Why Murder is Not Evil

Why Murder is Not Evil

By J. Aranoff.

Often society is obliterated, shocked, and consumed by the endless counts of murders, killings, serial killers, genocides, mass murders, and the widespread of killers using all artifacts conceived within the mind to desecrate one human life, or that of thousands or even millions of people.

One of the oldest orders against killing in western culture is derived from biblical writing, "Thou Shall Not Kill". As old as the so called divine command has been around, we apparently as human beings, have totally disregarded this cut clear order, whether it be from a Supreme Being, or just a voice of protest from our oldest wisest men that wanted us to live in greater harmony, and wanted a stop on human butchering business. For the sake of our argument, this discussion will gravitate on whether killing is an act of evil, and if killing is evil, then it is possible to believe that evil does exist.

Gun shootings, civil war murders, rampage killings, serial killers, revolutionaries, terrorists, surgeons gone bad, executions committed by the state, genocides, machete chopping killings, mass murders, drug related killings, drone killings, France's guillotine and its reign of terror, etc.., all these actions share one thing in common: ending human lives by the actions of others.

Whether it was Sadam Hussein that ordered the Kurds genocide by chemical annihilation in Iraq, or an US Army soldier (also know as the Beltway Sniper Attacks) that used his sharp shooter skills to kill passerby's in broad daylight in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. He and Sadam Hussein geared towards accomplishing one goal, ending the lives of others. The causes or reasons that led them to pursue such goal or goals, maybe different in nature. The ultimate byproduct was the end of others' people lives.

But is killing really evil?

Is there evil in killing?

From a moral philosophical standpoint some complications may rise to prove whether killing is an act of absolute evil. After all, the very human beings that found Sadam Hussein's genocide actions despicable, seemed to have enjoyed and even cheered about his hanging. I learned from an American soldier, one that I recently interviewed about Hussein's hanging, and he will tell you that Hussein's killing was something that he was looking forward to while stationed in Iraq during the war. I also observed how enthusiastic some American soldiers were about Hussein's hanging by watching whatever footage produced and repeatedly played on tv sets during the Christmas season in 2006. Never understood what was there to enjoy about a older man being hanged. But these group of soldiers could not steer away from watching.When this event happened, I was actually living in Kuwait. On the other hand, John Allen Muhammad, the former army soldier that became a street sniper in the D.C. Area in 2002 suffered a somewhat similar fate at the hands of the state by ending killed by lethal injection also in 2006. Muhammad presumably killed ten individuals by applying his sharp shooting skills, which he obtained through his army training.

As we can see from our two stories, both men killed others. Hussein presumably killed thousands by chemical warfare, and Muhammad just went out of whack killing less than a dozen folks. In the end, both men suffered the same fate. He/She who kills by the sword, let it die by the sword. However, when the mass murders committed by Hussein took place, even all efforts were made to keep it secret, the world was outraged. Needless to say that D.C. residents were shocked when they heard a sniper like John Muhammad being on the lose killing randomly. One can only begin to wonder what if felt to say: "What if driving my car on my way to work this morning, I happened to get one of Muhammad's bullets".

Certainly terror would have taken over you. Specially as your hear the radio news, "Just two minutes ago another dead body has been spotted along the 95 freeway". Terror took a grip on people because they did not when they were going to meet this ex-army guy's bullets. We don't know much about the Kurds in Iraq, one can only imagine they were living rather peacefully when that horrible silent killer came to their village to end their lives. Painting the scenarios is a hard task at best. Living in the now when these events happened was a real horrifying experience.

Lethal injection to one, and hanging for the other "evil" doer. But is killing really evil? And when we imply it, it must mean that the act of killing, regardless of the circumstances, is an evil act. Therefore, any justifications imposed to allow a judge, the state, the church, or any given community to say, "we execute to judge, therefore our act is not evil". But wait a minute, we are led to believe that killing is acceptable, and is not evil if it is done in order to punish someone for doing it.

But apparently ending someone's life is not always evil or is it?
What about when the state executes a person?, is that evil or not?
When the mob is angry at the mass murderer, and decides to set his body on fire?
When is a baby is killed?

Killing is the act of ending a human life, and if it is evil, killing should always be evil right? But giving the justifications above, we have learned that killing is evil, but perhaps a necessary evil for the state.

Since evil seems almost absent when ending the life of a human being by the state, killing is not an absolute evil. Call it murder, killing or whatever. Killing is not an evil act. Killing or murdering is simply the end of human life.