The Sixth Commandment is Not About Killing
In my article Hamas Home Protection Services I submitted to my readers a hypothetical moral dilemma: faced with an enemy bent on destroying your family using his own child as a shield, do you fire in self-defense hoping you only kill the thug or do you simply let him kill you and your family to avoid inadvertently killing his child?
K.Thwaite, a reader from the UK, left this response at the poll results site:
When Wittgenstein, who was Jewish, was a soldier in the First Tragic World War he said if he was ever on the frontline he would simply allow himself to be killed. As things turned out he was usually a night watchman and never was fighting.
I know he was a most exceptional person but sometimes the commandment not to kill means more to a person than their life. However having read research on this topic,we are apparently programmed to care only for our own families so in your intriguingly chosen cases I believe most of us think we would shoot despite the fact it might kill the child... now whether we would actually do it is a separate issue.
I recall in the London riots of 2011 a friend of mine in Jerusalem said he would shoot the rioters. Our police are not armed... so being exposed to war and conflict may make one more likely to shoot.
This reminds me of classes on ethics at school where we were told that we must have as many children as possible and not be greedy for washing machines and other frivolities. In real life it's not usually so clear cut. Nevertheless we all probably would be tempted to kill if our children were threatened.
I am unsure why you need the dirty Arab jokes. It lowers you in my view. I know we like a laugh but sometimes it's just not right.
I would like to address each point raised in reader Thwaite's comment (I take the issues out of order):
- ... the commandment not to kill ...
There is no such commandment - the Sixth Commandment is not "Thou shalt not kill," which is a mistranslation, the actual commandment is "Thou shalt not murder." The prohibition is against unlawful killing; the Hebrew Bible certainly allows for justified killing in the context of warfare, capital punishment, and self-defense [Wikipedia].
- Wittgenstein, who was Jewish, if he were ever on the frontline would simply allow himself to be killed.
You must be thinking of someone else. Wittgenstein volunteered to fight during WWI even though he could have gotten a medical exemption and was even decorated for bravery. But let's assume for the moment that some person actually said this. Allowing yourself to be killed during warfare is morally wrong and abysmally evil for a number of reasons.
- Your suicide may endanger the rest of your outfit resulting in the loss of many lives.
- Your suicide may affect the entire battle resulting in the loss of thousands of lives.
- Your suicide may affect the entire war resulting in the enslavement and decimation of millions of your countrymen.
That is, pacifism causes more deaths than soldiering. John Stuart Mill nailed it with this quote: "Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."
There is no doubt in any intelligent person's mind, that the pacifists in Europe and America during the 1930s allowed Hitler to arm Germany which directly led to the deaths of tens of millions of poor souls.
- [not killing] means more to a person than their life.
According to Jewish Law a person who believes himself moral by not killing to save a life is a pious fool and is not simply a danger to his community or village or even his country, but to the whole world.
- we all probably would be tempted to kill if our children were threatened
For any decent human being, if one's children are threatened with death it is more than a temptation to kill that should fill one's heart, it should be duty - it should be a moral imperative to kill.
- unsure why you need the dirty Arab jokes
They are not Arab jokes, they are Muslims jokes. People who do not mock Muslims encourage their proliferation. People should be ashamed to be Muslims. For a full explanation see question #15 in my FAQ.
