Interesting Moral Question

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Consider this.</p>

<p>There is an extraordinarily smart person who has very good judgement. He picks up a notebook one day which instructs "The human whose name is written in this book will die." The man tests it and it works. He decides that he is going to create a new world because "the world is rotten and those who are rotten must die" - He will kill all the mass murders and criminals in the world by heart attacks. He believes that when people see criminals dropping dead, the world will become a better place. People will be too scared to commit crimes and more and more people will support the man. However, this person does have opposition. Some people try to hunt him down for killing these criminals and arrest him. </p>

<p>Question: Who is moral? The man with the notebook or the ones who are trying to stop him? Who is giving justice? Is the decision to kill off all criminals in an attempt to create a new world moral?</p>

<p>Yes, this is from Death Note. :) I'm not gonna give my opinion on this. It more fun to watch.</p>

2

<p>its a logical fallacy of circular reasoning LOL</p>

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<p>When one chooses to live in political society they forfeit their right to execute the Laws of Nature. So the man with the notebook is acting immorally. The people hunting him down are only acting morally if they are acting with the consent of the majority.</p>

4

<p>One cannot definitively prove that the “new world” would be any better than the previous one. In addition, each individual is entitled to basic rights. Regardless of his reasons, the man would still be engaging in the act of murder, something that I do not believe can be justified in this situation.</p>

5

<p>@ mania - what are you talking about?</p>

<p>Do you mean that its circular because when he becomes a mass murderer by killing everyone?</p>

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<p>If there is a functional government or any sort of societal structure, the man has no right to circumvent the existing criminal justice system. Doing so disregards the people’s prerogative to have their guilt or innocence determined by the government in exchange for the rights they have given up to it.</p>

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<p>@porkperson he wants to get rid of crimminals and does it by killing them. Therefore he becomes a criminal. Then you said he had enemies, in which case didn’t agree with him and wanted to stop him. He is now the criminal killing people for good but at the same time he is still killing them which doesnt abide well with others. idk its just circular reasoning its confusing to explain coz it just goes in a circle of logic</p>

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<p>This isn’t circular reasoning at all, but if it is moral for the man to kill criminals it is clearly moral for the people to hunt him down as a criminal. The second statement is a fairly easy corollary to reach.</p>

9

<p>The guy writing the names in the notebook isn’t actually killing anyone, he’s just writing names. God or some force external to that man is killing the people. The man writes names. </p>

<p>Each, the guy writing the names, and the people trying to stop him, have good intentions, and believe they’re doing the right thing. If it can be shown that the value of these people’s deaths provide more value to society (with society including themselves as well) than their continued living, then I suppose I would support the writing of their names in the book (though not necessarily by the guy who is wring them), but I don’t believe that’s enough to call it moral.</p>

<p>Since I don’t know of a way to quantify the value of someone’s life to society when you include themselves and the ones they know, I don’t know how it could be proved either way whether they should live or die.</p>

<p>I’m inclined to support the person who writes their names, but I expect the whole 100 shots in the torso routine to happen to him, and don’t know that I would consider that immoral either.</p>

10

<p>Ah deathnote. They’re both basically gay for each other in the end anyway? Till L dies? and Light goes insane? </p>

<p>There’s a guy at one point crying and screaming as he’s being arrested for robbery “DON’T PUT MY NAME DOWN! I DON’T WANT KIRA (the killer, light) TO KILL ME!” and that’s basically why it’s wrong. Initially in life we’re given a choice with morals. He plays god and takes away any sense free will among humanity. Now “free will” itself can be debated but the sense of it is just gone for all, for christians and atheists and all. He also ends up killing anyone in his way or even possibly in his way, innocents and such. Ruins his family, kills his friend, his girlfriend?, etc…and then ends up bat-**** insane from all the deathnotes use.</p>

<p>[I&lt;/a&gt; can’t even stress how hilariously insane he ends up](<a href=“http://farm4.static.■■■■■■■■■■/3027/2481659607_a2e75f11d3_o.jpg]I”>http://farm4.static.■■■■■■■■■■/3027/2481659607_a2e75f11d3_o.jpg)</p>

<p>Also to the above post ^. It’s made that he is responsible for these deaths in the show. There’s this deathgod thing following him, talking to him, chilling and eating apples, but these things are responsible for all the death, basically grim reapers. There’s no heaven/hell in this show/world. He writes a name, some seconds later the named person dies of a heart attack, it’s all his fault, he knows it and he’s to blames. He could even specify the kind of death to suicide or car accident if he wanted.</p>

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<p>By “very good judgment,” are you saying that he can predict what these criminals will do in the future? </p>

<p>My opinion: </p>

<p>Presumptions: that the initial statement is true (that the man is absolutely, 100% certain of what will happen in the future (i.e. the future is unequivocally determinate)). That morality is not absolute. That everyone has the same idea of morality.</p>

<p>In all cases, the mob is always morally defensible because they are acting on a strict interpretation of the law.</p>

<p>The man is morally defensible in only one scenario:
If the criminals will commit a crime in which capital punishment is the sentence, and the man knows that they will be tried fairly and then convicted, and that there is no other way of preventing the crime from happening, the man is morally right because…
It is assumed morally correct to defend an innocent from a criminal’s actions that would warrant the death penalty, even if it means killing the criminal as a last resort.
If the mob absolutely knew that the man knew all of this, then the mob should leave him alone. If they do not, they are legally entitled to put him on trial, although this would not be the logical ideal.</p>

<p>The man is already deemed immoral for killing somebody off in the name of curiosity.</p>

12

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<p>Guns don’t kill people; bullet-inflicted injuries kill people.</p>

<p>Unless we’re talking about bayonets… hmm</p>

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<p>^What if this guy didn’t have to write any names. What if this guy’s wanting these people to die is what causes them do die. Do you now think he’s killing them still?</p>

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<p>^ If he is performing a function that causes them to die, he is killing them. If he intends for that outcome to occur, it is murder.</p>

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<p>^So this guy wanting them to die (which he can’t control), which causes them to die, is Manslaughter? Do you put him in jail? If you put him in jail he’s still committing manslaughter. Every second until he dies he’s committing manslaughter.</p>

<p>Whatever, regardless whether you think he is killing them or someone/something else is, the rest of my post #9 holds.</p>

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<p>Well my first post was pretty much straight out of Locke’s 2nd Treatise. So I’ll stick with it.</p>

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<p>^Okay. I didn’t know if you were arguing or just making a clever comment.</p>

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<p>^^^ If it were known that he wanted them to die, a prosecutor could probably convince a jury that he intended to cause their death.</p>

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<p>I love Death Note! :D</p>

<p>It’s kinda like Dexter (tv show). He kills murderers… by actually killing them… not by writing their names down.</p>

<p>I think that Light turned out immoral. You can not rule the world by fear. Eventually, some rebellion force would try to overthrow you.</p>

<p>His idea of a Utopia was nice, but it’s impossible to have a Utopia in practice without giving up human rights and stuff.</p>

<p>My 2 cents!</p>

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<p>I sometimes wonder myself.</p>