Show of Hands

I'd say it's because you can't have a functioning society. Laws don't care what people "want"--just what's good for society as a whole.

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He who dies with the most gold wins.

Practical I wold consider killing some people, morality keeps me from ever doing it.

Practicality in the sense of keeping taxpayers alive for the government.

Think if you were a farmer and someone kept killing your cows.

I'm thinking more practical reasons for me personally

You're not the one that banned murder, though.

I'd say on a personal level the reason for not murdering is a moral one. But on a govt/societal lvl the reason for outlawing it is on principle/practicality. A functioning/civil society needs a sense that privateproperty and life need to be protected

Why can't morality be practical?

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MrM: It can be. Problem is, nobody has ever objectively proven that murder is immoral.

He did say "for no reason."
Utilitarians and pragmatists would have no defensible objection to organized culling of the "useless eaters."

You may want to look into natural law theory, Cole. You may also want to specifically define what burden of proof would be sufficient.

kscott: If murder were legal, the economy would probably collapse and society would crumble. There'd be more resources per person, but that means little if people are afraid to leave their homes.

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By "for no reason," I meant "in cold blood." I guess I should have worded it differently.

Just because murder were legal doesn't mean everyone would be looking to do it.

MrM: To prove that murder is immoral, you would need to prove that murder has an inherent punishment and/or that human life matters.

Yes. But it would be much more commonplace.

Things like this have to be legislated to account for society's lowest common denominator. And there are people who don't murder people simply because it's illegal.

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Neither of those conditions are sufficient for everyone, cole.

Murder is a create tool for population control, right?

I can provide moral "proofs" for just about any moral claim, and I can tear down those same proofs just as easily because they all rest on premises we would have to mutually agree on. And those premises rest on premises. Infinite regression.

And then you have people who reject the whole notion of morality to begin with, and claim that it is itself just a social construct.

Your question has some assumed premises, though. That we want to live in a civilized society for example. Or what a civilized society is. Or that murder exists, and that it is somehow different from killing.

So on what basis do you accept premises like murder, civilization, or that civilization is a "good," and how do you prove that those things are true?