The Right to Kill
Extraordinary Human
When i was in high school, my favorite go-to tv series is “Criminal Minds”, it’s a series about FBI team trying to catch serial killers by making a criminal profile through learning their MO and how their minds work. Since then i found that understanding how their mind work is interesting in some way, especially what drives them to commit the act of killing. Are they a natural psychopath ? or a normal human being with a screw loose in their head that somehow give them the idea to kill ?
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” seem to answer my question.
“…all people are somehow divided into the ‘ordinary’ and the ‘extraordinary.’ The ordinary must live in obedience and have no right to transgress the law, because they are, after all, ordinary. While the extraordinary have the right to commit all sorts of crimes and in various ways to transgress the law, because in point of fact they are extraordinary…the crime of these people, naturally, are relative, and variegated…for the destruction of the present in the name of the better…”
The “Extraordinary” kind have already existed before in history. One of the example is Holy War. I am a Christian. Christian’s Holy War is known as The Crusades.
The Crusades went on for 196 years from 1095 CE to 1291 CE and killed thousand of peoples during the war. It started when Pope Urban II heard God voice and order him to start a war in order to restore Christianity including it’s teaches and wisdom to save human kinds from endless torment of hell, so they believed that they were “extraordinary” and have the right to commit it the action.
Can you imagine someone who called themselves “servant of God” commit the act of killing and become a murder while their own teaching is based on kindness ? What is their moral reason to commit the action ?
The Reason
According to Dostoevsky, “extraordinary” people have the “right” to commit any crimes including murder for the sake of better world, so blood shed is necessary as long as it benefit all human kind. It seems Dostoevsky’s thought was influenced by Utilitarianism moral philosophy.
It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong
Jeremy Bentham
A choice is made based on the maximization amount of welfare or collective happiness. It’s morally worth to use people for the sake of other’s well being.
Let me give you an example of how this moral reason works:
Imagine yourself a doctor and you were instructed to create a vaccine for a certain virus that can cure 0,00000001% of world population (which is 77 peoples at the moment). You successfully invent the vaccine and you need to mass produce it as soon as possible or those affected will die in a month. During your attempt to mass produce the vaccines, a group of thugs try to sabotage your manufacturing process rendering you unable to mass produce it in a very short time. They won’t stop unless you kill them. You have two choices whether to become a murderer and save 77 lives or not to become a murder and let those affected die. Which one do you choose ?
If you choose the first option then you act on Utilitarianism moral reasoning which is the greatest good for the greatest numbers so choosing the first option is the most reasonable because saving 77 lives outweigh the cost of being label as murderer.
You may disagree with me regarding the act of killing, and you may argue that we are a human being that we live with human law, and not to act like an animal. Yes, that’s true, but aren’t we all animals in certain way ? History shows that we naturally act like an animal. We try to kill, betray, and torture others in order to reach certain means, like torturing prisoner of war to gain information that could advance your country’s victory, or eat your dying friend and make yourself into a cannibal in order to survive in the middle of nowhere. Most of our history seem to always involve blood shed.
The Chaos and Order
Will these “extraordinary” people endanger our society in some way ? Won’t there be chaos ? Won’t there be a lot of serial killer ?
The answer to this question came from an excerpt from “Crime and Punishment”:
people of the first category (ordinary) are by nature conservative, staid, live in obedience, and like being obedient.…they punish or hang them, thereby quite rightly fulfilling their conservative purposes yet…the first preserves the world and increase it numerically; the second (extraordinary) moves the world and leads it towards a goal. Both the one and the other have a perfectly equal right to exist.
It seems “extraordinary” and “ordinary” is like a Yin and Yang. One cease to exist without the other. According to Dostoevsky, it’s the “ordinary” duty to re-order the chaos cause by the “extraordinary” action. Our nature seem to always find it’s way to balance between chaos and order. They have their own way to prevent or restore the damage done by these “extraordinary”, like how other countries involvement in ending World War 2 and Jews genocide that make Hitler killed himself, or death sentence law that would put an end to people who wanted to wreak havoc.
The Good Deal
Utilitarian choice is based on a formula, which is:
Benefit — Cost = Maximize Utility
We can take a look back at the previous example on how this formula works.
1. The Crusades:
Benefit = Save human kind from hell (probably hundred millions of peoples at the time)
Cost = Killed thousand of peoples
2. The Vaccines dilemma:
Benefit = Save 77 lives
Cost = Killed an evil group and be labeled as a murderer
It seems the benefit outweigh the cost, so it’s a pretty good deal. Then it raise another question whether it’s right to put price tag on a human lives ?
The answer is depend on the standard that you set upon yourself. Can you live with being labeled as murderer ? If so, it’s good deal, if not then don’t torment yourself. If you’re interested in getting to know the impact of taking human live to your well-being, then i recommend you to read “Crime and Punishment” because it portrays a good example of it.
In the end, Utilitarian choice is appropriate in certain context and condition, you must consider the benefit and the cost on whether you can live with it.
