Justifications for murder

Why do we kill? Surely after hundreds of years of brutal massacre and warfare, we have developed enough as humans to sustain a sophisticated society. So why is murder still relevant? I think it is because certain cases of murder can still be justifiable and because of this murder will continue to be committed into the future. Throughout my speech, I will be delving into 2 different justifications, the first being religion and the second being self-defence

It is difficult to talk about murder and religion in the same speech, as they seem to counter each other as one represents the good in life, while the other represents evil. Nevertheless, throughout history, religion and murder have often been intertwined. If we think back to the early crusades – an attempt from the Christians to recapture the holy land from the Muslims, bloodshed and murder was all committed in the name of God. Even today, we have cases of murder with the motivation and justification of religion, in particular, terrorist attacks, these are often justified by the attacker as an act of faith towards their religion. This can be seen quite evidently with the September 11 attacks in America. Religion has acted as a catalyst throughout history for murder, almost every belief system that has existed has had experience with murder through its followers. Followers that can kill relentlessly and use their religion as an excuse for their actions.

Secondly, let’s say you are walking through Lismore park at 11 pm – suddenly a man wearing all black stands in front of you holding a knife. He charges towards you without reason and in a fight or flight response, you grab a broken bottle on the ground, what next?. Now if you were to have killed the assailant would that be inherently bad? He attacked you first and it was merely self-defence. Many cases of self-defence are either seen as an excuse or a justification, but it comes down to the actual case itself. Murder through self-defence is not always justifiable though in saying that, it isn’t always an excuse either. Much like my example, if you were to have killed that man, that would be considered by almost everyone as justifiable given the circumstances. The main point I’m trying to make here is when it comes to self-defence, murder is both justifiable and non-justifiable it is entirely dependant on the event itself.

My perspective is somewhat imbalanced, on the one hand, I believe that murder is one of the worst things you can do as a human being and under no circumstances should you ever attempt to kill another human being. However, in saying that I also believe that certain cases allow for murder to be an only resort, by this I don’t mean that I support taking someone’s life in the means of self-defence, but if it comes down to kill or be killed I’d imagine that most people would agree with me when I say that murder becomes justifiable.

To conclude, the justification for murder is too complex to be fully explored through a speech, even although I have covered two potential justifications