Sunday, May 12, 2013

Individual versus mass murder

The stories of Israelites in the bible describe a society that devices a way to make murder illegal (ten commandments) but mass murder with a socially agreed purpose legal (holy war). Individually motivated murders may benefit individuals but they damage the overall function of a given group. War is a method that was devised to justify acts that are obviously illegal on an individual level and still allow societies to fight for resources.

No comments: