This is more of a question really than anything else. But I'm wondering others' thoughts on this. Right after the wife kills the guy(s), she leaves and is sitting there with tears in her eyes. She then thinks about what she did and the book says,
"...she knew that if it were necessary, she would kill again, and when is it necessary to kill, she asked herself...
So my question/comment here is when is it ok to kill? In the courts there's the whole insanity plea but that's almost always a bunch of bullcrap just to get out of real prison. But the doctor's wife feels terrible and is physically drained after having killed a man that was raping her. Does everyone feel like that after they have killed someone? even if it was in self-defense? I would like to think that she would feel righteous after having killed and hurt these men. I think that i would. But i'm asking, when is it ok to kill?
7 comments:
I think that most people feel remorse after killing someone; no matter how necessary the killing was, because the extinguishing of a human life is a large matter. Even if you know that you have to kill someone, even that it is just and necessary to do so; it is a shock to realize that you have someone’s blood on your hands. No one wants to think of themselves as a murderer. That is what the doctor’s wife seems most ashamed of, that she could be capable of taking a human life. In those cases, it does not matter how terrible the person seems to be, only rare (usually deemed sociopathic) people can kill completely without remorse.
It’s hard for me to sit here in my safe environment and try to imagine when it is alright to kill. I hope I never find myself in such a situation. In cases where person cannot be otherwise contained and is causing great harm to the people around them, than maybe killing is the only way. The case in blindness is an extreme example. The thugs caused the people around them to starve to death and then ruthlessly and systematically raped the women. Not many people would argue that the killing of their leader was unjustified. Even still, the deliberate taking a human life is a huge weight to have on most people, because every human life in unique and has its own value, even at its most hideous.
When looking at a question like "Is it ok to kill another human being?", a couple of points come to mind.
First is the large scale of ideologies and personalities in our human society. This point becomes relevant when examining the goals of these ideas. I think it can be said that most of these ideologies strive to preserve "human life" in some way. The actual condoning of a killing seems to occur when a conflict of ideas or interests occur (Murder gets the death penalty for threatening the public, War with another State or country for conflicts in various policies, killing an individual for the sake of survival of another group, etc.). Then looking at Meagan's point of how "No one wants to think of themselves as a murderer.", the question "How can people kill one another?" comes to mind. We have seen acts of dehumanization (Stereotypes, hazing, and torture)used in War and hate crimes, so maybe its not always about killing people. Maybe as long as the "person" is not really a "person", then killing them is accepted. Sometimes killing another person is not even seen as a killing the person at all, but rather helping them on a journey into the after-life. Various cults and religions have used this kind of reasoning to explain "killing" themselves or others. There have even been parents who have murdered their children as an act of protection in the after-life. Basically, one way to justify "killing people" would be to not really have the situation be a "killing people" situation.
We then come to the Doctor's Wife's case: Having to save her group from dieing by killing the rouge leader. Her group was being threatened by these "rouges", so a choice had to be made: "Us, or them". From a survival angle, we all seem to agree that her actions seemed justified, but her reaction of being "shaken" might be exactly what Meagan said, "the extinguishing of a human life". Morally, murder may not be justified ever. That's all I got.
Off the top of my head, I think the times it's OK to kill humans are in self-defense or defense of other innocents, times of war (kind of tied to the first one), and capital punishment. I believe the woman in Blindness was right to kill the man raping her. I believe she would have also been justified in killing the other men participating. They had lost all regard for human dignity and were using the women as means to an end. The means was potentially deadly, thus the women were right to assert their rights. Had it continued in that instance and in the future, all the women would have most certainly died. Even if they wouldn't have, I believe we have the right to defend ourselves lethally from such damaging crimes. In this type of debate, people often quote the Bible as saying "Thou shalt not kill." It doesn't actually say this; some of our English translations do. The correct word is murder.
I think that no matter how much a person is harming another or how justified self-defense murder is, a person will never be able to not feel any remorse. Yes, there are some who do not but in my opinion if you are a true human-being, you will feel bad for murdering someone no matter what they have done to you. It is in human nature to try to spare one's life. Personally, I don't think it is ever ok to murder someone unless it is absolutely the only thing a person can do to spare their life or anothers. These are just my opinions on the questions you asked though.
While I agree that the rape of the women was extremely immoral, I think that Saramago was correct in saying that it wasn’t unexpected or unusual. If you look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the very basic of physiological needs, which lie at the base of the pyramid, include food, shelter, oxygen, water, constant body temperature, to be active, to sleep, to get rid of wastes, to avoid pain, and to have sex. Once all these other needs were satisfied, it is only natural for them to seek sexual fulfillment. While the means which they used to get it are completely unacceptable by society, they were fulfilling their basic needs. I think the greater tragedy is that the blind in the hospital were reduced to seeking their very basic physiological needs, when human civilization usually provides all of these, and people spend more time searching for the higher levels such as self actualization and self worth.
However, in light of this, killing is not one of human’s basic needs according to Maslow. Killing did not allow the people to better acquire any of these needs. So therefore, according to this logic, the doctor’s wife is not justified in her act. While higher needs, such as self-dignity, could be arguably the motives of the doctor’s wife, she does not even have the basic need of food while she is worrying about attaining her dignity and that of the other women. When she snuck into the room of the rogues, it would have made more sense for her to steal food for her ward and the others rather than worry about extracting revenge.
Jessica: Avoiding pain was one of the basic needs according to Maslow. The rapes were very, very physically and emotionally painful, even if you ignore every other aspect of it. The only way the doctor's wife could think of to avoid this pain (for herself and the other women) was to get rid of its source. Therefore, for the basic needs of all the women to be met, the doctor's wife needed to kill the leader of the rogues.
This is a rather difficult and complicated question to answer because everyone has their own views on when it is ok or moral to kill another human being. I believe that self defense and protecting another person is the only time it is ok to kill someone because your life and/or the lives around you are at stake. Even then you don’t want to end that person’s life unless you feel certain in doing so will protect yours. You also asked if everyone feels remorse after they kill someone. I believe that everyone feels some remorse or sadness because you had to end a person’s life, even though they tried to take yours or a loved ones.
Post a Comment