davidH

Just saw this and thought I'd reply.

I guess you could argue that the view point that killing is wrong does depend some what on the reason for killing the person.

It is wrong to kill for the sake of killing - that's obvious, anyone bar maybe a cycopath would see that.

But take war for example - killing is necessary in a war. But whether killing is right or wrong depends on the side you are on.
Take Hilter for example - he invaded Poland , it began the war. For the German's the killing in the war was wrong since they did it only for gain of land, for power (you could argue the point but you get the jist of what I'm saying).
For the allies it wasn't wrong to kill -since they were fighting against enemies that wanted to invade their own lands - they were protecting themselves and their people. etc

The fact of whether killing is right or wrong basically depends on why and in what circumstances it was done - and determined by our own moral standards.
True some people would see it differently because they have been brought up with different standards. People who are brought up in Palestine being taught that the Israelis took away land, killed so many - those people won't think twice about walking into a restaurant with bombs attached to them...- because they believe the killing is right, they are only fighting in a war.....

So in a way it does depend on the moral standards that your parents bring you up on, and what they teach you.

If there was ever a community without moral standards....well - I wouldn't like to live there.

DRFseven

Very true. People always think empathy (sympathetic understanding) is automatic, but it's not; we are born with the capacity for it to develop, assuming the right prerequisite conditions. Usually, these conditions are present and most children do develop empathetic feelings to some degree; if this were not the case, we wouldn't be here to discuss it. However, without proper interaction with caretakers and subsequent socialization, children do not develop what we know as empathy. A child such as this will never develop a true conscience and will often have a problematic life with lots of "getting in trouble" and is likely to have committed crimes by adolescence. Many career criminals fit this discription. Others do develop empathy in the sense that they have an understanding of others' feelings; it is just that they fail to care about those feelings; these people are adept at exploitation of others because they understand others but don't care about them (Ted Bundy is a good example of this kind of person). These people may observe conventional morality, since that is self-serving, as long as possible, but they never have normal relationships with people and typically leave a lot of devastation in their wake. And they are all likely to have short lifespans because society does not suffer them gladly. As one psychiatrist I know puts it, sooner or later someone is going to say, "That son of a bitch is gonna have to die."

jfbiii

The proscription against killing is not a moral absolute. Context matters. Killing as an initiation of force is wrong. Killing as a reaction to an initiation of force may or may not be.