Re: why do we not kill?

firstly, considering that this is not a foucault discussion, this
discussion is going on way too long for a foucault list. so, send any
responses to my email: lobster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx unless of course one
wants to relate this to foucault and the dangers of subscribing to a
universal morality, which seems to me to be of a different nature than
what is now being discussed.

c.holmes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> According to Mitchell Wilson:
>
> >only a true psychopath WANTS to kill.
>
> This is patently not true. Most people who kill are not psychopaths but are driven to kill by a variety of factors. Many admit that they WANTED to kill their victim, and went ahead and did so - but they WANTED to kill for a whole host of reasons which overrode their sense of moral obligation not to kill.
> Colin

colin, you missed my point, which is that when non-psycopaths kill they
do so, as you say, "for a whole host of reasons which overrode their
sense of moral obligation not to kill." in other words they went
against their natural inclinations. you see, i was objecting to the
assertion that to kill another human is somehow natural. a sense of
morality is not communal, rather ethics are. and, for me, a sense of
moral obligation is an instinct, a sense, which is natural. and while i
cannot PROVE this anathema to kill as natural, common sense tells us
that it is natural. therefore, the one making the extraordinary
assertion--that humans have a propensity to kill one another--has the
burden of proof.

secondly, regarding your belief that killing increases the importance of
communication, this is of course true. but who is communicating to
whom? the victim to the killer? hardly. the proliferation of nuclear
arms, poverty, discoveries such as a possible lake on europa, and
teenager suicide, all increase the need for communication. but does
this mean that they are all natural, instinctive?

thirdly, you say that we "know" better than to kill. well, what is the
basis of this "knowing." were killing other people natural, then we
surely wouldn't know better than to not kill, would we? and damn yes
i'm positive about human nature, though i'm certainly not naive. but
considering our history and your very own experiences, humans are much
more cooperative than destructive. how many have you killed or seen
killed? probably none or very, very few. in any case, any kills have
been an unusual occurence, and NOT the normal course of events. so yes,
since there are billions of people who get along without killing each
other and genrally agreeing on other things every single day, i am proud
of the human race!

mitch.



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Re: why do we not kill?, c . holmes
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