To what extent can we justify assassinating an individual for the benefit of the majority?

What do YOU think?

Wordcheckerto what extent: how much; to what degreeto justify: to show or prove to be right or reasonableto assassinate: to kill or murder (an important person) for political or religious reasonsbenefit: advantagemajority: the greater number of people; most people

How do we determine, if assassinating one or other person is benefit of the majority. Public voting? I think assassination don't work well as benefit of the majority like that. No one will go to voting for that.. maybe only in extreme cases when some person endanger whole majority.. or if some one buys votes. Anyway it would be a step closer to legalisation of murdering/assassination. Too much legalisation may also damage current assassination business, since it would decrease prices, creates competition.. And actually could we then still call it as assassination.. more likely it would be called as execution.

Anyway it's stupidity. Assassinating an individual for the benefit of the majority can only justify as highest extend of stupidity. If you want assassin someone, do it for your own benefit. Otherwise if you want to do it for the benefit of the majority, then please go and allow to lock you down into an nuthouse.

Assassination is a crime, it can't be justified. And from my view it doesn't matter for whose benefit it has been committed, for an individual or for the majority's. Either way, they're both guilty, felonious.

TalkingPoint wrote:To what extent can we justify assassinating an individual for the benefit of the majority?

What do YOU think?

Question: To Talking Point Adviser,

What do you think about the popular actors/actresses who has a lot of followers? In my country, a lot of people don't sleep and eat anymore just to follow their favorite actor/actress. In my opinion, this situation is a threat to the popular individual too, but because a lot are dependent on him/her there's little choice left so (s)he gives his/her whole life into it mainly because of the people's faith/trust in him/her.I also think, there is no difference to those individuals who love their professions; Doctors, nurses, teachers or even those engage in business, etc...

Assassination seems like a horrific thing, especially in the examples given of men (or women) who were doing good for society. It's always a tragedy when someone is gunned down by some madman. However, who wouldn't have felt the assassination plot against Hitler or Stalin would have been justified had it been carried out?

An assassin is defined as, “Someone who murders an important person," and assassination as, “The act of murdering an important person" (LDOCE online). Just as looking only at both definitions, it is found that there is the "murder" word in the both. If people use only definition as an element to determine whether the assassination is justify or not, they might not have strong evidence to prove that the assassination is totally unacceptable. Because the assassination is an act, it is, hence, useful to use ethics, the concept of goodness, to consider this issue: consequentialism, and utilitarianism. A principle of ethical issue that would be discussed firstly is consequentialism determining a good act from its final result. Some individuals, especially who agree with the assassination, strongly believe that some of important person doing a lot of worst effects to their social should not live in their position so that these bad-doing person will not absolutely have authority to do so. Since there is no good solution, it seems that assassination is the last choice to get rid of the bad. However, it is uncertain if the assassination will turn the results out as what have been hoped, i.e. the bad events may not disappear. For example, killing a head of protestors does not mean that it can ged rid of a protest or prohibit it. Because of an ultimate uncertain effect of assassination comparing to murdering itself, the assassination should not be justified. A second ethic, which should be applied to judge about the assassination, is utilitarianism. To act in a way that is useful or greatly happy for the greatest number of people is a basis of utilitarianism. The most of assassination in the past usually occur to the very important politicians. Though it was argued that the assassination bring to the big change in society, mostly in the better ways, the most of murdering action, such as assassination of JK Kennedy, or Luther King, aimed secretly for the benefits of only few person. Therefore, it is hard to agree with anyone supporting the assassination because of its great merit for lots of citizen. Assassination is an act that should not be justified. Using two approaches, definition and ethics, are enough to determine that assassination or murdering someone is totally unacceptable in any society.

Our generation now is far from what they were before so I think there's no point fusing what had already happened even before we were born. Let's just keep this as a closed book

There is, of course, no way to re-do the past. but it is essential to remember and hopefully learn from the past. That's why it is so important to analyze history. The reason I brought this up is because I have just been watching some documentaries on World War II. We can't close the book on the past if we are to learn from it and hopefully avoid the same mistakes.

Our generation now is far from what they were before so I think there's no point fusing what had already happened even before we were born. Let's just keep this as a closed book

There is, of course, no way to re-do the past. but it is essential to remember and hopefully learn from the past. That's why it is so important to analyze history. The reason I brought this up is because I have just been watching some documentaries on World War II. We can't close the book on the past if we are to learn from it and hopefully avoid the same mistakes.

I suppose that we can justify it if the lives of the majority were at risk due to this individual. I'm thinking about extreme cases, for example a madman who has a nuclear bomb in the center of Los Angeles, say, and is about to trigger the mechanism... I suppose that it would justified if some marskmen would take him out from a distance.

So in general, I think that in a situation in which an individual is about to eliminate a large percentage of the population, it could be justifiable to assassinate the perp, if only because the power of numbers (1 person against a multitude of persons)