Why are we not allowed to kill

[CBR]

Recently in Japan, we had a trial for this SK who killed numbers of small children's. In the trial she said something along the lines of "I feel sorry for those I killed. But I don't understand why we can't kill."

Ok I don't know the details of that trial but it does sound a bit odd. If she feels sorry for the victims then why did she do it in the first place and why that last bit about "why we can't kill". If she truly was sorry would she even ask that last question?

This got me thinking. I know killing is bad. But other then "Because the law said so" and "Because it said so on the Moses stone tablet" I couldn't think of valid reason why killing is bad.

Humans are social animals. If we were 100% sociopaths(especially with low "social cognition") instead of just about that 1% of the population I doubt we would have moved much beyond the Primordial Soup.

Having empathy/conscience has a nasty tendency of limiting violent acts against fellow human beings. Of course it can be reduced by various factors but empathy seems to be working pretty well for a majority of humans. And that is IMO the main reason why most people find killing bad.


CBR

[Beefy187]

Ok I don't know the details of that trial but it does sound a bit odd. If she feels sorry for the victims then why did she do it in the first place and why that last bit about "why we can't kill". If she truly was sorry would she even ask that last question?

I just read it on the news so I don't know the details or the actual murder incident. But I think she is trying to challenge the society by killing the children for fun rather then personal grudge against particular child. If thats not the case then I have no clue what she was trying to do or if she is even sane.

[Husar]

Humans are social animals. If we were 100% sociopaths(especially with low "social cognition") instead of just about that 1% of the population I doubt we would have moved much beyond the Primordial Soup.

Having empathy/conscience has a nasty tendency of limiting violent acts against fellow human beings. Of course it can be reduced by various factors but empathy seems to be working pretty well for a majority of humans. And that is IMO the main reason why most people find killing bad.


CBR

Yes, I was about to say (again) that feelings do play into this more than some seem to admit, it's not all about logic, for example who here chose his wife after calculating which woman would net him the biggest financial benefits?
Many humans do kill despite all the rational reasons etc. when their respect for their "victim" goes below a certain level, when they momentarily lose all empathy for that person. There are other reasons, like a hired killer may have more logical reasons to kill like monetary gain but then the percentage of professional killers is rather low I'd guess.

Soldiers also fit into this nicely as they are trained not to respect the enemies of their country and they seem to "make up" for this by having very strong bonds inside the army. I'll make a wild guess that when they start to realize their enemies are humans as well, is when many of them get nightmares and the like.