Conflict with Killing

Alright, so this is my first post here and I’m unsure about how things work on this forum or if I even posted this question in the right place. Cut me a little slack if things are not developed in enough detail; after all, how can an amatuer in philosophy-posting become an expert without making a fool of himself at the beginning? Anyway here’s the main reason for the post.

I am in training to become an officer in the military. This means that I spend a considerable amount of time analyzing battles, tactics, strategy and footage from different eras and locations. The images of death and carnage do not seem to phaze me a great deal. Essentially, I am totally immersed in the bussiness of whole-sale murder. The philisophical question I’ve been struggling with is this:

I have dedicated my entire future, by my own free will, to the systematic destruction of other people. I am excited about going to war and using my training. All my life all I have wanted to do was lead men into battle and kill an enemy. However, I’m afraid that I must be a monster for not feeling repulsed or guilty about taking a life. Worse even, I must want to do it or I would have picked a different career. But if someone feels bad about not feeling guilty, then can they really be an evil person?

The problem is that if I feel remorse about not reacting the way society has universally dictated is morally sound, then am I truly immoral even if I am remaining true to myself? How can I be morally sound if my own ideas so radically conflict with what seems to be a global truth? I figure that if I have such questions, that others must as well. Hopefully someone here can offer some sort of insight, as you have dedicated yourselves to analyzing such matters.

[b]global truth? the global truth is that those who have the power make the global truth… morality is a quagmire…

thank you for your service[/b]

-Imp

Welcome, Rekughnize.

I, too, wish to thank you for your service.

However, I’m just going to play devil’s advocate here just for discussion’s sake.

I agree with Imp except that although this might be what you are in fact doing, this doesn’t explain your own personal motivation. I’m thinking your reasons for fighting are not limited to the noble principles of defending freedom, etc. Your admission is this:

I get the impression it doesn’t really matter who that enemy is or why they’re an enemy. I’m not passing judgment or offering my own view of morality. I’m just curious as to your real motivation, if you wouldn’t mind elaborating. Why are you so interested in “killing an enemy”?

Imagine for a moment that we’ve devised a machine capable of replicating ourselves. Let’s also say that once you stepped into that machine and made one-hundred copies of yourself. And as each of those replicas appeared they ran off in a random direction, presumably each to make their own way in this world.

Now imagine that some years later a war comes and you answer the “call to arms.” One day, while on sniper duty you find an enemy soldier in the cross-hairs of your telescopic rifle-sight. But just as your finger starts to twitch on the trigger you suddenly glimpse the enemy soldier’s face. Little wonder, but it now seems that at least one of your replicas has similarly answered the “call to arms”; for the face in your crosshairs is unmistakable yours. Or was yours. Or could have been yours.

And in this moment of hestitation you’ve a fleeting image of him playing on the floor with his son - a boy that bears an uncanny resemblance to your own son. And you wonder that given your own hesitation, it’s quite possible that if the tables were turned that he might be wondering much the same things; that is, should your face suddenly appear in his rifle-sight. He’d be conjuring an image of you rolling around on the floor with your own young son - one so much like his own.

But I want to take a step back and ask if all soldiers aren’t put in a similar position? In reference to my little fiction above, in fact there is a replication machine at work in this world, and each one of us is the product of that machine. We have the same mother, all of us. Some call her “Lucy,” but even if she had no name this indeed was our mother and we are her offspring. We’ve replicated from her biology. Generally speaking, we all have her face.

There’s a line from a beautiful English folksong that’s based on a famous incident that occured one Christmas in the trenches of WW1. Near the end of the song it asks, “Whose family do I have between my sights?” My answer is that whomsoever we place between our rifle-sights, it is our own family.

George Orwell volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He mentioned in his later writings that he’d shot and killed quite a few people in that war. He got past his early jitters and eventually he conditioned himself to kill people as all part of a day’s work. One day, he tells us, he and his comrades surprised a group of enemy soldiers. One of them ran right past Orwell. But this poor guy was running whilst trying to hold up his pants. After having killed so many, Orwell tells how he couldn’t bring himself to kill this guy. Orwell could see himself in that fellow. It bespoke a common humanity.

Some years ago I read philosopher, Jonathan Glover’s, A Moral History of the 20th Century. Of all his tales of killing fields and mass graves I remember the story Glover passed on about an Afrikaner policeman who’d waded into a crowd of black protesters with his nightstick. As he was dutifully beating a woman he happened to notice that she’d just lost her shoe. Having been brought up to be a gentleman he stopped, picked up her shoe and handed it to her. She thanked him. I don’t remember if he resumed beating her. What I do remember is thinking that the Afrikaner had the same Orwellian revelation. My guess is that he suddenly remembered his common bonds with a shared humanity.

“Being human is an accomplishment like playing an instrument. It takes practice. The keys must be mastered. The old scores must be committed to memory. It is a skill we can forget. A little noise can make us forget the notes. The best of us is historical; the best of us is fragile. Being human is a second nature which history taught us, and which terror and deprivation can batter us into forgetting.” Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers

To Ignatieff’s “terror and deprivation” I’d add, “a developed sense of duty” among other things. Heinrich Himmler, for example, had an inordinately refined sense of duty. Duty is a virtue of the lowest order, whereas compassion stands at the apex of our virtues.

“Exploiters and oppressors, war-makers, executioners and destroyers of forests do not usually wear distinctive black hats, nor horns and hooves. The positive motives which move them may not be bad at all; they are often quite decent ones like prudence, loyalty, self-fulfillment and professional conscientiousness. The appalling element lies in the lack of other motives which ought to balance these - in particular, of a proper regard for other people and of a proper priority system which would enforce it.” Mary Midgley, “The Elusiveness of Responsibility,” taken from her book, Wickedness

She speaks of “proper regard of other people” where I would have spoken of compassion. But her point is well-said nonetheless.

Does anyone here remember Montaigne’s, “Soldier of Piso”?

"(A soldier of Piso) returning from a forage could give no account where he had left a companion. Piso took it for granted that the soldier had killed his companion and ordered him to be hung. But the condemned man had no sooner stepped upon the gibbet, but behold his companion arrives, at which all the army were glad. And after many embraces of the two comrades, the hangman brought both men to Piso, all those present believing Piso would be greatly relieved to see that things had worked out well.

But it proved quite contrary; for…he made all three criminal for having found one innocent, and caused them all to be hung: the first soldier because the sentance had been passed upon him; the second, because he had caused the death of his companion; and the hangman, for not having obeyed his orders." Essays II XXXI

Wherever compassion conflicts with duty or law, compassion must have priority. If ever your god or your country instructs you to kill, then you and your compassion need to have a chat. If ever I should find myself looking at you through a rifle-sight, I make this promise; I would never pull the trigger from a raw sense of duty or some nebulous sense of patriotism. Neither would I kill you out of rage or even justified anger. But I would kill you, my brother, out of my sense of compassion. Doubtless, this voice of compassion is far from infallible. Nor does it provide me with a solution to every possible moral quandry. But if I’m going to do wrong in this life, of all else I’d rather have been led astray from my own sense of compassion. This is the voice I most trust. For this I will be responsible.

Michael

Pole,

“In reference to my little fiction above, in fact there is a replication machine at work in this world, and each one of us is the product of that machine.”

Why stop at humans? We and the gorilla share the same ancestor. We and the sea cucumber share the same ancestor. We and the ameba share the same ancestor. What differentiations are significant, and which acceptable to ignore? Is the death of millions of amebas acceptable to preserve one human being? Is the death of a thousand Nazis acceptable to preserve one Brit? I too believe that compassion is a very good, almost defining principle, but where and how do you draw your lines?

Dunamis

Hmmm…I had a post deleted here. I questioned the logic of the post and it’s authenticity. What’s up with that.

there are two threads for this

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=145077

OPPS!

Sorry!

Welcome Rek,

I want to thank you for what you do, but I believe that you have become desensitized by you immersion in the business of war and the game-plan of protecting our country. I have heard others in the service say how pumped they were to go and do their thing; what they have been trained to do. All you can do is to stay as human in it as you can because compassion starts and ends with each and every man/woman. It is like a child exposed to violence. It becomes part of them and they, in turn, precipitate more of it. I don’t know that I could do what you do, which is why I respect you.

The secret of your demise is the hipocrisy in your actions. While you conveniently pick-and-choose which country to fight for, supporting its ideals and political structures, you know that the enemy is doing the same thing as yourself, and therefore you cannot honestly condemn your enemy. This is why you should die. You are a brainwashed idiot, or a natural incompetent fool. And I don’t thank you for your service. I am a citizen of no country and I don’t need anyone’s defense. If you enter a war you deserve to die.

There is no such thing as a ‘country.’ There is only the human species. Until such time that it is united under one dictatorial rule any and all individuals who attempt to divide themselves either through culture, custom or creed are expendible. The ‘human being’ no longer exists, there is only the hipocrit today, and the last man will be charged with the task of a great, paradoxical deed. He will be the killer of killers.

Perhaps I can explain with a metaphor. There is a character who will emerge from the rabble of both good and evil. He will be more rightous than any God, more evil than any Devil, he will be a paragon of strength and appear as a rogue among the many. His will is the systematic destruction of all things good and evil, Gods and Devils, religions, and politics. He will wage the last battle against mankind and the fate there after will either unite the world or destroy it completely.

I see this character in my dreams often, and I am inspired by his courage and prowess. I have decided to become this rogue and I will die waging war against the warring or live to witness its rebirth as a true humanity.

I have been invited to a war in Iraq next weak by a fellow I met downtown. I have decided that the Iraqis will be my first mission, though I have not exposed my plans to them. When I go there, I am going to find the leader and beat him within an inch of his life, his diciples will follow one at a time until the country is cleared, and then I will burn it to the ground. I will be fully armed and prepared for death. Its going to be a good night. I can’t wait.

The moral of this is perhaps beyond comprehension. What they will learn, however, is that they were not prepared to accept what they preached, and this, my friends, is the last great lesson to learn on Earth.

So I ask you, men of war, greed and vengence, are you ready to face yourselves? I am your mirror.

Is Detrop amusing to anybody at all?

I mean besides himself.

Yes, I was amused… you must post in my outlaw thread. I want all the details of your sordid past even if it all occurs in your own mind. :evilfun:

I don’t find detrop’s post amusing at all.

He is being ironic, and if he isn’t then we had better contact the authorities. It isn’t supposed to be funny actually, just twisted, which I, of course, find funny… but that’s me.

Yes. I throughly enjoyed detrop’s post. It was about time someone posted a good opposition post. It was irritating reading the weak, so-called “devil’s advocate”, responses. I was about to post something myself until I read detrop’s post.

If you are going to represent an opposing viewpoint at least do it WELL.

Detrop merely did that. I thought his post was excellent.

Which part in particular did you enjoy the most? Was it this: “This is why you should die. You are a brainwashed idiot, or a natural incompetent fool”. You and detrop both seem to share the idea that saying something outrageous just to elicit a response is “saying something well.” You’re stuck on the “shock value” level. It’s perhaps less forgivable for him because I know what kind of writing and philosophizing he’s capable of. He’s a talented young man but a lot of his posts smack of insincerity. Frankly I don’t know what it is he really believes, and what it is he just likes to shout out for the purpose of hearing himself and, perhaps, to get a giggle from the kids in the back row.

Except for the you should die part, I think that part was spot on.

Oh please, spare me your labels. I did not like detrop’s post because it was “shocking”, in fact I didn’t find it that shocking. I liked his post because I think someone needed to give this guy a real opposing viewpoint instead of some kiss-ass one that you gave. Your “devils advocate” post was a freakin joke. Detrop’s post put it to shame.

While I’m sure a portion of his post was merely a jest, I am a firm believe in the saying of “Many a true words spoken in a jest”. There was truth in detrop’s post. I’m sorry if you couldn’t see it.

Yes, it must be all for laughs because you can’t comprehend that someone could have such an opposing viewpoint on this matter? Perhaps you shouldn’t be so close-minded?

We dont have to be buddies nor do you have to respect me.

I can take the pain.

And what the heck is wrong with getting a giggle from the back row, Jerry… it why many of us are here in the first place.

Lighten up.

Do you want the blood of the innocent on your hands if he is serious?