Not if it prevents far more murders. In such a case, refusing to pull the trigger is murder.
Not if it prevents far more murders. In such a case, refusing to pull the trigger is murder.
No, refusing to kill an innocent person is not murder. If you are a man of faith, I tell you God has forbidden it. If you are a man who feels responsible for the future, I tell you this is not just the top of a slippery slope: it is the entrance ramp to a logical 4-lane superhighway of slaughter.
This kind of consequentialism can't be supported: because once you say "I may, without moral blame, deliberately kill an innocent person if I have a sufficiently good reason," then you have no moral argument against any deliberate shedding of innocent blood; all you have is a calculus about consequences which neither of you can control.
The calculus of consequences is impossible. Can I murder 3 to save three? Can I kill a homely twin to give his kidneys to his handsome brother? How about if I murder 4 to save three, if the 4 were relatively worthless? How about if I kill a bunch of Spanish people on commuter trains on the gamble that it might or might not get Spanish troops out of Iraq and save an equal or greater number?
Maybe -- a jihadist who agrees with you might say ---once the whole world submits to Islam, there will be no more war, no more crime; and thus any number of 9/11's is justified if it brings the West into submission.
Virtually all killing, private and public, legal and criminal, piecemeal and mass-murder variety, is done by somebody who thought he had a sufficiently good reason.
This isn't a moral code. It's moral chaos. At the end of all calculations, I think it would cost the human race more grief than we can possibly imagine.