It’s not the gotcha you think it is. Murder is defined as the intentional killing of an innocent person, and the death penalty and war don’t don’t intentionally involve innocent people.
It’d be like saying “oh, you oppose murder? What about self defence???”
Murder is not defined as the intentional killing of an innocent person, by either Merriam Webster, Wikipedia, American Heritage Dictionary, or Dictionary.com
Not one definition anywhere has the word “innocent” in it.
It is defined in one place as “The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.” How we define “justification” is important. I would call most war, “recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.”
Other places has it as “unlawful or unjustified killing of a person.”
Is it really “most war,” or is it one half of most wars?
But sure, that’s a fine definition. I think if you don’t include “justified” the definition is clearly incomplete - and I don’t think anyone who thinks about it would disagree, because it would contradict common usage so thoroughly.
So now you get to argue that killing foetuses is justified. Good luck with that, I’m sure the definitional exercise will have convinced whomever you were talking to :/
Death penalty is usually opposed because the person might be innocent. Just the ‘Don’t Talk to the Police’ clip cites two different cases where policemen talked mentally ill people into incriminating themselves, which people were later exonerated by DNA evidence.
Yeah, but it’s not the reason Catholics and other Christians are supposed to oppose it. It’s unnecessary killing, regardless of guilt. In defensive war it’s one thing to kill, but a person you can stop from killing anyone? You’re supposed to keep them in prison and try to help them change
It’s not the gotcha you think it is. Murder is defined as the intentional killing of an innocent person, and the death penalty and war don’t don’t intentionally involve innocent people.
It’d be like saying “oh, you oppose murder? What about self defence???”
Murder is not defined as the intentional killing of an innocent person, by either Merriam Webster, Wikipedia, American Heritage Dictionary, or Dictionary.com
Not one definition anywhere has the word “innocent” in it.
It is defined in one place as “The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.” How we define “justification” is important. I would call most war, “recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.”
Other places has it as “unlawful or unjustified killing of a person.”
Is it really “most war,” or is it one half of most wars?
But sure, that’s a fine definition. I think if you don’t include “justified” the definition is clearly incomplete - and I don’t think anyone who thinks about it would disagree, because it would contradict common usage so thoroughly.
So now you get to argue that killing foetuses is justified. Good luck with that, I’m sure the definitional exercise will have convinced whomever you were talking to :/
Death penalty is usually opposed because the person might be innocent. Just the ‘Don’t Talk to the Police’ clip cites two different cases where policemen talked mentally ill people into incriminating themselves, which people were later exonerated by DNA evidence.
Yeah, but it’s not the reason Catholics and other Christians are supposed to oppose it. It’s unnecessary killing, regardless of guilt. In defensive war it’s one thing to kill, but a person you can stop from killing anyone? You’re supposed to keep them in prison and try to help them change
It’s a good reason to oppose the death penalty, but I don’t think it makes it murder at all.
You just said above that it is murder.