THIS IS HYPOTHETICAL. This is NOT based on reality.
So basically you’re asking is it ethical to have an abuser killed. I don’t think so. As others have said if you have the means to hire a hitman you have the means to leave. Otherwise if your partner is suddenly murdered you can bet you’d be suspect #1.
The situation you described is very different than if you killed someone in self-defense or something. You have time to think and plan so you should be planning an escape, not a murder.
No. Murder is not the answer.
Why not?
Just because someone is an asshole, it doesn’t give you the right to take their life. There are a lot of ways to remove yourself from the situation without having another human being killed.
Exactly. In that case, it is the question. And the answer is Yes :)
I feel like, as a philosophical question, we should refine it more.
Are you trying to get at “Can premeditated murder ever be ethical?”
Or “Is it ethical to take the law into your own hands, because you don’t trust law enforcement?”
It would be cheaper to get a gun, kill them yourself, and then hire a lawyer to defend you than it would be to hire a hitman.
And more likely for you to suffer no consequences too.
No there are very few times it’s ethical to hire a hitman, even fewer than when it may be ethical to kill. If you have the time to hire a hitman you could just as easily use that time to m9ve across the country or go live with a friend for a while. Or report to the police and risk the retaliation, decide what to do after that.
Even in a utilitarian sense if you’re trying to calculate X amount of abuse (maybe severe abuse across many people) would equal one life lost so the act is a net good, it’s always going to be a GREATER net good to stop the abuse any other way.
I suppose my first question would be “why a hitman and not a bodyguard?”
Bodyguard is an on-going expense, and several times more expensive than a hitman, just for the first year.
Not weighing in on the ethics, just the expense. Its been mentioned in other comments that moving is probably the cheapest option, and I don’t disagree.
To continue your hypothetical, why would escape not be an option?
If you cannot escape the relationship or the area, then you are left with this option.
A hitman!? In this economy!? If you have the cash in hand needed for a contract killer you have more then enough to relocate to West Virginia or the Midwest.
Since you are offering an if in a hypothetical, I will say escape is an option, so I have solved your conundrum.
I’d imagine cheap hitmen are more often than not law enforcement traps. Perhaps life behind bars is better than life with an abuser, but that’s not going to be an easy decision.
If you have money for an actual hitman, $10k+? (No idea of actual street pricing), then you could hypothetically pay for a one way ticket somewhere and try to begin a new life.
If you’re working with significantly less money, you might be able to pay a shade tree mechanic to disable your vehicle’s passenger airbags under the guise of… something and get into a bad passenger-side accident with your abuser present. Still attempted murder though.
No, it’s not ethical. If you have the means to hire a hitman, you have means to escape. What’s the abuser going to do, sit there in the room with you while you ask someone to kill him?
In which case, if you’ve got the opportunity to talk to someone who would be willing to murder said abuser, then you have the opportunity to get away from the abuser full stop. There’s no realistic situation in which one would be true and the other wouldn’t be.
If you cannot escape, you have to defend yourself with the full capacity of taking a life. If you can escape, its your duty to escape and find an avenue for the justice system to handle it.
Realistic scenario: teenager in an abusive family in a small town. They don’t have much money, or friends they can stay with but they do have a meth head cousin who’ll do anything for $20 if you know how to ask.
The hitman, and attempting to hire one, could cause equal retaliatory responses. The foremost requirement of dealing with criminals is to ghost any and all further crimes. Not being there by employing a transporter is better than hiring a hitman. You’ve got better odds with a heavily defensive transporter because at least you’ll comply, which gives them better odds of success. And it’s defensible in court.
I mean, to a degree this depends on where you live. Somewhere like America, sure. But the whole world isn’t America.
It’s a standard tactic with sex work. Bring a hitter, and it’s defensible if something does go down. “We were just trying to leave/sort-it-out”. Sending someone around without any other purpose is never a good look.
Apparently the abuser hurt you a lot. So much so that you think of revenge. But your pain and suffering as a result belongs to you. Revenge is not going to save you from that. Instead, focus on suffering. You suffer because you are aware of yourself that you are in pain.
