Why is murder wrong?

Why is it actually wrong to murder someone else, or for that matter do anything to anyone else? The usual answer is because you are taking someone's life away without their permission or you'll hurt their loved ones etc. But so what? Surely if we are strong enough to kill someone else we should be able to for our own benefit. I am not trying to be controversial. I just want to know exactly why murder is wrong.

I'm being serious. Why is murder wrong?

I think if the OP is taking this from more of a philosophical/intrinsic value of actions view, then the question is pretty valid and not as stupid as you all think.

I don't think it's a stupid question, yet surely any mentally stable human could empathise with the feelings of mourning that would occur among the murdered's relatives, friends and peers.?

Of course, and you're completely right: Mentally stable. But my post was more on the lines of the fact that we consider murder to be morally wrong because we've been successfully educated by our culture and by societal norms to have a "correct" and absolute opinion of the morality of murder. Our prohibition of murder only represents an objectively valid moral principle, but it's not to say that murder is intrinsically wrong, as no action is ever really intrinsically wrong.

Never do philosophy a level.

But I agree, from a philosophical point of view, it isn't that silly a question.

Of course, and you're completely right: Mentally stable. But my post was more on the lines of the fact that we consider murder to be morally wrong because we've been successfully educated by our culture and by societal norms to have a "correct" and absolute opinion of the morality of murder. Our prohibition of murder only represents an objectively valid moral principle, but it's not to say that murder is intrinsically wrong, as no action is ever really intrinsically wrong.

Never do philosophy a level.

Why is it actually wrong to murder someone else, or for that matter do anything to anyone else? The usual answer is because you are taking someone's life away without their permission or you'll hurt their loved ones etc. But so what? Surely if we are strong enough to kill someone else we should be able to for our own benefit. I am not trying to be controversial. I just want to know exactly why murder is wrong.

That wasn't actually an insult, it was merely telling him that if you don't want to over-analyse and doubt everything then don't take philosophy a level

Morality is a means of resolving conflicts of interests. Certianly you may take no interest in morality, in which case to you nothing seems wrong - OK, that's your loss when you wind up in prison.

But, if you are to be a moral person then the only way in which murder can be morally justified, i.e. not wrong, is if you can find a justifiable ethic that would condone murder in certain conditions.

Most of the time, no justifiable ethic would condone murder. However, a utilitarian ethic that was concerned only with the passing on of your genes, whilst it would still not condone murder in general (where murder tends to mean the killing of fellow citizens within a society), might in certain circumstances condone such a thing as ethnic cleansing, including what might be described as organised murder.

I refer to such an ethic as adaptive utilitarianism, and I do believe that it is a justifiable ethic.