[mithametacs]

Awful take.

Everyone is capable of murder in the right circumstances.

That doesn’t make everyone a murderer.

[andrewflnr]

> Everyone is capable of murder in the right circumstances.

Citation needed. I don't think this is true, and if it was it wouldn't change anything. Notably, the individual level of circumstances required matters a lot, pragmatically even if you don't care in principle.

[throwaway31131]

And there is some significant evidence that it is not true.

Think about training soldiers and the concept of “non-firers”. I’m not an expert on those things but the fact that training soldiers to kill is hard, and no one has a great solution even after a lot of effort, and passive combat personnel concepts even exist at all, I think gives evidence to the idea that not everyone can be a murderer, even under extreme circumstances.

“ Gen. S.L.A. Marshall once described war as “the business of killing”. And yet many war-fighters throughout history have gone out of their way to avoid it. Marshall himself estimated (though some say he exaggerated, or even fabricated) that only 15-25 per cent of infantry soldiers in the Second World War fired their weapons in any given battle. The rest were so-called “non-firers”; they had the opportunity to shoot at enemy soldiers but failed to do so. Marshall added that even those who did shoot often deliberately missed their target — they were so-called “mis-firers”. These “passive combat personnel”, as they are sometimes called, have long been a thorn in the side of military institutions. War is a “competition in death and destruction”, in the words of Henry Shue, and these individuals deliberately forego opportunities to score points for their own team.”

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/ned-dobos-military-training-...

[ThunderSizzle]

Everyone is a monster, that is true. And I agree that anyone can _kill_ in the right circumstance (e.g. self defense, etc), but I strongly disagree that any disciplined moral character will easily become a murderer overnight.

However, the part you miss is the keyword discipline. To be discipline in morality means that you are aware you can be a monster and you actively choose not to be, even if it means what appears to be a negative outcome for you, relatively speaking.

Morality isn't free. It's not easy, and it requires diligent practice, aka it's a discipline.

By the time your in college, you should have enough discipline to not cheat. If you don't, you have a very untrained conscience.