Cannibalism

[TheRealJoeFish]

It's a question I truly struggle with. Not that I think I'll ever be faced with the situation, but...I mean if you're starving to death...can you really be blamed for killing and eating someone?
I just can't decide how I feel about it.

As far as the law is concerned, the matter is settled.

But think about it: Suppose someone threatened me with death, if I refused to torture people to death. Would that make it okay for me to torture people to death? Should I be willing to do anything in order to continue to live?

Or, to use the example of starvation. How would you feel if your child was on the boat with me, and I decided to go against what I have said is right, and I killed him or her in order to eat. Would you be okay with that? Should you be okay with that?

Or think about you being on the boat. If the principle is to be, it is okay to murder someone if one is very, very hungry, then the other people may decide to kill you first. Is that okay with you?

Think about what principles you would like for everyone to follow, and then I think you may come to see the wisdom of the law as it presently stands on this issue.

I'm not sure it's quite as easy as all that. Consider a scenario in which someone puts a gun to person A's head and says "kill B and C or I kill you."

I maintain that:
1) I personally (I think, and I hope) would choose to die rather than to have to kill two people.
2) I'd like for other people to make the same decision
3) I'm not comfortable *forcing* other people, legally, to make that decision.

By no means am I arguing that extreme necessity/duress should be a justification for murder, but I am of the opinion that it should be a legal excuse thereof.

Just a countervailing opinion

[Losty]

As far as the law is concerned, the matter is settled.

But think about it: Suppose someone threatened me with death, if I refused to torture people to death. Would that make it okay for me to torture people to death? Should I be willing to do anything in order to continue to live?

Or, to use the example of starvation. How would you feel if your child was on the boat with me, and I decided to go against what I have said is right, and I killed him or her in order to eat. Would you be okay with that? Should you be okay with that?

Or think about you being on the boat. If the principle is to be, it is okay to murder someone if one is very, very hungry, then the other people may decide to kill you first. Is that okay with you?

Think about what principles you would like for everyone to follow, and then I think you may come to see the wisdom of the law as it presently stands on this issue.

I'm not sure it's quite as easy as all that. Consider a scenario in which someone puts a gun to person A's head and says "kill B and C or I kill you."

I maintain that:
1) I personally (I think, and I hope) would choose to die rather than to have to kill two people.
2) I'd like for other people to make the same decision
3) I'm not comfortable *forcing* other people, legally, to make that decision.

By no means am I arguing that extreme necessity/duress should be a justification for murder, but I am of the opinion that it should be a legal excuse thereof.

Just a countervailing opinion

Duress is a legal excuse and I think it even applies to murder but I'm not certain. It has been a long time since I set foot in a classroom.

[TheRealJoeFish]

Duress is a legal excuse and I think it even applies to murder but I'm not certain. It has been a long time since I set foot in a classroom.

I don't think it applies to murder. From the Wikipedia Article on Duress:

"A variant of duress involves hostage taking, where a person is forced to commit a criminal act under the threat, say, that their family member or close associate will be immediately killed should they refuse. This has been raised in some cases of ransom where a person commits theft or embezzlement under orders from a kidnapper in order to secure their family member's life and freedom. However, duress is not a complete defense to all crimes. For example, the general rule, both at common law and today, is that duress is never a defense to murder; that is, one is never justified in killing another innocent person even if one's own life has been threatened, although this part may be questioned when multiple people are threatened with death if the defendant does not kill a single or fewer people than threatened."

---

And, from that same article, a brief encapsulation of the debate:

"The extent to which this defense should be allowed, if at all, is a matter of public policy. A state may say that no threat should force a person to deliberately break the law, particularly if this breach will cause significant loss or damage to a third person. Alternatively, a state may take the view that even though people may have ordinary levels of courage, they may nevertheless be coerced into agreeing to break the law and this human weakness should have some recognition in the law."

I lean pretty heavily towards the second of those two policies, but reasonable minds may differ.

[Losty]

What even is an ordinary level of courage?

I wouldn't kill anyone to save my own life, but I might kill several people to save my child.
What if the threat is that you shoot someone in the head or I'll cut tiny pieces of your body off with a dull knife until you die?

[Pyrrho]

As far as the law is concerned, the matter is settled.

But think about it: Suppose someone threatened me with death, if I refused to torture people to death. Would that make it okay for me to torture people to death? Should I be willing to do anything in order to continue to live?

Or, to use the example of starvation. How would you feel if your child was on the boat with me, and I decided to go against what I have said is right, and I killed him or her in order to eat. Would you be okay with that? Should you be okay with that?

Or think about you being on the boat. If the principle is to be, it is okay to murder someone if one is very, very hungry, then the other people may decide to kill you first. Is that okay with you?

Think about what principles you would like for everyone to follow, and then I think you may come to see the wisdom of the law as it presently stands on this issue.

I'm not sure it's quite as easy as all that. Consider a scenario in which someone puts a gun to person A's head and says "kill B and C or I kill you."

I maintain that:
1) I personally (I think, and I hope) would choose to die rather than to have to kill two people.
2) I'd like for other people to make the same decision
3) I'm not comfortable *forcing* other people, legally, to make that decision.

By no means am I arguing that extreme necessity/duress should be a justification for murder, but I am of the opinion that it should be a legal excuse thereof.

Just a countervailing opinion

It isn't regarded as an excuse in the case of starving to death, as we have already discussed:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-31609-po...#pid880391

http://atheistforums.org/thread-31609-po...#pid880394

If starving to death isn't enough to excuse murder, why would being threatened with being shot in the head?

As for the idea that it should be a legal excuse, I think that would have a bad practical outcome. People would try to use it as an excuse, even in cases in which it was not applicable. After all, how are you going to prove that someone was holding a gun to your head? Obviously, we cannot simply take someone's word for this, or every murderer can claim that someone was holding a gun to their head and "forced" them to do it. As long as there are no witnesses, we cannot prove that that was not the case.

Also, if it were a legal excuse for murder, then one would not be as motivated to try to escape, as one might be killed in the attempt, but one will escape punishment for murder if one simply does as one is told. The law ought not encourage such things. The law should encourage you to try your best to avoid complying with criminal demands.

So I think it would be a very bad idea to allow that as a legal excuse for murder.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I get a kick out of the convoluted scenarios these discussions generate.

"If a flight of geese were flying out of the country, would it be okay to electrocute four sailors? What if the geese were carrying the plans to Fort McHenry?"

[TheRealJoeFish]

It isn't regarded as an excuse in the case of starving to death, as we have already discussed:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-31609-po...#pid880391

http://atheistforums.org/thread-31609-po...#pid880394

If starving to death isn't enough to excuse murder, why would being threatened with being shot in the head?

To clarify, I disagree with those cases; that is, I believe Regina v. Starving Sailor Dudes was wrongly decided.

But that is an exceptional case, one that reads more like theory than reality. I agree with your practical concerns, although I think you vastly overstate them (how could you prove someone wasn't holding a gun to the defendant's head? The same way you prove other defenses weren't applicable: circumstantial evidence. People get convicted of, and acquitted of, murder when there are no witnesses all the time).

I also think "whether the law incentivizes you to escape from a gun-wielding coercer" is way way wayyyyyyyyy down on the list of 1) things you're thinking about when someone's holding a gun to your head and 2) things we should be thinking about when setting policy.

@Losty: I agree that "a normal level of courage" is a really stupid formulation. This is the main hangup I have theoretically. But again, I think this happens every time one tries to set a legal standard (like "the reasonable man" or "clear and present danger"). There's a whole bunch of things that clearly fit, and a whole bunch of things that clearly don't, and in the rare or convoluted cases when it isn't obvious, well, that's when the jury is faced with the grave task of deciding someone's fate.
TL;DR version: "Normal courage" is a bad standard. But "we have a line-drawing problem" does not imply we should scrap policy altogether.

[Losty]

Legally speaking when one uses words like normal or reasonable they should define exactly what that word means. Otherwise it will eventually end up in appeal after appeal having the exact definition of the words debated. Still, I don't think it's fair to set a "normal" standard for courage because the word itself is so subjective.

[downbeatplumb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOE-q20RcDM

[Thumpalumpacus]

Would it be okay for me to take the brats screaming and yelling outside my front door, hang them by their ankles, and slowly lower them into a vat of boiling tar?

What if the tar was just below boiling?