Are your posessions worth more than a human life?

[Igel]

5. No context, no valid answer.

Is my "stuff" worth more than a human life? Sure. If the person stealing my stuff is in my living room at 3 am when my family and I are home.

Is it legal to set up a booby trap to kill somebody when you're not home? No.

How about this: Somebody holds me up at gunpoint. If I could think him dead, would his death be worth my wallet? Then again, he might kill me by accident. He might kill the next guy. He might kill me on purpose if he's angry that I don't carry cash. So it's not "is his life worth my wallet?"--that's not a reasonable way of putting it. It puts the entire onus on the motive we impute to him or that he would claim if confronted.

At some point it's not just your "stuff" that's at issue. It's also respect for laws--and if that erodes, at least some lives will also be lost.


Then again, we could rephrase this. "Is rape justification for killing somebody?"

Or we could adopt a proportionality requirement. "Those 10 men are killing my wife. Is that one life worth killing those 10?"

Odd, defending those who defy the social order by calling those who demand respect for it "sociopaths." Rather turns the definition on its head.