Why DON'T you kill people?

[Nintendork666]

Do we even have a right to do that?

[elmagicochrisg]

What's keeping me?...

The fact that I'm not 100 percent sure I could get away with it without punishment.

It's peculiar to me that you and many others are primarily detered by the threat of getting caught and punished. The reason I wouldn't kill someone is because of my own prosocial values. Even if there were no consequences of punishment, I still wouldn't kill anyone. Even though I think I could get over my conscience bugging me, I still wouldn't kill anyone. For me, it ultimately just seems illogical and it violates my own personal code of ethics.

But this gets at the heart of my answer to the original question- it's our values that keep us from killing. But, if someone doesn't have those same prosocial values, then is there a way to train them into that person? Do we have an obligation to do that? Do we even have a right to do that?

So someone rapes and tortures your wife / kids to death. You find that person.

You do nothing.

Correct?...

[Gamerforlife]

In highschool, I loved the book Crime and Punishment, which dealt with the idea of whether you could kill another person for no good reason and still go about your life without being crushed by guilt. This book made me think about killling people more than any video game ever has, but it also pulled no punches about the negative consequences of taking the life of another.

There's a quote from The Darkness II that always stuck with me. May seem silly to bring a game like that into such a serious conversation but it's kind of a relevant quote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6l2R6KLRr4#t=5m20s

[brunoafh]

If an attempt on my life or a loved one's life was made, I don't think I would hesitate to kill (if attempting incapacitation was too difficult), and don't see myself feeling and guilty or remorseful for doing it. I don't see how morals really have anything to do with it, if I felt threatened to the point where I felt my life was on the line, I would attempt to eliminate the threat to ensure my and/or others' safety. Just seems like common sense to me.

I am pretty much with Gamerforlife on the violence in games thing. I find gore and stuff in games/movies hilarious just because of how over the top and reality defying it is. However, real life gore does not disturb me whatsoever, and seems to just come off as "normal" and doesn't really sway me one way or the other. Perhaps a result of massive desensitization via various mediums, a morbid interest in searching for gore videos on KaZaA in my earlier years, a hunting father gutting deer on the kitchen table every season, having seen several dead bodies outside funerals in real life, a violent upbringing, and having endured enough injuries and broken bones to ensure I'll be disabled by age 50.

[J T]

So someone rapes and tortures your wife / kids to death. You find that person.

You do nothing.

Correct?...

Admittedly, that might flip the "apeshit" switch.

Actually, I'm glad you bring this up. This is something I've never quite been able to reconcile in my personal moral code. I need to think this out more and I haven't thought about it in a long time. I try to be utilitarian and give each life in the equation equal weight, but I hold my friends and family most dear and I can't say that, for example, my wife's life would be an acceptable loss for saving two people I don't know, or three, or four, or five, or six.... and if someone were to harm her, I can't say for certain that they wouldn't meet the wrath of a thousand gods through my hands.

[elmagicochrisg]

So someone rapes and tortures your wife / kids to death. You find that person.

You do nothing.

Correct?...

Admittedly, that might flip the "apeshit" switch.

Actually, I'm glad you bring this up. This is something I've never quite been able to reconcile in my personal moral code. I need to think this out more and I haven't thought about it in a long time. I try to be utilitarian and give each life in the equation equal weight, but I hold my friends and family most dear and I can't say that, for example, my wife's life would be an acceptable loss for saving two people I don't know, or three, or four, or five, or six.... and if someone were to harm her, I can't say for certain that they wouldn't meet the wrath of a thousand gods through my hands.

I was going even further with this one...

The deed is already done. They are dead. You find the person that raped and killed them. There is noone left to save. What do you do?...

[J T]

I thought that's what you were asking the first time. I've already given my response.

[elmagicochrisg]

I thought that's what you were asking the first time. I've already given my response.

Ah, sorry. Your answer made me think that's what you might do if you caught the killer in the act. In which case you could justify killing that person to protect your family, which is totally different from killing someone for what he's done without this meaning you could save another life...

Ooh, now I get it...

I try to be utilitarian and give each life in the equation equal weight, but I hold my friends and family most dear and I can't say that, for example, my wife's life would be an acceptable loss for saving two people I don't know, or three, or four, or five, or six...

In this case the people you might / would kill might even be very nice people that have never harmed anyone in their lives.

Now that's nasty...

[KDub]

I don't kill because, well either I was raised to or developed on my own the feeling that a life is something to be valued and I don't ever want to take that away from anyone if I can help it.

There is almost no way to describe it outside of that for me. I just have no desire to remove anyone from this planet.

Oddly enough even though I don't really embrace violence in real life I also don't shy away from it. I realize and accept that there is a line for me for everything. I can honestly say that in cases a person would deserve a fist to their face and I feel no shame in it. I also enjoy acts of aggression, I have no problem and in fact highly enjoy a mosh pit where I come out in pain. I have no problem with violence in media, because violence is real and shying away from it and pretending like it never happens to me is more damaging to the human mind than being real about it. I have my limits of what is enjoyable as a form of entertainment though.

I also know that if the occasion arose that if I felt like the people I loved dearest were in serious danger of losing their life by the hands of another person I would act or at least seriously feel ok with acting in a way that would end that persons life. Would I go through with it? I can never answer that for sure since I've never been in that situation, I'd rather just never have to make that decision.

It all boils down to that I am human; the instincts are always there, the drive is there...
But I value human life and I hope I never have to experience the act of killing, be involved in it, have a to make a decision with or anything else.

[J T]

I wanted to add something to Ack's point about dehumanization. I'm not nearly as scared by how much videogames look like real violence as I am by how much war now looks like a video game.

The creepiest moment in the Call of Duty franchise was not the "No War" terrorist scene, it was this. That part of the game was disturbingly easy. That's what real war can look like now. Distant and detached. Here's some real life footage for comparison.