I don't agree. Necessity is insufficient justification. What looks like necessity at the time can be the result of a whole series of wrong decisions. It might seem necessary, at some point in some bizarre and hopefully improbable future, for me to try to kill someone, perhaps to protect the Countess (though I would probably fail completely) but I am not so pragmatic as ever to imagine being able to persuade myself afterwards that I had done "the right thing" when I could have avoided being in the situation to start with.
If murder is wrong absolutely, then it's wrong absolutely. If it's right when it's necessary, then anything can be justified on those grounds. It's necessary that I take this old lady's jewels to buy myself another shot of heroin. It's necessary that I get this old man out of his flat so that my company can bulldoze it and build a car park. It's necessary that I stop this man taking my wife away from me. It's necessary that I show this bastard that nobody pinches *my* parking space. There can be no room for anything on the other side of the line, because if it once moves away from that far end of the scale it can slide all the way across.
There's a reason Nyronds have the deathblock, and there's a reason I'm opposed to capital punishment. You may disagree, but my reasoning makes perfect sense to me.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-01-12 07:21 pm (UTC)If murder is wrong absolutely, then it's wrong absolutely. If it's right when it's necessary, then anything can be justified on those grounds. It's necessary that I take this old lady's jewels to buy myself another shot of heroin. It's necessary that I get this old man out of his flat so that my company can bulldoze it and build a car park. It's necessary that I stop this man taking my wife away from me. It's necessary that I show this bastard that nobody pinches *my* parking space. There can be no room for anything on the other side of the line, because if it once moves away from that far end of the scale it can slide all the way across.
There's a reason Nyronds have the deathblock, and there's a reason I'm opposed to capital punishment. You may disagree, but my reasoning makes perfect sense to me.