Quote:
Originally Posted by James
It doesn't matter whether it's the consciousness of what you perceive to be a 'real' human being, it's still consciousness. They ended up sick and twisted for a reason, we should look at those reasons and try to solve them or find out more, we shouldn't just blindly kill those that are morally inferior.
I don't think it's very civilised. When we start killing people off, we are devolving, and heading in the same direction as exactly what we intend to eradicate.
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I agree with your conclusions, that we should treat rather than punish, but I'm just trying to question your valuing of an individual's worth implicitly. Someone like Bundy has no worth to society other than as a way to learn more about others like him. And I'm not just talking about society in the larger sense. He might have done things that benefited somebody, but any relationship anybody formed with him with any depth would be shallow and parasitic. A "friendship" with a sociopath is merely a fantasy.
So, what does it matter if he's a "person"? The only thing to be gained by keeping him alive, besides society at large conforming to a desirable moral direction by treating human life with ever greater concern, is what I have already proposed: study.