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Absolute Moral Prohibition: Is It Wrong To Murder?

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Absolute Moral Prohibition: Is It Wrong To Murder?
In the argument regarding absolute moral prohibition, the third premise is the one that is most open to objection. It goes as follows, “If it is wrong to murder an innocent person even when doing so would save more than one innocent person then it is our duty to murder more than one innocent person in order not to murder a single innocent person.” In order to understand the argument, one must have a clear definition of murder. Murder is the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought, according to Merriam-Webster online dictionary. One could question how the author of this argument logically came to the conclusion that it is our duty to murder more than one innocent person in order to save one innocent person. It does not seem to follow that instead of murdering one innocent person to prevent the murder of many other innocent people that it would be our duty to murder more than one innocent person to prevent the murder of one innocent person.
With consideration to absolute moral prohibition, it would be wrong to murder any number of innocent persons, despite any beneficial consequences. The benefits of murdering one would not outweigh the means of the action. …show more content…
This comes from the utilitarianism view. In this case, the net benefit of the action would be greater than the harm from the action. However, someone who believes in absolute moral prohibition would support premise two. They would say that because no consequence of an action justifies the means of getting there; so it would be wrong to murder an innocent person when doing so would save more lives because murder is never
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