Why do people kill each other?

[Alias]

Alright, no need to explain my earlier post any further. I think I understand your stand. That's just the way it is.
No offence to people who think life is a gift but it's such a cruel and unworthy experience.

That's [not just] the way it is, yes.
What you asked originally was: why do people kill other people? How do they reach the decision to do so?
Then you narrowed it down, ignoring the most powerful and prolific occasion of human-human killing, to your idea of irrational homicide, bringing in a whole lot of unexamined assumptions about the thought-process you initially wanted to study.
If you start at the end, you're so far from why and how that there can be no coherent answer.
The why begins with: It's natural. We evolved over a hundred million years, killing for sustenance and in self-defense, for territory and resources.
Societies - not only human ones, all social animals - create rules and protocols to regulate the use of violence, especially of deadly force, within their own communities. They generally outlaw interpersonal violence between citizens, but do not outlaw its use against prey, chattels, enemies, rivals and threats.

When you bring that long, long history of violence as a solution to problems, you can see why people still apply the same logic in private life, even when it's against the rules. How often the rules are broken is one indication of how well the society functions.

[Pages]

Alright, no need to explain my earlier post any further. I think I understand your stand. That's just the way it is.
No offence to people who think life is a gift but it's such a cruel and unworthy experience.

That's [not just] the way it is, yes.
What you asked originally was: why do people kill other people? How do they reach the decision to do so?
Then you narrowed it down, ignoring the most powerful and prolific occasion of human-human killing, to your idea of irrational homicide, bringing in a whole lot of unexamined assumptions about the thought-process you initially wanted to study.

Well, just because you say they are assumptions doesn't make them remotely so. Everything has a purpose. Just because you don't know why you possess the ability to reason doesn't eliminate the possibility that we reason for a purpose.
How did I ignore "the most powerful..." Have you suggested ANY reason that I haven't already covered?

If you start at the end, you're so far from why and how that there can be no coherent answer.
The why begins with: It's natural. We evolved over a hundred million years, killing for sustenance and in self-defense, for territory and resources.
Societies - not only human ones, all social animals - create rules and protocols to regulate the use of violence, especially of deadly force, within their own communities. They generally outlaw interpersonal violence between citizens, but do not outlaw its use against prey, chattels, enemies, rivals and threats.

When you bring that long, long history of violence as a solution to problems, you can see why people still apply the same logic in private life, even when it's against the rules. How often the rules are broken is one indication of how well the society functions.

No, I do not see why people should apply the same logic for themselves because they're not even the same scenario. A rational being would know that. Which is why I asked why some people deem it appropriate to take someone else's life. And I suggested 3 reasons and you think the last one makes more sense to you and I said okay. You didn't need to write all that because it circles round to the same question you've already answered 3 posts ago

[Alias]

I do wish religious posters wouldn't lie in their opening posts!

[LuckyR]

There are three main ways that individuals reconcile murder with their moral standard: firstly and most importantly sociopaths have no moral standard, so to them murder is just another tool in the toolbox to solve problems. At 2% of the population that is 150 million potential murderers worldwide.

Secondly and rarely, is the crime of passion where there is little to no consideration of the moral standard due to undue emotional upheaval. IMO this is extremely rare and many if not most such cases are legal strategies rather than true incidents.

Lastly and more what the OP is driving at is folks who make a decision to commit murder based on a moral calculation where perhaps in this one case given the circumstances it is ok to commit murder, this of course would be the definition of murder in the first degree.

So, it would be easier to ascert that murders are either sociopaths or people instinctively allowing their undilluted natural brain function to have its way. I think it's also sociopathic or retardation to refuse to use the brain to do what it can, especially if it negatively affects somebody else. Of course negative and positive would mean something different to the person, which further proves that they're sociopaths, since the person is living among people who use their brain for moral judgement for the benefit of all humanity.

Which raises another question.
Should murderers be treated or penalized?

Well, I am not aware of a treatment for sociopathy, therefore protecting society from them is the highest goal. It just so happens that the technique for doing so involves prisons, which mainly for economic reasons has a heavy overlay of punishment, though it is not required.

[Eddie Larry]

That depends on how you define murder. Do you include soldiers killing soldiers or soldiers killing civilians? Do you include executioners? Doctors who perform euthanasia? Only people who kill people of their own nationality/race/class or all kinds of other people, or just people who can't defend themselves, or all species that can't fight back, or ... what?
"Murder" is a legal term to separate one class of killing from all the other kinds of killing. The definition is neither universal nor constant.

At the beginning of the post I did exclude self defense, which is kind of the category that war falls in. Anyways, cut long story short, I'm talking about murder with no rational reasonable basis.
Even revenge isn't a sensible reason to murder someone imo

What I'm saying is: in the natural course of things, animals kill other animals. Humans and human activities are nothing more esoteric than a continuation of animal behaviour in more complex directions. Because we do complicate things, we sort killing into different categories.

You see animals kill, because their life and/or survival depends on it. Coupled with the fact that they can't reason. Those are 2 serious reasons that keep us far apart. I believe we are reasonable for a reason. You and I would be perfectly fine if we minded our business and do the needful, which may never involve anything remotely close to one killing the other

Hi Pages, you suggest “You see animals kill, because their life and/or survival depends on it. Coupled with the fact that they can't reason. Those are 2 serious reasons that keep us far apart.”

I suggest that if animals could reason that they might kill a lot more. People may kill to protect their perceived emotional balance. In other words, we might kill to prevent a perceived harm that did not actually exist. Our advanced brains allow us to imagine all kinds of dangers. Animals kill to eat and then stop as they digest what they eat. Satisfied they worry no more, until the hunger strikes again.

You have s difficult issue here!

Thanks, I hope I posted the right way.

[h_k_s]

This isn't about religion. Even if religion asks one to do it, it is expected that humans have the capability of reasoning. So, they could choose not to adhere to beliefs when it conflicts with common sense.

So, independent of religion, by default. Why do humans in general kill each other?
I am not talking about self defence, I'm talking about the instigator who decides taking another person's life is worth it.

Why does one decide to kill another person, how does it happen in the mind? What is the thought process that triggers a green light response when murder comes up in the brain? Why does anyone have a murder thought at all?

Is it a mental problem, or inability of certain human beings to evolve to the point of possessing common sense or just the way it is and couldn't be any other way?

The FBI manuals and crime books that I have read give 3 major reasons for murder:

M - money (theft, insurance crimes, arson crimes, etc.)

R - revenge (some kind of perceived personal offense)

S - sex (infidelity mostly)

"MRS" is a good way to remember these.

Of course there are many murders that do not fall into the above categories, like the sexual sadist serial killers. They kill strangers randomly for sexual gratification.

So once we have the 3 or 4 top reasons down, then we can go on to ask why certain people who murder are not restrained like the rest of the population is by their conscience or empathy or fear of the law?

It certainly would appear to be a mental issue. It is often called "cold blooded" like a reptile.

A lack of fully developed normal emotions seems to be the main problem for murderers -- no empathy.

[h_k_s]

Which raises another question.
Should murderers be treated or penalized?

That depends on how you define murder. Do you include soldiers killing soldiers or soldiers killing civilians? Do you include executioners? Doctors who perform euthanasia? Only people who kill people of their own nationality/race/class or all kinds of other people, or just people who can't defend themselves, or all species that can't fight back, or ... what?
"Murder" is a legal term to separate one class of killing from all the other kinds of killing. The definition is neither universal nor constant.

What I'm saying is: in the natural course of things, animals kill other animals. Humans and human activities are nothing more esoteric than a continuation of animal behaviour in more complex directions. Because we do complicate things, we sort killing into different categories.

Other mammals besides humans kill to gain or protect their territory or their mates. They also kill for food, as do humans.

Cats kill out of instinct, and they will kill as many small mammals or birds as they can get their claws on. With cats it is simply an instinct to kill things that are smaller and that are moving. And the cats seem to enjoy it.

But cats do not kill each other on purpose, although they may injure another cat so badly that it will die.

Humans will kill for all the same reasons that other mammals kill, however to this you must add the greed factor, the revenge factor, the sexual reasons, sociopaths as was mentioned above, and psychopaths as well.

[h_k_s]

Which raises another question.
Should murderers be treated or penalized?

That depends on how you define murder. Do you include soldiers killing soldiers or soldiers killing civilians? Do you include executioners? Doctors who perform euthanasia? Only people who kill people of their own nationality/race/class or all kinds of other people, or just people who can't defend themselves, or all species that can't fight back, or ... what?
"Murder" is a legal term to separate one class of killing from all the other kinds of killing. The definition is neither universal nor constant.

What I'm saying is: in the natural course of things, animals kill other animals. Humans and human activities are nothing more esoteric than a continuation of animal behaviour in more complex directions. Because we do complicate things, we sort killing into different categories.

Other than the Japanese during WW2 and the Nazi's, soldiers do not normally kill civilians. And doing so would normally be considered a murder or a war crime.

[Alias]

Other than the Japanese during WW2 and the Nazi's, soldiers do not normally kill civilians. And doing so would normally be considered a murder or a war crime.

What sanitized version of history have you been reading? All armies kill civilians - by accident (didn't notice it was a wedding party) by proximity (they were in the same town with a weapons factory) because they're in the way (tanks coming through, in a hurry), because they're thought to be harbouring resistance fighters (they're complicit), out of anger and hate (they're the enemy), because they were trying to escape (Russian occupation) as an example to others who might resist (Nagasaki) ...and for fun.
A war clime is something a court in some European country disapproved of, less than a century ago. Very few such laws are widely obeyed or extensively punished.

The FBI manuals and crime books that I have read give 3 major reasons for murder:
M - money (theft, insurance crimes, arson crimes, etc.)
R - revenge (some kind of perceived personal offense)
S - sex (infidelity mostly)
"MRS" is a good way to remember these.

In forensic science, we called in the 4 P's. Penny, Pu**y, Pride and Power.

Of course there are many murders that do not fall into the above categories, like the sexual sadist serial killers. They kill strangers randomly for sexual gratification.

That's sex and power. It's at one extreme end of motivations to kill; at the other extreme would be mercy killing. Where the law initspiouswisdom forbids suicide and euthanasia, add Pity to the motives for murder list.

[Dai Cymru]

only a fragmented consciousness accepts people killing each other as a posibility

[Dai Cymru]

People don't kill each other. Only fragmented consciousness allows such contradiction in terms. If I go out and murder someone I have only murdered myself. On the other hand if I save someone's life, as the Jews say, I have saved the whole world. You are the world, when you are consciously aware you are an expression of the whole, not the part. The whole is greater than the part. We are not destroying the Environment, the Environment is destroying itself. there is no duality between being and non being. We are all one, consciousness is universal, the whole is greater than the part is not merely a statement that is true a priori, it reveals the movement of psychological evolution.

[Pages]

Kind of contradictory. It should rightly be:
The environment is destroying itself,
We are part of the environment,
Therefore, We are destroying the environment

[h_k_s]

Kind of contradictory. It should rightly be:
The environment is destroying itself,
We are part of the environment,
Therefore, We are destroying the environment

This does not sound like a valid syllogism to me.

[h_k_s]

People don't kill each other. Only fragmented consciousness allows such contradiction in terms. If I go out and murder someone I have only murdered myself. On the other hand if I save someone's life, as the Jews say, I have saved the whole world. You are the world, when you are consciously aware you are an expression of the whole, not the part. The whole is greater than the part. We are not destroying the Environment, the Environment is destroying itself. there is no duality between being and non being. We are all one, consciousness is universal, the whole is greater than the part is not merely a statement that is true a priori, it reveals the movement of psychological evolution.

You have described the good people of the Earth very well.

But you have left out the bad people.

I deal with bad people every day and night. They are narcissistic and self centered. They are selfish. They grub through their miserable lives stealing or robbing whatever they can to feed their dope addictions. Society has failed them and they have further failed themselves. They have no conscience.

[Pages]

Kind of contradictory. It should rightly be:
The environment is destroying itself,
We are part of the environment,
Therefore, We are destroying the environment

This does not sound like a valid syllogism to me.

Why?
A is destroying B
A is C
Therefore, C is destroying B

The part is what makes up the whole. It doesn't make sense to say "the whole is greater than the part" like they are two separate objects. We are like atoms in a molecule-like universe or environment as the case may be. Without the parts, the whole wouldn't exist.

So, the environment is destroying itself and humans are just doing their bid, in a small significant scale.