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PaperclipPerfector  13d ago (text post)   25612 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026

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Another thing that came to mind was the question of how grievous a crime we should consider rape to be. In my lifetime, rape has generally been considered equivalent to murder in severity ("rape and murder" usually being used to indicate the category of "super serious crime"), and the question of whether that's a good thing has been debated to death. However, Zoomers are famously more prudish than Millennials. Does it follow that Zoomers also regard rape as a greater crime, relatively speaking, than Millennials do?

I think basically any sober analysis will conclude that murder is fairly obviously worse than rape. However: I think most people will think that someone being a rapist (without additional information) makes them a worse person than if they were a murderer (again, without additional information).

I think a large part of the reason is that there are a lot of circumstances where murder is morally permissible or even necessary (self defence, military action, the cops shooting a hostage taker, not to mention the shitloads of revenge stories where we cheer when the protagonist murders the antagonist). There are no similar situations where rape is morally permissible (in most people's views). It's really hard to argue that you raped someone in self defence.

I don't think most of the examples you gave of "murder" are actually murder. Murder implies unlawfulness and malice and lack of justification.

Someone who murders someone else in a fit of [justified, but not to the point of murder] rage can still be regarded as less of a bad person than a rapist.

That's manslaughter, not murder. Examples: NJ ("committed in the heat of passion resulting from a reasonable provocation"), PA ("acting under a sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation")

That depends entirely on the jurisdiction, and not really germane to what people think the morality of the act is.

Driving a get away car from a robbery gone bad isn't more or less evil if you do it in Chicago versus if you do it in Oslo, despite you being charged with felony murder in one jurisdiction and aiding and abetting a robbery in the other.

You're using murder as if it were interchangeable with the word "homicide" and it just isn't. You're making a category error. Self-defense is not murder, it is justifiable homicide. I understand the point you're trying to make, you're just using the wrong word to make it.

Murder and homicide are the same act under different circumstances. If we're discussing the morality of an action, the jurisdiction in which it takes place is immaterial.

We're not discussing the law.

Rape and consensual sex are also the same act under different circumstances. I don't understand your point.

"What if killing people... but bad" is the same as "what if having sex with people... but bad"

That's why I'm objecting to your inclusion of using the word murder to cover acts that are decidedly not murder.

Homicide is killing someone who doesn't want to get killed. Murder is killing someone who doesn't want to get killed *and who the law doesn't want killed either *.

Rape is fucking someone who doesn't want to be fucked. There is no analogous distinction to murder-homicide because there are no cases where the law let's you rape someone.

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