: Lady Macbeth was acting for ultimately selfish motives.
: The Sheriff of Nottingham, on the other hand, was
: doing what he perceived to be his duty in the battle
: to preserve order.
Neutral Evil and Lawful Neutral respecitively, if we're going to use the D&D alignments.
: Or at least, that's what the state tells us. This is in
: the interests of the state, since it can't rely on all
: of its citizens to exact merely just retribution
: (distinct from revenge in that retribution is
: proportional to the deed which triggered it, while
: revenge may not be.) The fact that a government may
: not approve of just retribution being carried out by
: someone other than itself does not make it wrong.
Totally correct. What is wrong and what socity thinks is wrong might have nothing what so ever in common...although this is rarely true.
: Forrest said that, from the government's point of view,
: the aim is to prevent the crime form happening again.
: In fact, that's not entirely true: there's five main
: aims as far as the government is concerned. To deter
: other people from committing the crime, to protect the
: victim of the crime, to reform the criminal (and, in
: doing so, make sure he doesn't commit the crime
: again), retribution, and vindication (by upholding a
: law, you make the assertation that it is right. Not
: doing so creates a double standard, and may lead
: people to question the government in other matters.)
Cynical thought: The Goverment is trying to prevent crime to help hide its own, and get rid of unwanted "independents". Now back to your regular post (Just kiding around)
It depends what you mean by OK. It's not OK in that psychologically it wouldn't be an easy or comfortable or... right-feeling thing to do. But what's the alternative? Were I on a jury, I would not condemn someone that killed the innocent in that situation. It is not in any sense a choice by the person compelled to do the killing, as much as if someone took control of my limbs.
You wouldn't? No comment beyond that I disagree with you.
Consider it this way--is the guy holding the gun doing something to me, or to the woman? Your answer to the example seems to suggest that I would be bringing her in to the situation by doing as I'm told to do. But in fact, the guy with the gun has already included her. Does she have the right to expect me to die instead of her?
Legally, probably not.
I think that in that sitution
1: Take the gun.
2: Shoot the bad guy.
3: Wait for the rewards.
No but seriously, I'd say you have an obligation to not shoot her because it's the wrong thing to do. I don't care if its impractical or anything, right is right, and wrong is wrong. Killing her would probably be the worst (ethically) thing you could do.
Note: All information in this post is my opinion, and may be totally contrary to the views of this site, although if it isn't, I'll be happier then the other way around.
Seraph
