Why is murder wrong?

[Jacobsrw]

On 13/07/2020 at 5:19 PM, Vagos said:

I was having a discussion on Saturday with a smart, caring, otherwise philanthropist friend that is also on the path to enlightenment and self actualization that believed murder is not inherently wrong provided that the individual being killed does not have any relatives/friends and is killed instantly.

The dialog went somewhat like this:

 

Her: Since death seen from a non-dual perspective can not be regarded as something wrong or bad and that since for something to be wrong or bad it has to produce and be connected with suffering and pain, usual death is only bad for the people left behind that lose their loved one and not for the victim itself. Therefore in the hypothetical scenario that the individual does not have any friends/family left behind there is nothing wrong with killing them.

Me: This action is coming from a problematic consciousness of Egoic perspective, not from an enlightened human being. An enlightened human being does not have any interest in specific future outcomes and constantly surrenders to every present moment whatever that might be. So they do not have any reason to kill someone, there is no interest for them in that.

Her: Nevertheless them/their body performs actions like eating, walking and so on, doesn't that have a purpose? 

Me: Yes, although from their perspective every purpose is game-like and not a serious rigid purpose like other people have. They/their body will still choose a narrative to live in, through making decisions like walking etc (brought up Jung's jokester archetype also) but they would gladly take every future event as happily as the next one.

Her: So why wouldn't that apply in the future event of them painlessly killing a homeless person with no human connections? Basically isn't that as well an act of Love from their perspective? Why would that be a scenario to be avoided? Isn't destroying the whole Earth really an act of unconditional Love as much as it is to save it? 

At this point I had to admit that she was right since I did not see a mistake in her thought process but for some reason I'm still not convinced that this is the case.

Would love to hear @Leo Gura 's opinion on this. Thanks!

Your friends argument is flawed. It assumes wrong and right is predicated on the suffering of others. Suffering does not amount to a law of morality. Suffering is a self created superimposition of the mind. If the mind maintains no position from which to refer itself suffering cannot exists. Since suffering is the preference of one position over another it is just an arbitrary line drawn which self aggrandises ego. Therefore, the morality of right and wrong does not exist. It is created by the mind, for the purposes of mind and is justified using logic of the mind.

Right and wrong are illusions. All that exists is survival. Whether something impinges on your survival or not is completely irrelevant to wether it is right or wrong. Right and wrong are arbitrary notions.

Edited July 18, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[Nak Khid]

1 hour ago, Jacobsrw said:

 

Right and wrong are illusions. All that exists is survival. Whether something impinges on your survival or not is completely irrelevant to weather it is right or wrong. Right and wrong are arbitrary notions.

Right and wrong are not arbitrary they are related to survival.  

To say survival exists is not a precise statement. It would be more accurate to say animals exist and have a survival instinct . 
Since survival is not a thing although the word is a noun.   
That things exist, survival instincts etc,  would exclude those people who claim nothing exists all is illusion. or imaginary. 

Quote

If the mind maintains no position from which to refer itself suffering cannot exists. Since suffering is the preference of one position over another 

If one gets pain in the stomach it is not a matter of preference. Chemical signals are delivered to the brain and  the discomfort produced suffering which is a physical survival mechanism.  The signal indicates to the person something is physically wrong internally and needs to be addressed. If you don't this uncomfortable suffering continues like an alarm bell. 

Prohibition on murder is not an arbitrary notion.  "Wrongs" are considered to be something that puts a person's life or well being at stake. 
So if murder was made legal people would not feel safe and they would have good reason not to.  So it's not an arbitrary notion. 

[Jacobsrw]

5 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

To say survival exists is not a precise statement. It would be more accurate to say animals exist and have a survival instinct . 
Since survival is not a thing although the word is a noun.   
That things exist, survival instincts etc,  would exclude those people who claim nothing exists all is illusion. or imaginary. Right and wrong are not arbitrary they are related to survival.  

If one gets pain in the stomach it is not a matter of preference. Chemical signals are delivered to the brain and  the discomfort produced suffering which is a physical survival mechanism.  The signal indicates to the person something is physically wrong internally and needs to be addressed. If you don't this uncomfortable suffering continues like an alarm bell. 

Prohibition on murder is not an arbitrary notion.  "Wrongs" are considered to be something that puts a person's life or well being at stake. 
So if murder was made legal people would not feel safe and they would have good reason not to.  So it's not an arbitrary notion. 

Right and wrong are arbitrary by the very fact that survival is relative. If you change the desire in which way you wish to live then so too do you change notion of right wrong. Thus, it is arbitrary and not absolute. You are privileging conventional evolution as a means to justify morality. This is a groundless thing to do.

Each being is equipped with survival presets that are conditioned. Had you not been equipped with them and the ideals that they are important, you would not yearn to up hold them. One can at any time change their survival desire by changing their identity. Eg. Monks can train them self to survive with little food and eat irregularly compared to the the ordinary preset. Some can desire death over living and this overrides their instinct to live, ie. suicide bombers. People with DID or personality complexities can detach the conditioned impulse to survive as a conventional human. Just because many of us do not do this, does not mean survival is an absolute. It means we have assumed a best way to live according to our identity.

Survival is relative to what you have identified with and does not measure right wrong. You mind is what creates this distinction and that too is arbitrary.

5 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

If one gets pain in the stomach it is not a matter of preference. Chemical signals are delivered to the brain and  the discomfort produced suffering which is a physical survival mechanism.  The signal indicates to the person something is physically wrong internally and needs to be addressed. If you don't this uncomfortable suffering continues like an alarm bell. 

Prohibition on murder is not an arbitrary notion.  "Wrongs" are considered to be something that puts a person's life or well being at stake. 
So if murder was made legal people would not feel safe and they would have good reason not to.  So it's not an arbitrary notion. 

The idea of ‘instinct’ is it’s self relative. The meanings you apply to them, “chemical signals” , is also arbitrary created by the mind. They do not exist in reality as an absolute but in the mind which self created them. No mind, no distinctions.

People would only feel unsafe because they have been programmed to fear being hurt. The idea of pain is attached to the idea of ones physical safety being impinged on, “the body will be hurt”, again you identified with the body. Safety is relative to the position the mind has made in what is safe and what is not. Again arbitrary. Ask someone from a third world country if walking barefoot or hearing shooting nearby is safe; they are so normalised by it that safety has a a completely different meaning to them. Survival = relative = morality = arbitrary.

Edited July 18, 2020 by Jacobsrw

[Nak Khid]

9 minutes ago, Jacobsrw said:

Right and wrong are arbitrary by the very fact that survival is relative. If you change the desire in which way you wish to live then so too do you change notion of right wrong. Thus, it is arbitrary and not absolute. You are privileging conventional evolution as a means to justify morality. This is a groundless thing to do.

 

Survival is not relative,  without air you will die in minutes 
It's not arbitrary. You can't suddenly decide to stop breathing and  live to the next day. 
Instinct is not relative. It's particular behavior that people are biologically born with. 

Saying "it's relative" does not resolve any philosophical point made, is not a catch all argument 

Edited July 18, 2020 by Nak Khid

[Jacobsrw]

9 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

Survival is not relative,  without air you will die in minutes 
It's not arbitrary. You can't suddenly decide to stop breathing and  live to the next day. 
Instinct is not relative. It's particular behavior that people are biologically born with. 

Saying "it's relative" does not resolve any philosophical point made, is not a catch all argument 

Of course it is, it’s relative to your identity, your make and genetic predispositions. Not all humans survive by the same means.

Just because you would die does not mean it is not relative. To you living is important thus, the idea of dying is problematic. It’s relative simply by the fact that you have believed you are are a human that requires surviving. Survival is not an absolute, it’s one part of the dream.

Survival is important for a finite self but is also relative in the great scheme of reality.

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

Survival is not relative,  without air you will die in minutes 
It's not arbitrary. You can't suddenly decide to stop breathing and  live to the next day. 
Instinct is not relative. It's particular behavior that people are biologically born with. 

Saying "it's relative" does not resolve any philosophical point made, is not a catch all argument 

Life and death, arbitrary and non-arbitrary, instinct and non-instinct; it's all relative. Survival is just a catch-all term for whatever collection of relative constructs you want to perpetuate. Of course survival is relative.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Carl-Richard