Ask Lemmy

Of we're talking points, then you're rolling the dice. If they've already murdered, you're not preventing those, so you've done no good. If they're going to murder at least two more people, you should net out positive, by preventing those murders. But you can't know they'll murder more people; maybe their murderin' days are over, and they've given it up; maybe they'll get hit by a bus before they can kill anyone else; maybe they'll get caught and imprisoned before they can kill again. If you murder them, but they'd never have killed again anyway, you're pretty well net negative.

I've only watched through season 3, so if there are any other spoilers below, they're purely accidental.

So: while The Good Place is somewhat ambiguous about the question of Doing the Wrong Thing for the Right Reason, I think in balance it'd weigh against you. You should have tried other things first - like tipping off the police. If all you're trying to do is get into the Good Place, your best bet is to try and reform thre person. Even if they killed you - maybe especially if they killed you - self-sacrifice in a good cause is clearly a lot of points.

"Thou shalt not kill" is a pretty straightforward commandment. No qualifiers, no exceptions. No "go ahead and kill if you believe you're justified".

Per the New testament so long as you accept Jesus afterward and repent you should be fine though.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.

Murder as punishment? Bad.

Killing someone who has killed before, who is known to commit more murders, to prevent them from committing more murders? Generally bad, too, unless the system is totally broken.

Kill 1 person its a tragedy, Kill 10000 its a statistic.

If you murder a murderer, you don't reduce the total number of murderers. You have to murder more than one, but then you're a serial killer, which is arguably worse. If you're a serial killer who only kills serial killers, then you are starting to maximize the offset. But once you fuck up and get close to being caught, so your serial killer girlfriend blows up Doakes to keep your secret safe and you pin all your murders on him, you've gone too far.

you get eight seasons and three spin-offs.

If you murder a murderer,
then you are a murderer murderer.

A murderer murderer is
still a murderer.

This was actually a huge problem in medieval times. The people back then adhered to the existence of the death penalty, but they also didn't see it as anything aside from a kind of state sanctioned murder rather than how you'd expect many people to see execution. Executioners were thus highly stigmatized, to the point where we have that stereotype today of medieval executioners having that black veil over their heads to conceal their identity, and out of necessity, the role of executioner was inherited like that of a monarch rather than acquired, since often nobody would've otherwise sought the job. Executioners were considered so much of an outcast and felt so little incentive to be executioners that it was medieval law that they would get a lifetime supply of free food in order to reduce the burden of the job. They were considered a hesitant necessary "evil" that put a cap on other "evils", like adultery (oh the horror). Or so they say.

Times have evolved though, and I go by a different school of thought (schools of thought where it's much more difficult to get to the bad place and stay there if your intentions are good). I cannot help you out of legal issues should something happen, but I have faith that doing what you consider to be a favor won't be eternally punished.

You would get more points if you manage to capture them and get them a fair trial that allows society to reflect on the issues that made them the way they are and maybe reduce the chance that more will appear in the future.

If you only kill one murderer the number of murderers stays the same, if you kill 20...

So you're only a net positive if you murder more than 1 murderer. Because if you murder a murderer then you become a murderer and we're net 0 on murderers. But the more murderers you murder, the more negative that murder number becomes.

You know they say "2 wrongs don't make a right" -- yes -- but maybe a dozen wrongs could.

Ah the old Schrodingers Dexter X The Good Place Crossover Episode Gambit, a decent argument. However I think it can be disproven through the axioms suggested through Zenos Jurrasic Park III X Terminator Clause.

If you murder someone who's about to commit murder, wouldn't it be safe to say you just save a life?

Murdering murderers makes one a murderer. If one is going to ignore any context and mitigating factors, no, murdering murderers does not result in net good.

E.g., people who have killed in self defense have been tagged as murderers. Murdering them is not at all a good thing (in my moral framework, at least).

E.g. #2, murdering one person for Reasons does not necessarily mean a murderer is going to murder again. So murdering them adds to the overall murder tally without necessarily preventing any additional murders.

There has to be some element of preventing future murders, not just retribution of past murders, for this to even be a debate, IMO. And then there's the bar of simply locking them up being insufficient to prevent them murdering in the future.

After Cain killed Abel god said not to kill Cain

Isn't the whole point of The Good Place that it's not really possible to boil things down to "good" or "bad"? It'd get you closer to The Bad Place but that doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad thing to do.

Does that include other people who only murder murderers? And yourself?

no? because not every situation is black and white. I can't just kill someone because they killed another human being. they could have a lot of reasons for killing someone, killing them doesn't help anything.

Overall bad, but it's complicated.

Two bads do not make a right.

But morality is complex and can't be reduced to equations. (I see you, Utilitarians and latter day Effective Altruists.)

You can find cases where the lesser of two evils is the right path, but that also doesn't mean you're more on the path to heaven. After all, you can be damned if you do as well as don't.

Are you asking for an individual opinion or a philosophical or religious answer?

And if somebody kills you?