But wouldn't, under your definition, a government assassin who's job it is to take out assigned targets then also be mentally ill?
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But wouldn't, under your definition, a government assassin who's job it is to take out assigned targets then also be mentally ill?
Not necessarily. He may be, but he may be also be a soldier fighting an enemy. Soldiers don't necessarily lack feeling for their opponents or enjoy killing them.
No, it's about circumstance and motivation. Do you really make no distinction between cold-blooded murder and self-defense?
I'm not the one calling murderers mentally ill.
If RJDiogenes wants to call every murderer mentally ill let him do it. It's his own personal definition of "mental illness", though and has nothing to do with the one used in psychology or with the one used by our legal systems.
In essence: Random definition is random. If he wants to call a pig a cow who am I to tell him off?
In essence: Random definition is random. If he wants to call a pig a cow who am I to tell him off?
Oh, my point was that eventually such a discussion becomes pointless if RJDiogenes just has his own personal niche definition for everything and simply ignores the relevant framework (in this case psychology and law).
But hey, in Misc anything goes because you won't get called out.
Which is odd, but irrelevant. You talk about "arbitrary" distinctions between "good and bad killing," as if the distinction between murder and self-defense were arbitrary and as if there were such a thing as good killing. As I've explained several times, if somebody is so lacking in empathy that they can kill without conscience, so lacking in self-control that they can kill in a rage, so remorselessly hateful that they can carefully plan out mass murder and so on, then there's a major malfunction in their brain-- i.e., they are mentally ill. There's no way around it. I don't know why people are so eager to believe that committing atrocities is a sign of mental health.
Such black and white distinctions might help you sleep better at night but they are hardly a reflection of reality.
What black-and-white distinctions?
That killing is either "mentally healthy" or makes one "mentally ill." Do you really think there's no in-between room there?
Murder, not killing. As already mentioned, there are reasons to kill that don't involve mental illness, such as self-defense. But to kill somebody in cold blood or in an uncontrollable rage is obviously a sign of mental illness; the action itself is diagnostic. Behavioral health is supposed to be a science-- a soft science, but a science nonetheless-- so there must be objective criteria beyond politics or culture or ideology.
Really?
Sounds like you're talking about "killing" to me.
There's absolutely many examples of "good killing." Killing a deranged lunatic holding a child over a bridge before he can drop her to her death would be an example. Shooting someone through the skull who's in the process of shooting innocent children on an island would be another. See where I'm going with this?
^^ Not good, just necessary or unavoidable. I've talked about stuff like that before upthread.
As for the quote, it was Deckard who was talking about good and bad killing.
As for the quote, it was Deckard who was talking about good and bad killing.
I don't think the hypothetical soldier who has come up so often in this thread falls under either description as you're defining it.
The taking of life in war is self-defense only at a significantly abstracted level. There are other abstractions people might make - vigilantes, for instance - which aren't substantially different from the chain of reasoning of a certain kind of career soldier.
I also talked about soldiers and law-enforcement above. Both only kill as necessary in the line of duty (although if they abuse their position to commit murder then that's another story).
Vigilantes, by definition, are not engaged by society, which means they are justifying their killing based on some internally cooked up mission. The most recent example of this would be the Norway guy, who is clearly off his rocker.
Vigilantes, by definition, are not engaged by society, which means they are justifying their killing based on some internally cooked up mission. The most recent example of this would be the Norway guy, who is clearly off his rocker.
Those soldiers and policemen join professions where they know there is a possibility that they might have to kill ( more so for soldiers than for policemen). Couldn't their choice of career be a sign that they have a desire to kill?
In certain individual cases that's probably true, but mostly not.
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