Defining Killing

Is killing right? Of course not, but what if you killed in self defense? In the book “The Outsiders,” A sixteen year old boy named Johnny Cade, killed a guy named Robert “Bob” Sheldon, after he and his gang nearly drowned a fourteen year old boy named Ponyboy Curtis. The two minors claim that Johnny killed in self-defense. What is self-defense? Self defense is “the use of reasonable force to protect oneself or members of the family from bodily harm,” (Hill, 2016).Johnny’s action was in self defense because he had a fear of death, Bob and his colleagues are the aggressors, and Johnny’s thoughts were irrational.

Murder is defined as an unlawful killing of a reasonable creature in being under the King’s peace with malice aforethought, express or implied.

Killing another is nowhere near “justifiable”. Imagine this, someone close to you is framed for a murder they didn’t commit. If your state had the death penalty, they could be punished for nothing. There are many other situations when killing another is unacceptable and wrong. Killing someone takes away the meaning of their life. It will hurt those around them and those close to them. We were all put on this Earth for a reason and everyone should be able to achieve the goals they want to in their life. Whether it’s capital punishment, euthanasia,or the case of George and Lennie, killing others is an unjustifiable act.

First of all, man has been killing since the beginning of time. Even in the Bible, Cain killed Abel and that was in the very beginning of time thousands and thousands of years ago. It seems it is human nature to kill and

Murder is the intentional killing of another human being, with premeditation (in other words, the killing was planned). Common law defines murder by a number of requirements. It must be unlawful (an executioner assisting in a state execution cannot be charged with murder). As previously mentioned, it must be an act committed by one human being by another (a person crashing their car into a tree did not commit a murder, neither is the killing of an animal considered murder). There must also be malice aforethought -- premeditation towards

That is not always the case in real life. A classic example of this occurred in New York in 1984 where a white man named Bernard Goetz shot four young, black men on the New York City subway because, according to him, they were trying to rob him (History.com, 2008). Goetz claimed to be acting in self-defense, but shot one boy twice, severing his spinal cord the second time. That seemed a bit more than self-defense to some. The youths, however, were found to have been carrying screwdrivers in their pockets at the time of the incident, which, to some people, proved they were up to no good. In that case, as so often happens, neither the victim nor the defendant seems perfectly innocent or entirely guilty. That is very often the case in real life situations. Sometimes there is just no clear cut right or wrong.

Taking someone's life doesn't necessarily mean killing them, Dehumanization happens all the time and is simply taking someone's life from them without even literally killing them.

On February 26 2012 Trayvon Martin was shot dead by George Zimmerman, who pleaded not guilty for using self-defense. One important issue to the self-defense plea is that Mr. Zimmerman was familiar with the “stand your ground law” that allows a person to use deadly force in order to prevent heavy injuries, In which Zimmerman states that Trayvon was bashing his head on the concrete. With regards to this the jurors agreed that it was a self-defense situation because they were told that Trayvon was on top and Zimmerman was on the bottom. I personally don’t agree with the verdict because I’m sure that Mr. Zimmerman could’ve handled Trayvon in another form of manner instead of taking his life.

While the concept of self defense is common sense, determining what are legal means is complicated, to say the least. We have to strike a balance between absolutely no

To begin, I have to admit this discussion forum has challenged me. Whenever I think of killing, my brain automatically thinks the word bad. But, the readings have made me realize that assassination or targeted killing, as Statman refers to it, “is not always morally wrong” (White 502). Statman states, “"Thus, people generally fail to notice the moral problem with many instances of killing in war even when they are fierce objectors to the death penalty, because they view the situation of war as different from the non-war context” (Statman 512).

Current society believes that killing is bad. If we say that killing a human being is okay then what kind of message will we be sending? In another argument Singer states:

If I were to ask you if killing someone is justifiable, some will answer with a strong no and others like me might say it depends on what they did. However, that is a job for the police to investigate and figure out. No human being kills another without some sort of

Killing someone would be considered murder or if one intentionally hurt someone in hopes that they will eventually die. Also, killing could be considered as having an active plan on how to make the person die by poisoning. Letting die could mean many different things depending on the situation and circumstances. For example, one could stab someone with a knife and watch that person lay there bleeding to death without doing anything to try to help to them or witnessing it and not saying anything. Another example of letting die would be Euthanasia because one is allowing the person to choose death over life in the case of having a terminal illness that cannot be cured. Killing someone is considered worse because when someone kills a person there

kill - cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly; "This man killed several people when he tried to rob a bank"; "The farmer killed a pig for the holidays"

No issue posed by capital punishment is more disturbing to the public than the prospect that the government might execute innocent people. Proponents to the death penalty are, of course, also against executing an innocent person (Hook and Kahn 91). Most everyone would agree that killing someone is wrong. Proponents and opponents agree that murder is a heinous act and should be punished. Despite their hatred for those who kill, proponents support the killing of murderers as a just punishment for their deviant behaviors. In this sense, execution can be termed, “legal murder” because “executions shares enough of the characteristics of murder to be counted as part of the general category: it includes a victim who does not want to die, and an agent that nonetheless kills [the victim]” (Yanich 98]. Murder is synonymous with kill, as found in the Britannica- Webster Dictionary. To kill is to deprive one of life or to put one to death and murder implies motive and intent or premeditation. With respect