Quote:
Originally Posted by PKFFW
So having hopefully cleared that up, can you think of any reason why someone murdering you for absolutely no reason whatsoever would not be considered a "wrong" act?
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That was hardly my point. My point is that the fact that I evaluate a situation in some way or other does not mean automatically that you need see it the same way. Like I hinted at, unless there is uncontroversial proof, "murder" is just the way you describe the situation, because
you don't appreciate it, whereas the perp might just see it as "his right to respond primally when he finds out his wife cheated on him".
Sure, he might be less right than you to condemn him, but when you look at Patricia's lifeboat example, the case becomes less clear.
That is, you choose to kill either one or 5 someones, and you choose to save the lives of either the one, or 5. However, "intending to bring about someone's death" is pretty close to murder 1; the fact that you save a few others might help your case, but that isn't to say that you might not have thought "hey, I dislike fat people, and that one person is fat, whereas the others are lean" (or vice versa), thus making it "easier" for you to choose to make sure the one guy dies, whereas when that 1 guy was a neurosurgeon, and those 5 were hoboes, you might have chosen differently.. "Murder" is not straightforward, and whether you're exonerated or not will depend heavily on the circumstances. If you disliked the single person, and you tell the jury about that, you might still be (rightly) convicted for that.
Similarly with "piracy"/"file copying" or "file sharing". The names reflect how you see the thing. I, for instance, could care less about authors like Stephen King or Rowling, and my depriving them of a buck or two, either by not reading their output, (as I do) or by downloading an unauthorized copy (like someone else might), whereas in the case of academic literature, or a good Dostoevsky translation, I might care, because I think it has added value, and is not just interchangeable, cursory-read-at-most, trash.
You might feel differently, either because of the fact that I have a take on piracy that says that in some cases I find it rather less excusable than in others, or because you really, really like rowling and think she should become more of a billionaire out of your pocket; both responses are fine, but again, they're your take on the matter, not "your take+"the absolute moral truth"".