PETA

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I’m not taking issue with your comments on feline behavior. You described a well known phenomenon.
What I questioned was your statement, “I submit that animals are incapable of murder. That trick Man alone knows how to play.” I responded with examples of animals killing for neither food nor defense, one of which you explained.
Now, when you smugly state animals can’t murder, then define murder as killing while cognizant of a strict rule of morality and ethics, that’s a straw man. I’ve shown examples that premeditated killings occur and I won’t argue whether it should be called murder for humans and nature for animals. It’s still the same thing.

I’m not surprised you didn’t understand the last sentence in that post, it was a joke.

First of all, I'm sorry. I realized your last sentence was a joke. I wasn't too sure of where you were going with your NEXT to the last sentence. It felt like a barb disguised as a joke, but us girls are always hopelessly confused about such things.

I think the problem here, Bruce, is that no one has given a definition of the word "murder."

Here is how the American Heritage Dictionary defines the word: NOUN: 1. The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.

also:

Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.

execute, assassinate, kill, murder, slay (vv.) execute, assassinate, kill, murder, slay (vv.)


"all mean “to deprive someone or something of life,” but they differ in important ways. Execute has long meant “to perform, to carry out an action or a duty, to enforce a law,” and a number of other senses not necessarily involving taking life, and for some time in the nineteenth century, commentators deplored the use of execute in the sense of “put to death.” (Their unhappiness may also have been caused in part by the fact that execute is a back-formation from execution.) But today, execute clearly also means “to put to death,” usually under order of a court: The judge sentenced the convicted murderer to be executed by means of lethal injection. (Ironically, gangsters, mobsters, and terrorists often claim to be executing victims judged guilty in their own informal tribunals.)
To murder is usually “to kill with malice aforethought and unlawfully”: He murdered the bank guard who had tried to stop him. To assassinate is “to kill a public or political figure,” and it often is a crime performed for hire or at least on assignment by an organization: The terrorists assassinated the governor of the province. To slay is a literary word—a bit old-fashioned (David slew Goliath) but beloved of the press because it fits headlines (Dissidents Slay Rebel Leader). Slay gives a change from the more common kill, which is, of course the generic term, meaning simply “to take the life of”: We killed hundreds of mosquitoes."

THESE are the definitions of "murder" and "kill" which I am using in my argument. It appears to me that you are using the two words inter-changably.

I will agree with you that animals are capable of and do commit the act of KILLING. I fail to understand how I am creating a straw man when I say animals are incapable of murder. Animals may act in a premeditated fashion, but they do not do so out of malice. You are anthropomorphizing the animal if you embue it with a human emotion such as malice. You admitted yourself that you only showed examples of animals acting in a premeditated manner, but you did not show examples of animals acting with MALICE AFORETHOUGHT. Both conditions must exist for an act of killing to become an act of murder.