If somebody, only once, seriously murdering another human being, but never did, would this make them morally “bad?”
What about if it was just a fleeting thought? Where would one draw the line? Just curious to see your opinions…
It depends on the context in which the murdering dream takes place. Thinking of killing Osama Bin Laden will hardly get you condemn as immoral. Thinking of killing six little girls you’ve never meet and for no reason or cause they’ve given you (and could never give you), is quite immoral.
To think immoral thoughts only makes your thoughts immoral. The length or strength of the thought is irrelevant to the reality of it being immoral.
To act upon those thoughts makes both your behavior and your thoughts immoral.
A person is never “bad” or “good”.
When we colloquially say a person “is” good or bad, we really usually mean their behavior, their deeds or words spoken and the like, are “bad”, meaning immoral.
But let’s suppose there is a mental disorder that tells the person to kill those girls, and they force themselves not to. Wouldn’t there be a certain nobility to that?
If they can force themselves not to, then I would question the initial diagnosis that they had a mental disorder at all. But no. We are not moral because we can suppress a desire to kill little girls. How far does a thought places you from committing the outright deed is inexact, but a person that, for example, looks at child-porn, only looks, and does not engage in sex with a child, still, still, is immoral and in that particular case, even the law gets involved.(Though, I admit, the law gets involved because the pictures are made to the detriment of actual children. Thoughts about children in such a way does not lead to prision because no children are victimized, yet, by mere daydreaming). That said, if you, or anyone else you know, is fantazising about murder of children you should be careful, for perhaps all that separates him or you from the actual deed is merely an opportunity.
You have my imagination piqued, dork.
Why would you question the diagnosis? Compare it to somebody trying to lose weight, who thinks about eating chocolate cake. The urge is there (not by choice), but the decision not to act IS there (by choice). Is this metaphor invalid?
Rightfully so, it is ground that I have not seen tread very much here. Soon I will reveal what prompted this question in the first place, unless somebody might have an inkling already.
Yes, they are more morally “bad” than someone who does not thinking about killing someone.
Including Osama Bin Laden.
I mean, if you want to prevent OBL from killing people, that’s fine, but that would include a prison sentence of life-without-parole.
If you want to kill OBL regardless of the prevention aspect, then you have murder in your soul and are less moral than those who don’t.
But its an order of magnitude difference of immorality for those that actually do it.
As to “fleeting thought”: your immoral for the duration of that thought and to the depth of that thought. I think when some of us think “I’d like to smack that guy” we are for an instant thinking of some cartoonish “smack!”. But those who entertain the idea for longer periods and with deeper thought I would say register much higher on the immorality meter.
dorky:
— Why would you question the diagnosis? Compare it to somebody trying to lose weight, who thinks about eating chocolate cake.
O- That is an eating disorder, not a mental disorder. The problem might lie in your genes etc, but a mental disorder, such as schizophrenia is another matter altogether.
— The urge is there (not by choice), but the decision not to act IS there (by choice). Is this metaphor invalid?
O- The orignal thought was about the immorality of immagining the murder of another human being. How does that translate to a person trying to eat some sweets? I should not put up much of a fight with the urge to eat me some cake. But I should truly avoid the acting out my fantasy of murder.
A mental disorder, like schizophrenia, would leave me dreaming about murder and because my self is split and swings from one pole to the opposite, I am powerless to stop it-- therefore not immoral. Neither is eating cake. Are we powerless in front of cake? Are we powerless in front of drugs like alcohol? No. Really it is the choice of the person to drink or eat cake. No one was born with a dependance on cake or beer. It is by habits that we become dependent, sometimes, and we are really bound by our own choice. I just to drink a lot, back in the day. Then one day, no intervention or nothing, I simply forgot to drink that day and kept forgeting. Other things got my attention. I did not have the stamina for the drug. I drink a lot of cappuccinos these days, but it is not to the cappuccinos to which I am addicted but to the routine in which I take them.
The urge, as you put it, to kill might be there at an unconscious level, but not as an urge to eat a cake. Not only is the urge not consciously present as the urge for sweets but even less is there an urge to kill little girls in healthy adults, or even those with weak minds- that is, idiots.
Daydreaming about killing girls would point me towards a probable killer. One who confesses that he does but that he controls it, is only telling me that he just has not gotten a good opportunity to do it yet. I would certainly not entrust him to the watch of a day care-center.
I’m fairly confident they are one and the same, but I’m not an expert in the field. Nor are you. I can’t imagine how an eating disorder would be different than a mental disorder…
I thought this might cause some confusion, but please keep in mind the person NEVER commits the act. Let’s suppose they die, never doing it, but fantasized about doing it their entire life, or even thought about it seriously at one point in their life.
This entire argument is assuming that nobody ever knows about these thoughts but this person, or people knew he had these thoughts but he never did it.
dorky:
Did he tell someone? If he told me, then it would not matter to me how seriously the thought crossed his mind, nor how deep. He might tell me so on his death bed. If I do believe him, which would be a choice, then I might consider him immoral, and still would think, that had he lived he might have acted out his murdering fantasies.
But let me say something here:
I imagine that some people fantasize about doing bad stuff to women for example-- seen “8mm” with Nick Cage?-- and that in some, the majority, these fantansies are never acted out. In fact, they might be subliminated, acted out in another way. That said, why would not they act out the fantasy?
That is the interesting part because it might just be that they never were in position to do so. For example, they might have wanted to rape and beat a woman to an inch of her death, but because of a fear of being caught and dealt with in some way detrimental to his well-being, he rechannels the fantasy into a consolation. He might date S+M clubs, or rents sticky videos. he never acts on his wish publicly, but he performs the deeds mentally over and over again and in private. The only thing standing between the public sphere and the private sphere could be only his inability to do so without detriment to himself. His virtue, if you can call it that would be then just prudence ion consideration to his conditions.
Caution to the wise:
Do not leave your children with someone who tells you that he fantasizes of killing but who swears he never has nor will act those fantasies out.
I don’t believe that thinking about murder makes one immoral. Then again in Ender’s Game thinking about murder goes further than it should. Peter, the inhuman older brother of Ender, begins skinning little creatures, and threatening death upon his siblings. Valentine, the one who has never thought of murder, except prehaps on Peter, is the driving force of love throughout the book. In short-thinking of murder does not make one inhuman however, forgeting one’s boundries while doing so is.
There is a morality that you possess right now. It is made up of all of your beliefs at the moment. It is the driving force behind what you actually do.
It’s true that what you actually do is a much better gauge of your morals, but I would recommend that we don’t completely discount or ignore the psychological component.
I would suggest that people who think about cruelty, act more cruelly and those that think more about kindness are more kind.
For example, the criminals who think about committing crimes against children: don’t wait until you actually do it to consider yourself immoral. You are immoral the moment you think about it. And I recommend putting a bullet in your own head before you commit the act. “Lean into the strike zone and take one for the team”. Thank you.
I think men should be judged by their actions, not their thoughts. We’ve all have our fantasies, but we know better than to fulfill them. Does fantasizing about someone other than ur lover make u a bad person? I don’t think so
You mean like the Texan mother who said that God told her to murder her children?
???
With regards,
aspacia
Before I share my position on the original question I think we need to refine the discussion here a little bit, especially about mental illness.
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Not all mental illnesses include full psychotic breaks. Depression is a mental illness yet does not in itself include delusions or hallucinations. Psychotic breaks are not a necessary factor for diagnosis of mental illness. As such, a patient can suffer from a mental illness and never once lose touch with reality. They may have thoughts that are abnormal for them, they may even be violent thoughts (especially towards themselves) but there are not necessarily having a psychotic break.
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The original question wasn’t about fantisizing about murder, it was phrased in terms of think. The words thinking and fantasizing are difficult to seperate here. They are imprecise, they overlap. However, I think we can all agree that there is a major difference between thinking about having a piece of cake and fantasizing about having a piece of cake. Perhaps, dorkydood you could refine the original question a bit to sort out the difference between fantasizing and thinking, and exactly what sort of thinking you mean. From here out I’m going to set aside fantasy, which the way it’s been used here I would define as “imagining in a positive or longing way” and just focus on thought, escpecially in the context of moral deliberations.
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As Aristotle said, “if arguments alone were enought to make men good…” We know that we must do the right action for the right reason, but I’m not sure that thinking about the wrong action makes us automatically immoral.
If it did, wouldn’t all of us be immoral on a regular basis? I mean, if we’re honestly reflecting about the actions we will take surely we will at least consider ones that are wrong? There must be the freedom in moral deliberation to entertain and reject the wrong course without being judged to be morally wrong.
If this was not the case, the morally right action would have to be perfectly self evident in every case, something we know to absolutely not be the case. Furthermore, everyone who advocated for any other position would be wrong because they were thinking about that which wasn’t morally right.
It seems to me that if we say that to think about doing that which is morally wrong is wrong in itself, then we must conclude that to engage in most moral philosophy is wrong since it entails thinking about wrong actions, sometimes personally. I’m advocating good old virtue ethics I know, but right thought and right action must go together, thought alone is not morally indictable.
cheers,
gemty
I have to agree with JennyHeart when she said that thinking immoral thoughts only makes your thoughts immoral. There has been many times when I have thought about robbing a store because it would be the quickest and easiest way to get the money I needed to get cought up on my bills. However, being a person who trys to do the “right thing” all the time I would never act on these thoughts. It’s like when a married person has a dream about being with someone else. you can’t control your thoughts (or dreams) but you can control you actions and it is your actions that make you moral or immoral.
Now thoughts and beliefs are 2 different things in my opinion. My thought may say that stealing is the easiest way to get cought up on my bills but my beliefs tell me that I would be no better than a murder or rapist.
Okay so I guess I need to add to my first comment about our actions making us moral or immoral. Your actions and beliefs determine your moral. There is only one person who ever lived who can honestly say they’ve never had impure thoghts and he would be Jesus. Everyone else at some point in their life has had an impure thought.
I guess that’s part of my question. I am trying to figure out what are the threshholds, in one’s own mind, that have to be examined when dealing with the morality of thoughts. One can fantasize about “immoral” thoughts, and that would certainly make them a “worse” person than one who simply thinks about immoral thoughts at times, but never nourishes them to full-fledged fantasies.
In either case, if neither one fulfills their thoughts or fantasies, for whatever reason (And I don’t believe it’s because they don’t have the opportunity: If you want it bad enough, you’ll make the opportunity. Humans are good like that), then how do we judge which is less moral, if one is at all?
Thanks for the replies thus far!
Why do you distinguish between the person and the disorder by externalizing the disorder?
We do not do this with any other kind of mental abnormality other than temporary conditions like intoxication or tiredness.
For instance let’s pretend that a mule has kicked noam chomsky in the head. He now “has” brain damage that renders him unable to feed himself much less write about linguistics.
Is noam chomsky now a clever man who “has” brain damage? This statement is meaningless. In such a case noam chomsky would be a deeply stupid man who was once a brilliant scientist.
In the same way, it seems to me that if a man who otherwise would be good suffers from a mental disorder that makes him bad, he is not a good man with a mental disorder, but rather a bad man.
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I would actually argue that Noam Chomsky was a clever man, but now suffered brain damage, as well as its symptoms.
Just as somebody who suffered any other mental disability (whether nurture or nature induced) might display symptoms of “immoral” fantasies.