"Legitimate military purpose."
Is that not a meaningful distinction between street crime murder and killing in war?
On America's streets--I think of the Columbine or Virginia Tech massacres--gunmen just shot whichever people they came across. Isn't that what the Army Sergeant in Afghanistan is alleged to have done? If it's murder at VaTech, why not in Afghanistan?
"Where do you draw the line?" God, I despise that saying; it's a cop-out for us when we don't want to think through something. It usually ends the thinking: "See I can stop thinking about it now because, you know, where do you, like, draw the line?"
You draw the line between killing and murder wherever a full consideration of the moral and practical consequences merits.
But the Palestinians justify attacks on Israeli civilians, including children, as killings done for a legitimate military purpose. Who decides what a "legitimate military purpose" is? Doesn't the answer to that depend to some extent on what end of the gun you're on? "We do", each of us individually, is my answer to the first question. "Yes," is my answer to the second question: One considers which end of the gun one is on. And then one answers.
But the Palestinians are "we" too, and they disagree.
Each of us is a moral agent. Each of us, even in thinking about Big Stuff like this, has to "draw the line" somewhere. That is, each of us has to make judgments and that others think and act differently does not absolve each of us from the moral responsibility to judge.
This individual moral agent adjudges those Palestinians who shoot or blow up Israeli civilians guilty of murder and this American Army Sergeant who shot Afghan civilians guilty of murder as well.
Is that not a meaningful distinction between street crime murder and killing in war?
On America's streets--I think of the Columbine or Virginia Tech massacres--gunmen just shot whichever people they came across. Isn't that what the Army Sergeant in Afghanistan is alleged to have done? If it's murder at VaTech, why not in Afghanistan?
"Where do you draw the line?" God, I despise that saying; it's a cop-out for us when we don't want to think through something. It usually ends the thinking: "See I can stop thinking about it now because, you know, where do you, like, draw the line?"
You draw the line between killing and murder wherever a full consideration of the moral and practical consequences merits.
But the Palestinians justify attacks on Israeli civilians, including children, as killings done for a legitimate military purpose. Who decides what a "legitimate military purpose" is? Doesn't the answer to that depend to some extent on what end of the gun you're on? "We do", each of us individually, is my answer to the first question. "Yes," is my answer to the second question: One considers which end of the gun one is on. And then one answers.
But the Palestinians are "we" too, and they disagree.
Each of us is a moral agent. Each of us, even in thinking about Big Stuff like this, has to "draw the line" somewhere. That is, each of us has to make judgments and that others think and act differently does not absolve each of us from the moral responsibility to judge.
This individual moral agent adjudges those Palestinians who shoot or blow up Israeli civilians guilty of murder and this American Army Sergeant who shot Afghan civilians guilty of murder as well.
