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To Kill or Not to Kill
From self-defense to the death penalty: is there a time that killing someone is necessary or justified — even though you can choose not to?
Yesterday I watched a TV series depicting a dilemma: an evil guy is about to kill someone, but the main character in a rage is able to break loose the chains (thanks to the evil guy) and disable him. Now the evil guy is at the mercy of the main character, and the main character is facing the choices of either handing him to the police or killing him. And of course, being a good person means “not lowering oneself to the evil guy’s level,” so the main character ends up sparing the evil guy’s life. But then the evil guy gets another chance and is ready to murder them by surprise, and therefore is shot dead (by another person).
This is a very common theme in media, you must have seen a lot of similar plots. And I find it funny that it seems we on one hand “value” human lives, but at the same time imply “some people are just evil and that’s why they ask to be killed.” I’m quite tired of this storyline, to be honest.
But set aside overused storyline, an interesting question is: do we have the right to take away a person’s life, even though that shithead is an evil human waste?
