Genocide question.

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2006-10-06 05:17pm

Yep, an ethical question for the ages. Why is genocide wrong? What is your opinion?

Now before we begin lets set some rules...

1. None of this "it just is" crap, I want opinions.
2. No: "If you have to ask why..." garbage. See above.
3. Don't question why I asked, I'm curious as to other's ideas.
4. No flaming please, especially since I'm not asking why it's right.
5. I'm not a hatemongering bigot. I've wanted to see a discussion made by people with today's attitudes and education.
6. NO TROLLING. Intelligent discussion please.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2006-10-06 05:31pm

Well, it seems wrong because it involves killing a great many people who don't want to die, and usually, killing people who don't want to die, unless it is to save more people who also don't want to die, is wrong.

When you kill someone, you thwart his established preferences or desires for the future, his life goals he's formulated in addition to violating one of his key welfare interests--his desire for continued life.

Genocide often does that on a mass scale.

SeeingRed · Post by **SeeingRed** » 2006-10-06 05:54pm

Well if we accept survival of the species as a desirable thing for all (or at least most) individual members of the species, then genocide is wrong from a biological perspective because 1) it reduces the species population, which if done on a large enough scale could affect viability and 2) perhaps more importantly, it could destroy entire niches of a population, which could detract from general variation/mutational advantage in the species gene pool.

I personally think it's wrong for ethical reasons as well, which derive from the items listed above (i.e., it's almost a universal behaviour in all species to not kill, and even protect, other members of the same species, so therefore it's wrong to kill other human beings either singly or en masse)

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-10-06 07:01pm

As others have said, genocide is wrong because it is murder, on a massive scale. Murder completely and irrevocably inhibits the thinking and action of another intellegent being, as well as depriving others of the emotional and material benefits that their continued existance might yield. If such an act is undertaken without extremely good cause (a case by case matter in the utmost sense), it is offensive and reprehensible in one of the most potent ways imaginable, even down to a purely biological level (depriving the human species of genetic diversity).

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-06 07:11pm

When you wipe out an entire race or nationality, you remove any utility that this race or nationality/culture could have possibly had, pretty much irreversibly. That's in addition to the standard prohibitions against murder which are found in every ethical system of thought.

The only case one could make for genocide is if the race in question is so irredeemably destructive (enough to exceed any possible utility they could have to the human race) and cannot be affected any other way.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2006-10-06 09:13pm

From a moral point, because it's numerous killing, and killing is irreversible. It erases the life possibility for a great many people.

From a biological viewpoint, because genocide is counterproductive to biological diversity and is essentially members of species trespassing the species allegiance creating man-made extinction. Such members will be In guess sooner or later inevitably persecuted by fellow humans for the ensuring of survival of the human race, even if the killing was minor and did not constitute a complete genocide.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-10-06 10:09pm

Unless the group wiped out were all diseased in some unfixable and extremely destructive manner, be it mentally or physically, you're being a total dick for the usual reasons that killing babies, children and innocent civilians is wrong.

Genocide might be permissable if it was a mercy killing, i.e. the entire race or ethnicity you were wiping out were wracked with a horrible disease that made life not worth living.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-06 10:19pm

One thing to keep in mind is that the UN does not require the complete extermination of a race to classify it as "genocide". Any attempt at mass slaughter of an ethnic subgroup qualifies as genocide, even if the group's definition is cultural rather than genetic. So if there's a colony of Hare Krishnas somewhere in Texas and the Texans decide to wipe them out, it's still considered "genocide" even though they aren't really a race.

FSTargetDrone · Post by **FSTargetDrone** » 2006-10-06 11:58pm

As an aside, if you want to learn about some of the various genocides in the past century, I recommend A Problem from Hell.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2006-10-07 12:06am

Noble Ire wrote:As others have said, genocide is wrong because it is murder, on a massive scale. Murder completely and irrevocably inhibits the thinking and action of another intellegent being, as well as depriving others of the emotional and material benefits that their continued existance might yield. If such an act is undertaken without extremely good cause (a case by case matter in the utmost sense), it is offensive and reprehensible in one of the most potent ways imaginable, even down to a purely biological level (depriving the human species of genetic diversity).

In fact you might say that conventional murder is on a 'person vs person' level (even if there's more than one person), whereas genocide applies all that immorality on a 'culture vs culture' level. So this difference is what warrants a convenient term for 'mass killing of a cultural group'.

This is somewhat like 'war' generally just meaning brawling on a 'nation vs nation' level, where a civil war is 'half-a-nation vs half-a-nation'. Of course this is ignoring stuff like 'War on Terror/Drugs', 'gang wars', etc.

Actually, could gang wars be considered attempted genocide?

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2006-10-07 12:16am

Genocide is by definition unjust because by nature it deliberately kills many people who do not need and do not deserve death. Children being the obvious example.

Or to put it another way, genocide is wrong because all possible targets are human, and no human ethnic or national group is wholly and innately evil or insane. If we were talking about some sci-fi/fantasy scenario with a race of genetically/cybernetically engineered killers, orcs or Borg for example, you might have an argument. In the real, modern world, Arabs are not all evil, Jews are not all evil, Soviet Russians were not all evil; no group that people are just born into is all evil, any more than any is all good.

Wyrm · Post by **Wyrm** » 2006-10-07 12:49am

Genocide is wrong because it's a mass bigotry-motivated murder. Your bigotry against a particular subgroup, dispite what bigots tell you, is your problem, not the subgroup's. Even if the hate festering within you because of this bigotry causes you harm, that harm is not the fault of any individual of subgroup -- it's yours. To kill someone of a subgroup simply because of your hate for this subgroup, then you have committed murder -- you have inflicted one of the greatest harms on someone who has not caused you harm, or in any objective way threatening to do so.

Furthermore, we know through history bigotry against a particular subgroup can induce a pack mentality (re: black lynchings in the South). Bigotry is poison, and therefore much more dangerous than an average personal grudge. It therefore deserves special attention when it crops up -- hence hate-crime laws.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2006-10-08 10:40pm

Can I cut to the chase and ask what you mean by asking what amounts to a relatively obvious question?

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-10-09 10:09am

Genocide is intrinsically wrong, since it involves wiping out hundreds or thousands to millions of people for the sake of paranoia, revenge and greed. I find it amusing that the Europeans who colonised the Americas are not seen to be as bad as the Nazis when both peoples wanted to kill or enslave whole continents of people to achieve their objectives. But I guess the Nazis were seen as worse, since they failed while the European colonists succeeded.

Sadly genocide is seen as unjustifiable if it is seen as impractical and indirectly makes a county lose a war (like in the Third Reich's case) but is seen as a necessary evil with the founding of the modern nations in the Americas.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-10-09 11:28am

Hey, Muffin, there's really nothing wrong with genocide. Can we genocide you?

No? Cause you don't like genociding because it ain't fun to be genocided? Well, there's your reason.

lazerus · Post by **lazerus** » 2006-10-09 05:26pm

Genocide is mass murder. Murder is murder on a large scale. So the question really boils down to what the reasons for genocide are and the question "Is murder for those reasons morally acceptable?".

So there's not really enough in the OP to answer.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-10-10 12:24am

Big Orange wrote:Genocide is intrinsically wrong, since it involves wiping out hundreds or thousands to millions of people for the sake of paranoia, revenge and greed.

What if it's for survival?
The only reason we exist as a species is due to our wiping out The Neanderthals.

True, our thousands (If you cant non-human spexies) of Genocidal actions since have in many cases been due to greed or overpopulation/over hunting (Chasing herds of animals off cliffs into mass graveyards), and these I don't see as acceptable, but can it be faulted when humanity is predilected to do so due to our lack of long term "Insight" as to consequences in the future and evolving to overhunt- then move to the next breadbowl.

In addition how can you say something is paranoia if you can't check that it exists in future? Perhaps the dodo could have been carried with the ship-travellers and have carried a new black plague.
[/Devils Advocate]

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-10 12:34am

Big Orange wrote:Genocide is intrinsically wrong, since it involves wiping out hundreds or thousands to millions of people for the sake of paranoia, revenge and greed.

I hope you realize that you basically just said that genocide is wrong because it is genocide.

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2006-10-10 04:59am

DEATH wrote:
Big Orange wrote:Genocide is intrinsically wrong, since it involves wiping out hundreds or thousands to millions of people for the sake of paranoia, revenge and greed.
What if it's for survival?
The only reason we exist as a species is due to our wiping out The Neanderthals.

What ? What makes you think they were a threat to us ?

DEATH wrote:True, our thousands (If you cant non-human spexies) of Genocidal actions since have in many cases been due to greed or overpopulation/over hunting (Chasing herds of animals off cliffs into mass graveyards),

Killing animals isn't genocide.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-10-10 08:33am

Darth Wong wrote:
Big Orange wrote:Genocide is intrinsically wrong, since it involves wiping out hundreds or thousands to millions of people for the sake of paranoia, revenge and greed.
I hope you realize that you basically just said that genocide is wrong because it is genocide.

Hmmm, that's just what I said, since why kill millions of innocent people? Some of us keep saying that humans are natural monsters, yet most people have an inbuilt instinct not to kill other people and so genocide is intrinsically wrong.

Lord of the Abyss wrote: Killing animals isn't genocide.

What about mass extinction, inflicted directly and indirectly by human activity?

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2006-10-10 09:58am

Ethically it is fairly easy to establish that socieities where murder is allowed do not flourish and where it is prohibited. Murder is detrimental to societies. Genocide is one society destroying another, or a subset of a society destroying another subset. It will always be worse for it afterwards. Genocide is murder on a large scale not simply an act of war, because it requires systematic, discriminatory killing, which is the definition of murder. At a personal level it is unethical to participate. At a societal level it is unethical to undergo such an endeavour.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-10-14 11:20am

Lord of the Abyss wrote:
DEATH wrote:
Big Orange wrote:Genocide is intrinsically wrong, since it involves wiping out hundreds or thousands to millions of people for the sake of paranoia, revenge and greed.
What if it's for survival?
The only reason we exist as a species is due to our wiping out The Neanderthals.
What ? What makes you think they were a threat to us ?

You're right in that we might have co-existed if it hadn't been for the way we're hardwired (Kill the competitors, and co-existence on identical food-pools is a recipe for one group to absorb or destroy the other, the 2 species can't exist separately).
My main point is that Genocide does exist in nature without society (Human society to be exact), though that doesn't make it right.

DEATH wrote:True, our thousands (If you cant non-human spexies) of Genocidal actions since have in many cases been due to greed or overpopulation/over hunting (Chasing herds of animals off cliffs into mass graveyards),
Killing animals isn't genocide.

My mistake, I was thinking of the deliberate and systematic extermination of a group, species, instead of the accurate definition of:

the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national or racial group

link

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2006-10-14 04:24pm

Big Orange wrote:
Lord of the Abyss wrote: Killing animals isn't genocide.
What about mass extinction, inflicted directly and indirectly by human activity?

Stupid and bad, certainly, but it's not genocide.