Is it morally wrong in every case to kill another human being, or are there instances in which taking another human being's life is justified? Moral philosophers have wrestled with this issue for centuries. The issue may be couched as directly as it is above--that killing is morally wrong--or it may center on specific instances which some believe alter the moral equation, such as in war, for purposes of euthanasia, or most recently, with reference to the issue of abortion. Of course, the latter involves the further question of when human life begins so that the killing of a fetus can be considered the killing of a human being. The Bible addresses the issue and does not produce as complete or direct an answer as one might think, and the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham also offers a somewhat clouded picture with different interpretations possible. Clearly, the issue is not such as always to produce a clear statement of what is morally right and wrong.
The first abjuration against killing occurs in Exodus, and it is directed specifically at the killing of the innocent, which says, "The innocent and just person you shall not put to death." This is taken by many to refer to homicide, but the law has usually been interpreted to mean that no one shall be killed who does not deserve to die, including oneself:
Relative to modern law and morality, the primitive Israelite law on killing was crude and inarticulate, and by itself, it could not stand as an adequate moral norm for us today. Early Israelite laws held that guilt should be presumed if there was known enmity between the killer and victim. Just as we would hold that its teaching that adulterers should be stoned is crude, cruel, and ineffective, so also would we regard its precepts on killing as not fully developed or articulated (Barry, 1994, 116).
These laws did correctly condemn such actions as immoral, and here the Decalogue condemns willful killing of the innocent. Howeve...