<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>
<p>Is that morally right on the part of the prosecutor though, by your beliefs? </p>
<p>To me it is the exact same situation as the mob.</p>
<p>
Yes, if he is prosecuting what is held to be a crime by the State.
What is the exact same situation?</p>
<p>^Whether the prosecutor convinces 12 people and a sentencing judge that the man should die, or the mob killing him.</p>
<p>I don’t see the point of killing criminals while performing a criminal action that is killing. Though a lot of criminals have been killed for doing outlandish things worth being killed over, I can see the morals to the situation. ****, if it were me, I’d love to freely kill some criminals.</p>
<p>Don’t spoil the ending of death note - its too good.</p>
<p>I’d also like to point out, killing in itself is not a crime. Nor is killing in itself immoral. Even if the man is killing (which I still disagree with), that doesn’t necessarily say it is criminal or immoral.</p>
<p>I stopped debating this topic in my head after I finished reading Death Note (which became boring towards the end).</p>
<p>Truthfully, all this morality thing is subjective. It all depends on what a person believes is right or wrong. What Person A thinks is immoral might not be to Person B. Thus, in the context of Death Note, what Light believed was right was not the same as what L believed was right. Light believed that killing off criminals is the right thing to do, whereas L believed that no one person should play God. Does that mean that Light is immoral, not exactly.
(SPOILER: However, Light did get a little carried away with killing and ended up killing innocent ppl too…like…nvm.)</p>
<p>Back to Locke - if the majority thinks he should die for violating the law, then he should die.</p>
<p>
The prosecutor is utilizing the existing justice system, which both upholds the rule of law and keeps him within the bounds of the rights alloted to his person under the social contract.</p>
<p>If causing death via writing is not killing, why is shooting someone? All you do in that case is pull a trigger.</p>
<p>^Because it can be proved that you are actually causing that person’s death. You can perform an autoposy which can show what killed the person, you can see what caused that, what caused that, … so on, and ultimately you get to the person who pulled the trigger. How do you trace a heart attack back to a name in a book? Basicly you don’t know that it wasn’t a coincidence. You “know” but you don’t really know. That’s the best I can do to describe what I’m thinking.</p>
<p>I agree that the prosecution is preferable (for the reason you described), I disagree that it makes that prosecutor moral and the mob immoral. Though I think it’s just semantics at that point.</p>
<p>
If we are assuming that a) it is possible to cause death by writing in a book and b) a diverse variety of individuals comprising the mob are aware of this and c) those people know that it occurred in this instance, it does not seem unreasonable to me to conclude that such behavior is considered plausible by society and can be shown in court.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah, and I’m just moving my finger as I pull the trigger on the rifle I’m holding.</p>
<p>Please. First, let us establish that this man IS killing people, i.e. that the book is a weapon. That should be obvious.</p>
<p>Next, he’s immoral because no one has the right to take away another person’s life except in cases where there is NO OTHER OPTION – no modern society fulfills this requirement fully.</p>
<p>“a) it is possible to cause death by writing in a book”</p>
<p>Okay, I don’t assume that. Perhaps I assume it is possible to “cause” death by writing in a book but not to cause.</p>
<p>Yes I know that’s annoying, again, I don’t know how else to describe.</p>
<p>Either way, this has gotten too technical for me. I’m out.</p>
<p>Not having seen the movie/book/story, how do the people trying to kill him figure out what he’s doing?</p>
<p>
The scenario is stupid. I freely admit that. But what arbitrary line are you drawing with the word “cause”? When is something caused?
You will be missed.</p>
<p>“But what arbitrary line are you drawing with the word “cause”? When is something caused?”</p>
<p>I don’t really know how to describe it. I’ll try to draw an analogy.</p>
<p>The sunlight “causes” the air to be warm. The internal energy of the air causes the air to be warm. I was trying to get at something like that.</p>
<p>Would you consider the entry of the bullet to be the “cause” of death in a shooting?</p>
<p>Ok, lets pretend that the book actually kills people. It has supernatural powers.
Remember you are supposed to “Consider This”</p>
<p>And TCBH - The dectectives are super smart also.</p>
<p>I’m going to lump entry of the bullet and whatever condition that causes which ultimately causes the death as the cause and the pulling of the trigger the “cause.”</p>
<p>However, in the case of the shooting, you can say the pulling of the trigger caused the entry of the bullet. Nothing similar exists for the writing of the name to the heart attack.</p>
<p>
Why not? In order to assume that this will occur regularly, we would have to assume that some physical (or divine) property is responsible for the occurrence.</p>