That's not the full definition of murder which you need to distinguish it from other types of unlawful killing. The distinctions are legal and therefore have primarily legal effect.

Layman usage is pretty close to the legal meaning though and I'm pretty confident that societies without laws still can tell the difference between a natural death and someone dying from a knife in his back.

If your point is words mean what people agree what they mean then yes.

Therefore in a society or space without laws someone's death at the hands of another has no special feature to distinguish it from a death per se. — Andrew4Handel

I think not. You are just misunderstanding the typified crime in a code book with the act per se. One precedes to the other. This is why lawmakers tend to modify the laws, with the act of making an order to all the thing that could happen in a society.

societies without laws still can tell the difference between a natural death and someone dying from a knife in his back. — Benkei

Absolutely. But I guess that it is important to have some laws working on the state. This makes a safety feeling when an issue arises. For example:
You and me make an agreement about purchasing a home. It would be more safe if we have a civil code to look at and a public record to check what is going on with the house.

Yes, been mulling over this a while. Suicide, for instance, give it some thought, isn't actually suicide in the sense a person killed himself/herself. Any evidence? Well, someone can murder you and make it look like suicide; see?

Also, I don't believe anyone dies of "old age".

:grin: I'm going to end my own life. :wink: :wink: nudge, nudge! To further complicate my passing, I'm old enough to die of (ahem, koff, koff) "natural causes" :grin:

I think not. You are just misunderstanding the typified crime in a code book with the act per se. One precedes to the other. — javi2541997

Murder is defined as unlawful killing so the law is deciding which acts should be described as murder. In some cases abortion is claimed to be murder. But the death penalty is not considered murder.

The act of killing someone is not what makes something murder. You can kill in self defence, in abortion you can kill someone by accident. So the legal statement is the only thing making something a murder.

For example some philosophers and psychologists and scientist believe we have no freewill and due to laws of causality our actions are predetermined by natural forces therefore nothing could be described as murder and we are essentially robots carrying out our programming.

For something to be proven to be murder you have to prove issues like freewill and mental intention.

Layman usage is pretty close to the legal meaning though and I'm pretty confident that societies without laws still can tell the difference between a natural death and someone dying from a knife in his back. — Benkei

As I said to in my last post to Javi killing someone does not entail murder or intent.

Someone could be shot in war, in self defence , in a hunting accident, by suicide, by a mad man etc. The dead body looks the same.

The attitude we have towards things classified murder however is that of a terrible crime and we don't usually have this response to lawful killing such as war and self defence.

What strikes me is that we have an ethical plane of perception where we perceive the world under a lens of ethical, emotional resonance which makes certain acts seem desirable or undesirable etc whether or not they actually are. For example in some countries and among some people homosexual acts are seen as a terrible and people are still executed for them in places like Iran.

This moral perception is very compelling and motivating but it may be illusory.

Unless you want to say our perception of an event as criminal and malicious etc is tapping into some real domain of reality where ethics/values exist concretely.

As an antinatalist/anti-harm person I view so called natural harm as as bad and as harmful as behaviour deliberately carried out by humans. That is what you might say is described as natural evil. If nature is not evil and we are just another part of nature that makes us not suitable moral agents.

Yes, been mulling over this a while. Suicide, for instance, give it some thought, isn't actually suicide in the sense a person killed himself/herself. — Agent Smith

What about someone driven to suicide by bullying and harassment or bad parenting?

You don't actual have to strike a fatal blow to be accused of causing or arranging a persons death.

Americans like to say guns don't kill people people kill people. make of that what you will.

Murder is usually defined as unlawful killing. — Andrew4Handel

It can be, or you might create a term for an unethical killing. That is, it is possible to condemn a particular type of killing without laws while finding other forms accepted.

That seems the ancient use. Cain's murder of Abel was condemned prior to any law being given.

For something to be proven to be murder you have to prove issues like freewill and mental intention. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, I am agree with you. Mental intention is important to classify an act as a murder. But I guess all are important but different. I can kill someone with intention (for example, revenge) or accidentally (car crash). But both would have their legal procedures. One is not "better" or "more important" than the other.

As I said to in my last post to Javi killing someone does not entail murder or intent.

Someone could be shot in war, in self defence , in a hunting accident, by suicide, by a mad man etc. The dead body looks the same. — Andrew4Handel

Which is why you look for other evidence to prove intent.

What about someone driven to suicide by bullying and harassment or bad parenting? — Andrew4Handel

No comment!

You don't actual have to strike a fatal blow to be accused of causing or arranging a persons death. — Andrew4Handel

Just "contribute" in your own little way, yes!

Americans like to say guns don't kill people people kill people. make of that what you will. — Andrew4Handel

A gun merely increases the number of successful attempts (at offing someone).

Which is why you look for other evidence to prove intent. — Benkei

Looking for intent is speculating about the content of someone's mind (non physical I would/symbolic?) Not analysing the crime scene.

I don't think that if someone intended to kill someone they intended to do so unlawfully.

I can't remember if this dilemma had a name in moral philosophy but does not committing an act imply you don't think it is wrong. Actions speak louder as words as they say.

I think a murder is considered as such if the motivations are suspected to be malicious. But you could view all killing as wrong simply on the basis of harm.

Speculating about peoples moral motives is tricky.

Looking for intent is speculating about the content of someone's mind (non physical I would/symbolic?) Not analysing the crime scene. — Andrew4Handel

Nonsense. Intent can be deduced from circumstances and isn't speculation or you wouldn't ever be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt someone murdered another. Think of preparatory acts, like buying the murder weapon, lying in wait, etc.

Think of preparatory acts, like buying the murder weapon, lying in wait, etc. — Benkei

You mean premeditation.

Nonsense. Intent can be deduced from circumstances and isn't speculation or you wouldn't ever be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt someone murdered another. Think of preparatory acts, like buying the murder weapon, lying in wait, etc. — Benkei

"When a defendant is charged with a criminal offence, the prosecution must prove that the defendant both committed the act ('actus reus'), and had the required mental element of intent ('mens rea'). The mental element is that the defendant intended or foresaw the natural consequences of the actus reus".

https://www.inbrief.co.uk/court-proceedings/proving-intention-to-commit-a-crime/#:~:text=When%20a%20defendant%20is%20charged,consequences%20of%20the%20actus%20reus.

Murder only appears to have a legal definition as an unlawful killing.

If a killing was lawful then calling it a murder would be describing something else (see the execution of gays in Iran.) I would apply this to many other things including theft and marriage.

Murder is described as an unlawful killing not an unethical one. The Bible itself has unethical killing like disproportionate punishments, a child sacrifice and genocidal actions (collective punishments) and God's whims.

I don't think an act reveals its ethical or criminal status without perspective in the same way all perception can be argued to be transformative and constructing concepts rather than direct perception.

Is procreating and willfully bringing a child into this world, a situation rather, in which their outcome is grim to be called murder, manslaughter, or simple ignorance?

Should it be punished? If so, how?

Law of man is little more than opinion enforced by action that makes one unable to protest or circumvent it, often through inability to even experience or process it, ie. death or incarceration. This changes quite often throughout the course of time. In the scope of this argument, primary use and position of the terms "lawful" or "unlawful" is murder toward any further discussion. The real question is, would this be lawful or unlawful?

Looking for intent is speculating about the content of someone's mind (non physical I would/symbolic?) Not analysing the crime scene. — Andrew4Handel

Sometimes people admit to others their intent.

Sometimes people admit to others their intent. — Hanover

Does that take the diagnosis of murder out of the mental realm?

My point has roughly been that values seem to only exist in a mental realm and that the appearance of a wrong doing could be how we are defining a murder but in essence it is just an unlawful killing
.
So much other killing and harm goes on.

In this sense I would be supporting a model of social fictions motivating people.

Cain's murder of Abel — Hanover

It wasn't explicitly described as a murder in Genesis (God hadn't laid out his commandments at that stage) and interestingly it didn't incur the death penalty. The use of the death penalty for much more than killing someone including consensual sex acts, money laundering and pick pocketing really makes the whole history of criminal justice a bizarre farce.

always fun if people quote things without understanding that what I said already covered this objection. How do people prove mens rea today? We're not guessing or assuming anything about people's mental states, we prove them beyond a reasonable doubt.

You should have followed the trial of Travis Reinking like I did.

"Due to severe schizophrenia, Reinking was initially found incompetent to stand trial and committed to a mental hospital for treatment.[9] Later that decision was changed and Reinking was put on trial forfour counts of first degreepremeditated murder on January 31, 2022. He was convicted of the charges on February 4, 2022."#

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_Waffle_House_shooting

He was convicted of murder despite being severely mentally ill and delusional and being heavily medicated during his trial and looking very ill.

There was plenty of evidence presented by the defence of his deranged mental state including him writing a letter to Oprah Winfrey claiming he was being stalked by Taylor Swift. The defence presented two psychiatrists who had diagnosed his illness and the prosecution could not present one mental health expert witness to dispute this instead they relied on the police on the day he was arrested/captured claiming he seemed sane to them.

Then the prosecution lawyers questioned the psychiatrists and they said insane illogical stuff like that Travis claimed God told him to kill 3 people but 4 people were killed so he must of been insane. That he fled the scene of the crime so he must have known what he did was wrong. Travis did the shooting naked but for a short coat.

It is kind of infuriating that you don't know this kind of thing about the justice system. People are rampantly speculating about hidden mental states and motives.

My position does not hinge on the idea that the criminal justice system is in anyway good or infallible but quite the reverse. Your position appears to hinge on some kind of notion of infallible common sense.

Oh my, a court case you don't agree with. What are we ever to do? Don't give a shit about anecdotal stories when it's clear it's rather easy in most cases to deduce someone's motives from their actions. Your OP isn't about discovering which conclusions you think you can make from your erroneous framing but you trying to defend a pet theory that had no bearing on reality. But then, I already knew you were batshit insane from the changing sex thread, so I'm done. Bye!