Re: Re: OT: Murder, morality, etc.

[Tater <tater@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 03:01 PM 9/22/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>>Drain usually means kill.
>
>Um, yeah, but obviously the book was wrong. So? If you're talking
>about the morality of feeding Faith to Angel, we covered this. That's
>not vengeance for emotional satisfaction; that's having the power to
>save one of two lives, and choosing Angel over Faith. No different from
>what any medic does in wartime. Morally, Buffy's on even stronger
>ground than that, since she's, essentially, acting in self-defense on
>Angel's behalf, since Faith's the one who poisoned him to begin with.
>
>And, beyond that, as stated, the book was wrong, the point was moot, the
>beast is frozen...
>
>Dan


Well, really the book was right, at the time it was written. Transfusions
are a relatively new technology and drastically alter the level of blood
loss that is survivable.

I'm with Dan on the draining issue too. Going after Faith was an act of
defense, not an attempeted murder. 

In my worldview, the only legitimate reason to take one life, is to preserve
another. This rule even applies to animals. If it's not a threat to you in
any way, and you're not going to use it to preserve another life by eating
it, don't kill it. Buffy was acting to preserve a life when she went after
Faith. Willow was not acting to preserve a life, but rather to avenge one
when she went after Warren. However, I firmly believe that Warren did
deserve to die. To preserve the people he would have killed in the future.
And he would have killed again, he was totally without remorse for the lives
he had taken. For me the problem wasn't Willow's actions, leaving aside the
torture for the moment, but her intent. She killed for the wrong reason.
What she did was murder, not defense of future victims. Torturing someone
to death is just wrong for any reason. If you're going to kill them, do it
cleanly.

Andrew and Jonothan should never have been targets for death. Without
Warren, they were not a threat to anyone's life. Long prison sentences for
past deeds, yes, execution to keep others safe, no.


tater (Vegetables of the world unite!)