The Pros And Cons Of Battlefield Mercy Killing

A battlefield mercy killing is where a soldier kills someone because they are suffering, likely to die, or unlikely to have a high quality of life while they are on the battlefield. Battlefield mercy killings are illegal in almost every society and condemned as murder. Despite the illegality, evidence suggests that they happen and with some regularity but go unreported. In antiquity, abdominal injuries were fatal, even well into the 20th century abdominal injuries were fatal unless treated within a few hours. These injuries were also very painful, yet doctors did not see many people with these injuries. Mercy killing on the battlefield in cases of extreme suffering and fatal injuries is ethical. Through the lenses of Immanuel Kant, John …show more content…
First expounded by Zeno, the core idea of stoicism is that the only thing we can control is our thoughts and responses to what befalls us. Good comes from dealing with our lives and making the best of what is given to us. A line from Marcus Aurelius, a noted Stoic, is very applicable to the topic of battlefield mercy killings, “Pain which is intolerable carries us off; that which lasts a long time is tolerable and the mind retains its tranquility by retiring into itself.” His philosophy is that any pain that is truly unbearable will kill the person, and anything else is survivable, so, therefore, there is no need for any type of mercy killing. While the truly stoic is not bothered by such trifles as pain, almost everyone falls short of that ideal. Stoics believed that if the choice exists between death and compromising your virtues, suicide is a more dignified route. Since humans are imperfect and someone in extreme pain could commit actions that their normal self would deem undignified, suicide and assisted suicide in a battlefield situation become viable options to the Stoic. A counter argument to this could be made that if someone is so grievously injured as to need a mercy killing on a battlefield, they are likely going to be incapable of committing any action, let alone one that would endanger their virtues. While this is a very good point, there have been examples where this is not the case, just one such …show more content…
The basic values cherished by natural law are life, procreation, knowledge, and sociability. Mercy killing would violate our natural inclination to preserve our own life. One might be quick to point out however that there are allowable exceptions in natural law theory. The first is the principle of forfeiture, which states that if someone threatens the life of another their life is forfeited. If the case were that it is an enemy combatant, an argument could be made that they had forfeited their right to life and another could take it. This leaves a nasty taste, is it really permissible to kill soldier after the fighting has ceased, because he tried to kill you in battle? Another exception may be more in line with our conscience, the principle of double effect. The first step in seeing if double effect applies is whether the act itself is good: ending someone’s suffering, check. The next step is to determine if the negative outcome (death of the soldier) is avoidable: the only way to end the suffering is killing them, check. The third step is determining if the bad outcome is the means of producing the goodness, unfortunately, this scenario fails and killing the person is how the suffering is ended. If one subscribes to a single moral philosophy with no exception, then their decision has likely already been made for