Thou Shalt Not Kill

Having established that I like living, and plan to do quite a lot of it, I think it is important to consider the ethical issues involved in interacting with other beings. To begin with, we will keep things simple. I know I want to live, and I know other beings want to live, but what reason do I have to value the lives of other beings? After all, that other being might have something that I want, or some other situation might arise in which it would be to my benefit to kill them. Is there an ethical issue here?

To examine this I would like to consider the possible outcomes of meeting another sentient being. In this basic view, there are only 4 situations which readily present themselves. I will either be friendly or hostile, and the other being will either be friendly or hostile. I will score the results of each situation by assuming that I give living a relative value of 1. For this situation I will be assuming that it is not necessary for one of us to kill the other for our own survival, and that no issues are at play which involve a cause worth dying for. This is just a neutral situation where two beings meet.

Situation 1: I am friendly and will not harm them, but they are hostile and will kill me. This situation will result in my death. Since I can’t value anything after I am dead, this results in a score of 0. There can’t be any worse case scenario than this! Perhaps I should be more hostile…

Situation 2: I am hostile and the other being is friendly. This situation will result in my continuing to live (+ 1 point) and could possibly result in some additional gain for myself in the form of some gain in resources (+ 0 to + 0.99; I will take 0.5 as an example value). Total score is 1.5. Now I am getting somewhere!

There is a flaw in this situation though. This other being is sentient, and values its own life. Surely it knows that lying down and letting me kill it is not what it should do according to its own values. Indeed, by my own values, I can’t blame this other being for deciding not to let me kill it either. By the universiality of moral laws, if it is right for me to defend myself, as my values require, it must also be right for this other being to defend itself, and I can expect that this is what will happen. This takes us to the next situation.

Situation 3: Fight! (*Bad techno music starts playing somewhere…*) This situation is more interesting. Since I don’t know anything about this being, I can only give myself, on average, a 50/50 chance of surviving a fight to the death (+ 0.5 points). On the upside, if I win I get the additional resources from the last example (50% chance * 0.5 points = 0.25 points). This adds up to a 0.75 point situation. This is better than lying down to die, but I would still be better off avoiding all other beings than going up to one and picking a fight.

It is interesting to note that while we are assuming that there is nothing worth dying over here (resources are worth less than 1 point) then situation 3 will always be less than a 1 point situation. The only exception to the rule is if I am much more powerful than my opponent, and know it and am thus able to give myself more than a 50% chance of winning the fight. I will address this shortly.

Situation 4: the Alliance. In this situation I get to live (+1 point), but there is also the potential to trade, collaborate, and otherwise benefit from the exchange (+ 0 - + 0.99, let’s say 0.5 for example). This has a total score of 1.5! This is a good option, it is better than avoiding others, and assuming this other being is rational enough to come to the same conclusion I have about the situation, it is a stable one which can benefit us both indefinitely since we will both prefer it to the alternatives.

Let’s summarize and take a look at what we have found:

	I try to kill you	I am friendly
You try to kill me	(0.75, 0.75)	(0, 1.5)
You are friendly	(1.5, 0)	(1.5, 1.5)

My score is listed first, followed by your score. Now, since we know that we can react to each other, and that we are both prone to defend our own lives, two of the possibilities are unstable, and we both know they are not possible as final solutions to this confrontation:

	I try to kill you	I am friendly
You try to kill me	(0.75, 0.75)	(0, 1.5)
You are friendly	(1.5, 0)	(1.5, 1.5)

This means that we can always agree that it is better for both of us if we don’t try to kill each other. This has been derived only from our own self interest, with a couple assumptions and caveats. Let’s try to address some of those now.

I have looked at what is best for me, but is what’s best for me always what is morally right? If I happen upon a situation where I can easily kill another with no risk and great gain should I do so if I think it more profitable than collaboration? No, and the reason why is that the rules put forth in ethics must hold universally.

I have established that I consider it morally right to defend myself if attacked. I can also deduce that any other sentient being who values its life will come to the same conclusion. Thus, all sentient beings which value their own lives can agree that self defense is a good thing. This leads us to the reason why wanton murder of the weak is ethically untenable: it would be morally wrong for someone who was capable of it to choose to kill me, all sentient and self valuing beings would come to the same conclusion, therefore it is morally wrong for me to kill someone else if opportunity arises.

An interesting effect of this conclusion is that, all beings coming to the same conclusion, this will result in a social environment which is best for me on average. If I were to have concluded that it was ok to kill someone if I was reasonably sure I could manage it, other rational beings would come to the same conclusion, and since I cannot assume I am the most powerful being around, I would end up someone else’s victim at some point. If I can kill someone I may benefit in the short term by acquiring some new resource, but in the long term I am more likely to die in this environment of kill and be killed.

Conclusions:

• ·         Murder, initiating an attack on the life of another, is morally wrong.
• ·         Self defense is a morally good thing. I should (ethically speaking) try to live at peace and in cooperation with my fellow beings, but if that is not possible, I must defend myself by any means necessary, including killing my attacker.

Assumptions / Scope of Applicability:

• ·         Nothing is at stake which is worth dying for, including that the situation does not require the death of one party for the survival of the other.
• ·         There is no large imbalance of power in the average situation, or if there is, it is unknown to those involved.
• ·         All involved parties value their own life, and know that the other parties value theirs.
• ·         Choices are made with knowledge of the choices of others, and all parties can change their minds based on the actions of others.