Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Why Murder is Wrong?

Why does society consider murder a morally corrupt act? Consider the murder of a man with an appreciation for time and space. Consider that the whole world watched that murder at the same time, that of the act taking place. There are two men standing in a meadow. An argument ensues and one man picks up a rock and holds it over his head. The act of murder is imminent and the other man is seemingly helpless and thus, is in position to defend himself. He is caught off-gaurd and unawares. The entire world turns to this event and watches in incredulity and suspense. Time also plays a role and subjective time seems to be transfixed on this subjective event taking place, thus an illusion is created that seems to justify the action with respect to all time. Consider that everyone throughout the history of time watched such a murder taking place. But alas, we know that mere existence provides a measurement of time or a continuation of that measurement to justify all time which is still irrespective of nature. Thus, when the event takes place and the defenseless man is struck over the head by the rock and is killed, the entire world takes notice as if all time has stopped. But even if the world watched such an event taking place and life continued as it were, the act would be morally reprehensible for the following reasons: 1) The event took place in the first place due to an argument that was predetermined by all time or our sense of the measurement of time but since we know that we all are subject to all time, and even if the act was predetermined by all time, we would consider it wrong since it would not justify taking the other man's life such as a grain of sand falling out of the hourglass. The hourglass can always show time as a measurement but can never replace that measurement with something else. Thus, the grain of sand is theoretically, entombed in time as a measurement. Over time, the sands may rub together and even disintegrate but it would not matter much at all since time is encapsulated by the hourglass. So why should measurement exist in the first place. Thus, we would consider the murder of the man by the rock wrong since it is not justified by all time. It simply cannot come to pass due to our reasoning. Consider the grains of sand, they rub together indefinitely and immeasurably. If they disintegrated, they would disintegrate at exactly the same time so while the possibility exists of the man throwing the rock, it would not justify his own action or even his existence. The victim would die, theoretically, but he is also not dead due to the impossibility of such an event. The grain of sand will always remain despite the friction. 2) Why else is this action wrong and if it happens, why do we punish the murderer at all? The answer is self-evident. There is no punishment but that may be befitting such a social, cosmic event. Should the man be charged with death by hanging? A question that might be worth asking in a law school setting but there would not be any sufficient punishment as dictated by the mere fact of our existence; 3) Could all time dictate such an event taking place that the grain of sand magically disappear without a trace. Even if it did, it would obviously create a time difference in the hourglass itself or the measurement of time would be lessened by such an event due to the lack of the grain of sand. But this is merely a figment of our imagination or fallacious thinking. We are all trapped inside the hourglass with a specificity of time or specified measurement. Like letting the genie out of the bottle. It is simply a figment of our imagination; 4) No man is an island because every man is a grain of sand; 5) When a man is killed, is time in fact shortened by such an event. Not likely due to the impossibility of the event. It just simply never happened so while the possibility exists that it could happen, it is again a misapplication or mismanagement of our concept of time. The concept of time itself seems to impinge on our clarity as a measurement. We cannot be clear when we relate time back in hours, minutes, seconds. It's not a clear conception. We need a better measurement. I will look at this problem more closely when we return to this topic.

No comments: