Decius comments on By Which It May Be Judged - Less Wrong

35 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 December 2012 04:26AM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 19 December 2012 12:37:47PM 0 points [-]

Murder is unlawful killing. If you are a citizen of the country you are within it's laws. If the oppressive country has a law against killing members of the secret police than it's murder.

Comment author: Decius 19 December 2012 08:12:13PM 3 points [-]

Murder (law) and murder (moral) are two different things; I was exclusively referring to murder (moral).

I will clarify: There can be cases where murder (law) is either not immoral or morally required. There are also cases where an act which is murder (moral) is not illegal.

My original point is that many of the actions of Jehovah constitute murder (moral).

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 20 December 2012 03:52:59AM 2 points [-]

What's your definition of murder (moral)?

Comment author: Decius 20 December 2012 05:39:08AM 0 points [-]

Roughly "intentional nonconsensual interaction which results in the intended outcome of the death of a sentient".

To define how I use 'nonconsensual', I need to describe an entire ethics. Rough summary: Only every action which is performed without the consent of one or more sentient participant(s) is immoral. (Consent need not be explicit in all cases, especially trivial and critical cases; wearing a military uniform identifies an individual as a soldier, and constitutes clearly communicating consent to be involved in all military actions initiated by enemy soldiers.)

Comment author: BerryPick6 19 December 2012 08:36:19PM 0 points [-]

This may be the word for which I run into definitional disputes most often. I'm glad you summed it up so well.