There is a lot of tribalism here. I fall more on the Aristotle/Rousseau side of things in that if I couldn't justify the murder, I wouldn't value my own relationship with the murderer over the burden on the many when the difference of burden was this large.
It depends on how much coercion. Telling someone they should kill someone else is different than threatening them if they don't. I assumed this scenario was more of the former, in which case I would blame the murderer.
Bingo. Context. I just assumed the loved one just up and killed someone because someone else said so. If, however, my loved one were forced to do so under pain of death/harm, then my reaction would be different.
Telling somebody to "go kill somebody" is not coercion, it's more just asking/telling them to do so. Coercion is when somebody slowly feeds untruthful info to the person or untruthful things into the persons mind until the 'to-be-murderer' thinks s/he is doing it on their own. And threatening somebody is just plain threatening somebody. I mean it is coercion but it is not what (at least) I would think of when somebody says the word coerce.
A bit of outrage, dismay, and fury would be natural, in my opinion. Well, I guess not for everyone, but I think my personal reaction would be very similiar to yours. No matter what the reason, and even if it wasn't helpful to get mad, I think I would be - for a while. I'd like to think that after the knee-jerk anger, I'd be loving and understanding or whatever they needed in that moment. Incidentally, in the setting where these two characters operate, calling the cops isn't really a thing. The group to which they belong have very strong and ancient beliefs about the rhythm of life and death, and they never kill. That the one has murdered an innocent is not only shocking on a personal, intimate level, but is a complete betrayal to everything they believe in and stand for. And no, the character whose reaction we are discussing is not in danger of being killed. But I don't want to delve too much into the specifics of the scenario, because my motive for asking was more of a broad-spectrum curiosity, how people think they would react in whatever scenario first came into their mind. It has been and continues to be extremely interesting, to say the least.
I disagree with that definition in that I would view convincing someone as coercing them, but it's just semantics. If the action was as you thought, then I agree it probably wouldn't be the murderer's fault.
I follow Kants and john donnes thoughts on murder that it is bestial and evil. You can never justify a murder sadly. That is something someone has to learn. You begat evil when you murder. You either think of everyone while committing, yourself, or you just don't do it. if a character commits murder and its their first murder if someone like me were to murder someone, I would go insane by guilt. I took someones right to live. That is probably going to change me quite a bit.
But there is no evil, simply acts, all are bestial, our need to mate and gorge ourselves comes from survival, as well as our need to kill. We lie to keep ourselves safe as well. Evil is simply a name we gave things we don't like doing because we're "better" than other animals. There is no real evil or good, just survival of the person or persons.
Pessimist vs Optimist Battle. I think men are better than beasts, sometimes. I do agree on certain things, but I do think that taking another being of your own species is pretty terrible to do.
And how are we better than animals? Whilst I do believe there is a time and a place to kill another human being there are people who do it just for laughs and fun. You don't see an animal doing that. Animals kill when threatened and when they need food. Our morals? Morals are our ways of surviving. Somebody does something "bad" for other humans and we put him down like a bad dog in order to survive and insure the survivals of others of our race. The reason "killing" is bad is because we want to make sure we survive, hell if our survival is at stake then we would have no problem with killing another human being. Morals are fluid because what harms our survival is fluid.
Because we can reason, because we can think logically, because we can build machines, because we can create art, because we wonder why. Many reasons that we are seperate than beasts. Beasts just do. Humans can think, and understand why things are and how they are. We may have similarities but there are vast amounts of differences as well.
We can think logically? Really? Cause I have never once had somebody be logical with me. Our thought process and morals come from our own survival. Why do you think we make machines, why do you think we conquer other lands and even why we plan to head to the stars is because we need more resources for our survival. There are also animals known to create helpful tools and weapons, so how is that different from humans? We have a bigger brain but we're still always and will always be tied town to rules and though processes that further our survival.
There are only two things not based on our survival; Art and our violence as a species. Where as animals do things to protect their pack or school or whatever group, and ensure their survival, we kill randomly, hunt because it is fun. Take barely anything off of an animal we spent all day hunting and then just let the rest rot. Art, and our malevolence as a species. The rest is based on survival, sure we have a bigger head for it but it doesn't really mean much. Birds build nests, we just know how to make ours bigger, and more durable. Dolphins and Monkeys and Octupi use tools. We just know how to make them better, etc.
That's not true either, but this argument is getting off this thread's topic and frankly I don't really want to debate it.
Deep love is a fucked up thing, though, and when it's grown so deep you just know you cannot exist without the other person, things start to get wonky. Morals and priorities shift and change. Things that seem like madness to others start to make perfect sense.
On one level, love is agape (~selfless) phileo (~friendship) and eros (~lust), so to say "love is not X" seems somewhat amiss? On another level, the experience of love is subjective, so to tell someone their interpretation of love is wrong seems somewhat myopic?
Love is about being there for them, about doing your best for them. Love is about the other person. And wanting your best for them. It is not wanting them all for yourself, or being selfish with them. Love is about making them smile and watching their back. Anybody who says love is selfishness doesn't know what love is. Next thing you know you're going to tell me Romeo and Juliet were in love. No, they were kids who wanted to fuck and when daddy said no they killed themselves.
As I just pointed out, the word "love" in the English language is stunted at best. I am sorry but you are completely wrong to say love is not lust. You are talking about a very limited experience of love which is the agape element - the selflessness. Which is all fine and dandy, but in the end, still limited. I love chocolate cake and my Mum and my nieces and nephews and loved my ex. There are lots of flavours of love, and you do not seem to understand this. I hope that changes one day.
