Shelton's Dying: Necessary Or Justified?

603 Words3 Pages
There is a moral difference between Shelton’s killing of his attackers and that of his other victims. Darby and Ames caused personal harm to Shelton and thus gave him the moral right to try and prevent any other future pain that could be caused by these men, but the other victims were combatants in the war that Shelton waged against the “system”. When looking at Darby and Ames, Shelton takes a more utilitarian approach when dealing with their killings. The government “system” is supposed to punish those who are wrong. But in the trial of Darby and Ames, only Ames was punished severely while Darby was allowed to go free. Shelton views death of these two men as justice finally served. Since they raped and killed both his wife and daughter.…show more content…
While assuming JIB to be true, Shelton wages war on the government and by extension those who support it. He views this as a last resort, since he watched all the other non-violent options fail him. Thus this war can be justified. Shelton is justified in his actions because he is redressing a wrong suffered, and his intentions are to rid the corruptness from the judicial system. The people that Shelton killed are considered combatants because they support they governmental system and work with it. Based on Just War Theory, the proportionality of killing these people is that their deaths are outweighed by the justice that will bring to the judicial system. Shelton believes the system to be corrupt, focusing instead on conviction rates rather than making sure the right person is placed behind bars. By killing these people Shelton can put a new mindset into the “system” because those affected by the killings will want the right man punished rather since they now know how it feels to be wronged. All the killings made by Shelton were to people who were directly showed how flawed the system was. Shelton never outright killed non-combatants. There was purpose behind all of his attacks. In this way, Shelton was able to discriminate between non-combatants and combatants. Non-combatants were never viewed as targets, an each of the killings took place in a planned our and secured environment which allowed for only the combatants to be targeted. The killings of these people were conducted with the right intention in mind. Shelton wanted the judicial system to take responsibility for its actions and actually enforce justice, rather than play the game of

More about Shelton's Dying: Necessary Or Justified?

Open Document