A death the person did not accept for a belief is a tragedy rather than a martyrdom

The argument

Proponents of this account begin by noting that the word has to distinguish something, and that the obvious contrast is with the ordinary victim. People die in accidents, in epidemics and at the hands of others constantly, and none of this is called martyrdom however undeserved it was. Proponents argue the feature that separates the cases is not the manner of the death or its scale but the presence of a conviction the person held and would not set aside. The mechanism is that martyrdom describes a relation between a person and what they believed, not merely an event that happened to them. A death becomes a martyrdom when the belief is what brought it about and when the person accepted it on those terms. That is why the title can be refused: a person who was killed for something they had never held, or who was given no choice in the matter at all, is mourned rather than honoured, and the honour would seem misplaced precisely because there was no conviction for it to attach to. Proponents add that this is why the account explains the respect the word carries. What is being recognised is a person's preference for their own conviction over their continued existence, which is the costliest demonstration available that the conviction was genuinely held rather than professed. Accounts which make the beneficiary or the effect the essential element must explain why the dying person's own commitment drops out, when it is the thing that every use of the word seems to be pointing at.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics argue that sincerity cannot be the criterion because it is unverifiable and because it is cheap. Convictions held with total sincerity are frequently false and sometimes vicious, and an account resting on belief alone would have to award the title on the strength of fervour regardless of what was believed. They add that communities plainly do confer the title on people who had no opportunity to choose, including those killed without warning for who they were, which suggests the ordinary use of the word is broader than conviction. Others object that the account describes a kind of integrity rather than martyrdom, since a person who dies for a belief that touches no one else seems to have demonstrated something about themselves and nothing more.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Critics question whether the word needs to distinguish anything so sharply. Many honorific terms are applied loosely at their edges, and the fact that not every undeserved death is called a martyrdom may reflect habits of usage rather than a criterion the concept contains. [Rejecting P2] The conviction requirement is disputed as too demanding. Those killed without warning for what they were taken to represent are widely honoured as martyrs although they set nothing aside and accepted nothing, which suggests acceptance is characteristic of some cases rather than definitive of all. [Rejecting P3] Critics deny that the respect is for choosing a conviction over continuation. Fervour is not admirable in itself, and where the belief is one the observer rejects the same choice attracts no respect at all, which indicates the honour tracks the content of the cause rather than the strength of the commitment.