Thou Shall not Kill
Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2016 8:54 am
Thou Shall not Kill
The Ten Commandments or Decalogue is familiar territory to three mainstream religions and their offshoots. But it may be commented on from several perspectives.
That no person should be killed in any way is a prescription of perfection. A perfected altruist society would have no need or fact of people being actively killed. But then, exactly the same applies to anarchistic society and indeed a tyranny. If a tyranny works without fault or error then why should anyone be killed? That leaves aside acts of euthanasia, but even there a perfected society would presumably have no such need.
That people are killed, and perhaps need to be, is a description of real society, or any society that is likely to exist, dealing with humanity and not androids.
The most simple community, such as may have faced Moses, needs law and a basis for that law is provided by the commandments. This has to be expanded for practical use, as is found in the later parts and books of the bible. The ancient Hebrew developed a complex range of law, recognised by Jesus of Nazareth, and evolving today in Jewish communities.
This raises the question of how the English translation, Thou shall not kill, has latterly become You shall not commit murder. The older translation was emphasised or extended by Jesus into turning the other cheek. Something which has caused immense heartache with this being taken as an absolute causing many people to become pacifists.
Not to commit murder is far more clever. It leaves open how a person may legitimately kill another, and exactly how murder may be defined pragmatically. Suicide was until recently seen as self-murder. Self-defence is a quagmire. What Moses actually said will never be known. Even if someone found ancient tablets with the supposed commandments inscribed.
At this point the real fundamentals need to be considered. The law of a modern country has to be pragmatic, and proscribe or permit numerous acts and things. But ethics as the basis of law, has itself to be careful to compartmentalise its various levels. Employing a single value to legitimise or not a practical act or thing is the stuff of blind bigots. People who decide what they do not like, and then find a value that appears to oppose it. A value like Tolerance can indeed allow almost anything that is fashionable, merely to avoid conflict and to appear nice. The point about basic values or motives, is that they do not directly relate to any pragmatic.
Pragmatics are the actual acts, or the things that are employed for the acts.
Thus, to Kill or Murder, in the commandments is a jump in logic. It is the values that have to be considered first. As indeed it may be deduced Jesus of Nazareth tried to demonstrate, with dubious effect. As already stated, no stable society can have non-judicial killing of people in that society. Altruist or otherwise. The principal value in question, or motive, appears to be malice opposed to some order of charity. Malice and murder are consonant with Chaos. What was said in the previous paragraph about fundamentals needs to be modified slightly. Most value that have been considered such as tolerance, duty, egoism, define types of stable society, altruistic or otherwise. Even anarchism has a minimalist or egotistic form of charity. Tyranny has cold charity. Malice, as an intention to destroy, is perhaps the value of Chaos and war. In that case Charity defines stable society, but choosing between them requires a combination of other values.
Knives, cars, lorries, are good or bad according to their use, or whether they are used at all, not on the basis of tolerance but of values in combination and opposition.
The Ten Commandments or Decalogue is familiar territory to three mainstream religions and their offshoots. But it may be commented on from several perspectives.
That no person should be killed in any way is a prescription of perfection. A perfected altruist society would have no need or fact of people being actively killed. But then, exactly the same applies to anarchistic society and indeed a tyranny. If a tyranny works without fault or error then why should anyone be killed? That leaves aside acts of euthanasia, but even there a perfected society would presumably have no such need.
That people are killed, and perhaps need to be, is a description of real society, or any society that is likely to exist, dealing with humanity and not androids.
The most simple community, such as may have faced Moses, needs law and a basis for that law is provided by the commandments. This has to be expanded for practical use, as is found in the later parts and books of the bible. The ancient Hebrew developed a complex range of law, recognised by Jesus of Nazareth, and evolving today in Jewish communities.
This raises the question of how the English translation, Thou shall not kill, has latterly become You shall not commit murder. The older translation was emphasised or extended by Jesus into turning the other cheek. Something which has caused immense heartache with this being taken as an absolute causing many people to become pacifists.
Not to commit murder is far more clever. It leaves open how a person may legitimately kill another, and exactly how murder may be defined pragmatically. Suicide was until recently seen as self-murder. Self-defence is a quagmire. What Moses actually said will never be known. Even if someone found ancient tablets with the supposed commandments inscribed.
At this point the real fundamentals need to be considered. The law of a modern country has to be pragmatic, and proscribe or permit numerous acts and things. But ethics as the basis of law, has itself to be careful to compartmentalise its various levels. Employing a single value to legitimise or not a practical act or thing is the stuff of blind bigots. People who decide what they do not like, and then find a value that appears to oppose it. A value like Tolerance can indeed allow almost anything that is fashionable, merely to avoid conflict and to appear nice. The point about basic values or motives, is that they do not directly relate to any pragmatic.
Pragmatics are the actual acts, or the things that are employed for the acts.
Thus, to Kill or Murder, in the commandments is a jump in logic. It is the values that have to be considered first. As indeed it may be deduced Jesus of Nazareth tried to demonstrate, with dubious effect. As already stated, no stable society can have non-judicial killing of people in that society. Altruist or otherwise. The principal value in question, or motive, appears to be malice opposed to some order of charity. Malice and murder are consonant with Chaos. What was said in the previous paragraph about fundamentals needs to be modified slightly. Most value that have been considered such as tolerance, duty, egoism, define types of stable society, altruistic or otherwise. Even anarchism has a minimalist or egotistic form of charity. Tyranny has cold charity. Malice, as an intention to destroy, is perhaps the value of Chaos and war. In that case Charity defines stable society, but choosing between them requires a combination of other values.
Knives, cars, lorries, are good or bad according to their use, or whether they are used at all, not on the basis of tolerance but of values in combination and opposition.