Something something leftist infighting
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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The way I see it, is that the jury should determine guilt, regardless of the punishment, which is determined by the law. So I would say he is guilty.
Murder is a grave crime, and while it is possible to rationalise it using radical ideologies and it seems to me that Luigi was personally affected by the healthcare system, but this changes nothing.
When someone commits murder, kills another human being, he loses a part of their humanity in a way. Turns away from his morality, from his soul. This is what "crime and punishment" is about, I certainly reccomend the novel. No rationalisations will compensate for the horror that is a murder of a fellow human being.
And the people that treat him like a hero are doing him a disservice. How is he supposed to understand the gravity of his moral offence and regret it if he is lauded for it? I feel nothing but pity for the man.
I want to ask a difficult question of you. Why does he need to do this? I'm not being cute, I'm being sincere, because I think this comes down to a sense of sanctimony that just doesn't exist in reality. There is no cosmic scorecard, no universal force or karma, nothing beyond what we have in the world in front of us. So I ask in, with that in mind, what is the actual moral imperative you feel that he must experience this weight and regret? What is different in the world if he does not?
Beyond that, I'd like to state that I'm well aware of the jury's role in determining guilt, not punishment, and stand by my statement that I would be unable to recommend a guilty verdict. It's not out of a desire for him to serve lesser punishment, it's out of an understanding that humanity and murder are nuanced and that not all killing is murder, and sometimes you do in fact need a dragonslayer to keep the village safe.
A person that commits murder and does not feel guilty is a person that turns away from his soul. I believe that any person that strays away from our values and morals is losing something very important.
So this is not a case of what would change in the world, as you put it, but what would change for the murderer. What kind of person will he be? I believe that every murderer suffers, in a sense, and again, I recommend you read "Crime and punishment", it's a masterpiece.
That being said, I would like to ask you a somewhat off-topic question about something you said:
It seems to me that you are saying that the moral imperative I might feel is not ontologically grounded, since there is not higher power. But wouldn't any morality then be not grounded in anything, if you accept both these criteria for what is legitimately moral and the atheistic worldview?
I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not smart enough to keep up with what you're trying to say here. But if this is the "without god how can we have morality?" argument, I will just extend the standard reply that if you need a cosmic watchdog to prevent you from raping and murdering, perhaps your morality is not as pure as you believe. I believe the social contract and basic understanding that if we work together for the greater good, we all benefit, is basically enough to define morality when coupled with generations of evolutionarily-innate emotional responses that promote said well-being. I also understand that this morality, like all things, is not sacred, and thus capable of being influenced, being swayed, being wrong, and importantly evolving, adapting, and even rationalizing or coping with the difficult quandaries of human society that extend far beyond black and white. Again I don't truly understand your question, but I tried to answer in earnest and hope that satisfies your curiosity.
edit: also I see you have been downvoted and feel compelled to tell you that I have not downvoted anything you've said. I know it doesn't matter, but I think it's relevant to the tone here.
While I would rather we talked about the other part of what I previously said, the one that relates to the murder, this is quite interesting too.
I was not saying that god is necessary for morality. I understood what you said previously this way: since there is no God or higher power, religious morality, and by extiention my supposedly religiously motivated statement(actually, I am not particularly religious) is unsubstantiated, to which I replied with an argument, that if this is the case, and if you apply the same criteria to every worldview, then no moral views are substantiated.
And I would like to address your counterargument. I did find it convincing when I was a "militant atheist" but now I recognise its inadequacy. It is arguing with a position that does not exist, it is based on a misunderstanding of an argument that theists often make. I will now expand on that:
When theists say that without God there is no morality, they mean that there is no objective morality. The argument is based on showing that the accounts of morality possible under atheism are contrary to our moral intuitions. Theists generally recognise that people can be moral if they are not religious, all of us have a sense of morality, since we are the "children of God".
If there is no morality independent from subjective beliefs about morality, then, in practice, when someone says "this is immoral", they are simply expressing their preferences. So if I say murder is wrong, this simply means I do not want it to occur, and I am urging everyone to not murder, so there is, in practice, no difference between subjective preference and morality, since morality is subjective.
So if we lived in a world where noone believed rape is wrong(animals do rape each other quite often), there is no sense at all in which the statement "rape is immoral" would be correct.
Since most people do not understand morality to be subjective in this way, this argument can be convincing.
Edit: another similar argument, is that atheists, while they can be moral, have no justification for their morality. It is also often misunderstood, and your counterargument is wrongfully applied, but I will not get into that.
No offense, but I don't understand how this differs from my summary beyond just that you apparently enjoy pontificating. Like I don't understand what part of what you said was supposed to be revelatory to me, I specifically told you that morality is not sacred; this isn't news and I'm not ignoring or unaware of some secondary truth here. Yes, morality is influenced by society and thus yes it is subject to societal whims... Okay? But it's also informed by generations of evolutionary response and the motivation is almost entirely overwhelmingly pragmatic. Your "bUt WhAt iF rApE sUdDeNlY oKaY" scenario is meaningless because there is no social benefit to that scenario. Morals are still founded a sort of pragmatic empathy; sure sometimes, maybe even often, we get this wrong, but we don't need a guiding hand to teach us the basics of working together for the greater good. The question isn't "will this send me to hell," it's "is this to the benefit of humanity?"
But is there a difference between preferences and moral imperatives?
Does it matter in any way beyond semantics?
Yes, of course it does.
How? Why?
Because the argument is based on what morality is. And this is a question about what it is.
And you think if it is preference it cannot be morality? My friend, morality is societal preference, at least in part.
Such an account of morality is indeed insufficient for some people. But this is the argument: you have to accept moral subjectivism if you reject God.
I hate to break it to you, but you are also subject to moral subjectivism, you're just less honest about it. Your moral frameworks are just as much a matter of consensus, just of the theocratic. You are not immune or superior, you're just less honest with yourself. You still follow the subjective morality defined by man, just under the guise of higher authority.
I understand that I follow morality. The question is, what is morality. If you are correct, it is subjective. If you are wrong, it isn't. I am not sure what you are trying to say.
That you present deific morality as some alternative to the uncertain subjectivism of reality when it is not an alternative and it does not live outside of it. It is nothing more than delusion born of hubris because it is easier to reject reality and say "no I'm right!" than it is to accept the complicated nature of existence. You aren't providing an answer to the problem, you're hoping that if you cover your eyes hard enough the problem will stop existing.
What is it if not an alternative? Morality is either objective or subjective. You believe it is the latter, but how can you be so sure you are correct?
I am simply saying that it is a very unnatural way to think about morality, and this is why my argument works. Some people, I believe, would rather say that God is real than that morality is subjective. You can say the opposite of that, of course, but this is how philosophical arguments work.
I don't see the problem you are referring to.
Because my morality of doing what is best for society includes rejecting ignorance, and what is believing in that which lacks evidence if not ignorance?
I see no value in living my life in a constant state of "okay but what if," especially when there is absolutely nothing to suggest or imply that the specific what if in question is any more founded than believing that the universe was created by a giant crab's vagina who only wants just to eat our own hair. It is definitional absurdity, and condoning it would be immoral, in my estimation.
And the important distinction between the case at hand and philosophical arguments is that those are that of theory, not practical application. If you want to talk about god in terms of the abstract, go ahead to your heart's content; that's a fascinating field with no shortage of questions to explore. But when you start to put those ideas in practice the real world with completely unfounded yet still concrete assumptions, that actually becomes a fucking problem for society.
But you seem pretty certain morality is subjective, which is not only unproven, but goes against our intuitions.
You seem to think I am comparing objective religious morality with subjective secular morality. This is not the case. I am comparing two accounts of morality, according to one of which morality is independent of subjectivity, and is singular, and according to another all moral views held by all people are subjective.
Your morality is based on "doing what is best for society". But are you capable of constructing a rational deductive argument with sound propositions that proves that this is, indeed, what morality is? If not, in what way is your morality better than religious morality. Both are "preferences", according to you, that are not based on rationality.
It's not better, my point is yours doesn't exist. It is also the exact same moral subjectivism. Period. You're just choosing a premade character instead of going into the character customizer. You are still making a choice of morality based on your preference, period.
And it's not that I'm saying definitively with certainty that morality must be subjective, again my philosophy is that nothing is sacred. But objective morality is the claim and claims must be supported before being accepted. This is how scientific inquiry works. You make a claim, you support that claim, and you invite others to challenge your supporting evidence to see if it holds water. You don't say my claim is true and it's up to you to disprove it. By that rational, I would invite you to disprove my claim that god is a crab's vagina who wants us to eat our own hair.
So it's not that I'm unwaveringly certain in my conviction that morality is inherently subjective, it's just that it is the default assumption until evidence to the contrary proves otherwise. So unless you have evidence to the contrary, we remain in the default understanding, but as always willing to reassess and adapt our understanding as additional knowledge is acquired.
I understand that if moral subjectivism is correct, morality is subjective. But you can't just say that analytically true statement over and over again, and expect it to work as an argument. How can you be sure it is subjective?
Why is the subjectivity of morality the default assumption? It is a claim, is it not?
Because the only way the alternative exists is if we assume the supernatural, and in lieu of evidence to support that, we are unable to do so.
I seem to be perfectly able to do so: objective morality is supernatural, but what makes you think it is reason enough to dismiss it?
We assume some things to exist without proof all the time, and I am not even talking about how we assume the external world exists, but about things like dark matter and the Higgs bosom. Why is an assumption of the existence of a supernatural thing different in terms of credibility from an assumption of the existence of something that exists in nature.
What the fuck are you even talking about? You're beyond grasping at straws if you're comparing living life according to a concrete moral code based on nothing with the theoretical existence of the Higgs-bosom, which is absolutely not even remotely treated as sacred, and at this point I have to assume you are simply trying to waste my time, because this is fucking stupid.
Could say the same to you.
If morality is subjective, all morality is based on nothing, that is rather the point.
I am not comparing "living according to a manufactured moral code" to the Higgs boson, this is both a misrepresentation of my argument and a category error.
Thank you for clarifying that you're a religious nutter. I can now block your dumb ass in good conscience.
Simple: killing mass murderers like Brian Thompson isn't a moral offence
Fix your broken moral compass, you appear to prefer mass murderers mass murdering over someone stopping them
Do you support capital punishment?