DEFINITIONAL ARGUMENT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

DEFINITIONAL ARGUMENT - Essay Example The criteria that constitute murder are complex. Within this context of understanding, murder has been understood as, â€Å"to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously† (â€Å"Dictionary.com†). Within this context of understanding, murder constitutes the killing of one human by another in an inhuman or barbarous way. The challenge then becomes determining what constitutes ‘barbarous’. One such understanding in these regards is that barbarous behavior constitutes that with is uncivil or out of the realms of regular human actions. In this area of understanding, the subject of assisted suicide can be classified as constituting murder. The nature of assisted suicide is such that one human acts to kill another human. Furthermore, the nature of such an act is both uncivil and out of the realm of regular human action. It follows that assisted suicide, which contains both a human killing another human, and is out of the realm of regular human action, constitutes murder. Ultimately actions, such as those taken by Dr. Jack Kevorkian, constitute murder and should be punished as such. While the criterion of murder has been argued to contain within it the act of assisted suicide, there are many counter-arguments that exist to this contention. Earlier the nature of murder has been understood as occurring when a human kills another human in a barbarous or inhuman way. The notion that assisted suicide constitutes murder hinges on the notion that assisting another human to kill himself or herself is a barbarous of inhuman act. While assisting another human in suicide falls under the criteria of one human killing another, it does not necessarily constitute a barbarous or inhuman act. Oftentimes individual find themselves in situations where they are experiencing tremendous pain that restricts them for continuing their life in an enjoyable way. Similarly, it’s possible for an