Was killing Bin Laden just?
I have seen many people celebrating the death of Bin Laden, the terrorist who was responsible for the event of 9/11 and the death of hundreds of American citizens, but in reality was killing him morally just? In the news reports it was said that he was given a chance to surrender and that he refused to do so, therefore the fire fight began. But, in other reports we are told that Bin Laden was never given a chance to surrender, the ideas wasn't even in any ones mind, the order were to find him and kill him before he got away. In the first situation we can say that it was just that he was killed because he was given a fair chance to surrender and be brought to justice through trial and refused it. But, in the second situation we cannot justify killing him because He was not given an opportunity to be judged for his actions and be punished in other forms; he was violently killed by our government. I believe that the question of whether or not he was given a chance to surrender has nothing to do with moral justice, only justice in the sense of earthy justice which is based on whether things seem fair or not. I believe that it was morally just to bring Bin Laden in to face a punishment that was equal the pain he caused others and from the American point of view, and from the Aristotelian point of view, it was just to bring him in because he was a terrorist that threatened the well being of the whole. But, no matter which way I look at it I can't back up his killing. I believe that what we did was punish him in order to find revenge. This is more along the lines of what Nietzsche was talking about in his Genealogy of Morals: Bin Laden is in debt to us for what he has done, we are helping to cure our suffering by killing him, we are finding closure, therefore killing him was the morally just thing to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment