Alison,
> I am entirely unsure how you distinguish morally between murder committed
> for "rational purposes" and "in cold blood" and those committed in
> "passion".
You can argue a would-be assassin out of his murderous intentions, if they
are based on mistaken reasoning and if he is susceptible to reason. You
cannot hope to do the same with a maniac (in fact, you may just have to kill
him in order to prevent him from causing mayhem). Not all would-be assassins
are maniacs; I don't believe Bonhoeffer was, for instance (his argument,
incidentally, is that one cannot hope to justify murder in advance: that it
can only be a "responsible" action if one risks incurring real guilt in
committing it).
There is a difference between rationality and rationalisation. A rational
argument is only truly rational if it isn't a rationalisation of something
irrational. A lot of purportedly rational arguments are in fact
rationalisations of irrational impulses; that doesn't mean that they all
are. It's difficult to tell the difference (and *telling* the difference is
not the same as *knowing* the difference), but to refuse to try is criminal
and stupid. The person who takes his rationalisations for true reasons is as
culpable in this regard as the person who gets by without reasons and simply
and shamelessly does whatever he feels like; but at least the former
recognises, at some level, that bestial irrationality is something to be
ashamed of. Premeditated atrocity is the human way; any dumb brute can do
mindless aggro...
- Dom
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