Thread

1. comrade1234 · 1790835654 · focus · HN ↗

   The state shouldn't be able to take your life outside of war. I've had this strict belief since junior high, maybe because I was raised catholic. I don't understand how anyone can see otherwise. Do you want your neighbors to be able to kill you?

   1. JuniperMesos · 1790837662 · focus · HN ↗

      I don't know why you make an exception for war but not the judicial death penalty.

      1. pfannkuchen · 1790837941 · focus · HN ↗

         Yeah most death penalty cases are massively more justified than most modern wars, especially from the perspective of the individuals involved.

         1. godwinson__4-8 · 1790838863 · focus · HN ↗

            How so?

            Could you defend your claim if the exception for war was confined to non surrendering enemy combatants? After all, I did not take the comment on "except war" to envisage the slaughter of civilians or execution of POWs.

            1. pfannkuchen · 1790839748 · focus · HN ↗

               I mean if it was a just war I don’t disagree, but people on both sides of every modern war I can think of deserved to die a lot less than people who commit whatever sort of crime still lands you on death row these days (with the possible exception of the actual leadership in a small number of those wars but still not many).

               1. godwinson__4-8 · 1790840425 · focus · HN ↗

                  I think it is fair to assume they meant a just war. At least, that would have been my starting assumption. This concept also has a rich literature in Catholic history, fwiw. The question of whether most modern war qualifies as just feels like a separate question that is out of scope for the present discussion, though I don't disagree with you.

                  How nice to see that in truth, we have the three of us all found ourselves - at least at a high level - in agreement.

                  1. pfannkuchen · 1790877823 · focus · HN ↗

                     So if most modern wars were just and a handful weren’t I would think it’s unfair to focus on the minority case. But it’s the other way around and it’s not even close.

                     Though, I am coming from a perspective rooted in the theory of human evolution, where for me warfare is just if the men fighting instinctively register that it’s just based on the true situation (the instinct which propaganda aims to stir up artificially with lies), and this precludes basically all top down state directed offensive warfare from being just. If there was a draft or if the men were not aware of the real reasons for the war, it isn’t a just war. That covers everything America was involved in for at least 100 years. Something like the Poles defending themselves against Germany could be considered just, though as far as I can tell that war started due to the Polish government stubbornly acting against the interests of its own people (land bridge and Danzig demands weren’t that unreasonable, not worth sacrificing your own people over), and if the government is acting in an unjust way towards the interests of its own people then the reaction of others becomes sort of a fruit of the poison tree situation (defense is just in isolation, but the actions of the Polish state in general were not IMO).

                     I don’t really care what the Catholics think or thought, they were operating from a pre-Darwinian understanding of human nature which is largely incorrect.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.