[catzaa]

Murder is still wrong in all of the above. In the first case it was basically the person’s choice to get killed.

> Your honor, he stole babyfood from my store! > Yes, but did he steal it to sell it or because he's too poor to afford it and needed to feed his baby ?

Having a need and stealing to fulfil it is still wrong. It does not matter what your motivation is – it is still not your property. I have respect for a person who break the law in the above case and face the law. But he should still receive his punishment.

To act as if he is not guilty is wrong – he is just as guilty of the crime as any other person who stole baby milk formula (whatever their motivation is).

A good example of moral relativism that I hate is so called “hate crimes”. Do you really care what the person’s motivation is when he murder/assaulted you?

[jacquesm]

The world isn't black & white, it's lots of shades of gray, and orthogonal to that there are lots of colours, there is not 'one truth', there are as many truths as there are observers.

This isn't a mathematics problem where the outcome is '1' ('guilty') or '0' ('not guilty'), there are an infinite number of degrees in between.

Let's just say that I hope you will never be put in a position where your assumptions are put to the test.

For the record, (some of) my family lived through World War II in a pretty uncomfortable spot and plenty of what they did was against the law of the land at that time, but that didn't make any of it wrong.