a mere convention as to the permissible use of words. Of course 'ordinary language' is occasionally littered with expressions like 'By definition it is clear that...', 'It is a contradiction-in-terms to suggest that...', 'The only logical conclusion given the terms of the debate..'. Insofar as such expressions, and others, are attempts to win an argument by (covert or overt) appeal to a definition, no deviation from which is logically permissible, they are another muddled aspect of ordinary usage or commonsense - which after all frequently abuses the appeal to 'logic' (eg. 'The only logical to do is x) when logic can only strictly decide points of logic and not between proposals as to what we ought or ought not to do. Here is a possible example of a genuine contradiction (provided we interpolate the parenthetical words): "...I think that killing humans is also wrong by definition, i.e. in itself (and no matter what the circumstances). It might be justified only in special circumstances when committing the wrong would prevent a greater wrong." It is not a contradiction if we read Omar as saying merely: "I think killing is, on the face of it, wrong - unless someone shows special circumstances that justify it." But then, to me at least, it is hard to see how this position is not merely "a purely semantic distinction" away from LK's position that whether killing is wrong depends entirely on the context (say, on the existence or non-existence of "special circumstances"). It is a separate point entirely whether we put the burden on the killer to justify his killing (which seems sensible) or on ourselves to show the killing is unjustified; but even here I doubt there would be much practical difference given that, even if we placed the theoretical burden on ourselves to show the killing was unjustified, our moral intuitions/instincts would _in most ordinary circumstances_ guide us to often find that burden easily discharged (eg. when someone went up and shot a stranger in the street). The use and abuse of so-called 'definitional' or 'logical' arguments does not clarify debate on these matters and is, I suggest, best avoided. Eric wrote:- > If not all killing is essentially morally wrong, > how can all torture be essentially morally wrong, > since killing is worse for people than torture? For what it's worth, I can easily imagine circumstances where inflicting great pain on an individual to get them to give information might be justified (admittedly, this may be just a callousness on my part that has been inculcated by the examination-system). To deny this possibility by way of definition, by saying that if justified such pain-infliction could not _by definition_ be torture, seems to me beside the point. > Of course, you can stumble across some torture > accounts while reading history, like some of the > things the Mongols did, that are just diabolically > awe-inspiring: all that human ingenuity going into > total sadism and cruelty. A moral philosopher might wish to theorise about the line to be drawn where it would be better to kill someone [or be killed] without justification than inflict pain [or suffer pain] without justification but without killing. This is a reason why sometimes moral philosophy can lead into a swamp when it moves away from practical moral problems in the here-and-now to teasing out some set of principles against extreme and unreal cases. Donal Somewhere near a swamp In England ___________________________________________________________ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html