Yes...or he is all too well aware of his capabilities.
"Yes. But what about the man who unsuccessfully punches someone with intent to kill and the man who punches someone without intent but kills them anyway?"
The formers 'failure' gets him off the hook
The latter is (is he ?) less of a danger to a population which he has reduced by 1 and is malleable enough to have learnt a tragic lesson
What if the former has a history of failures (the 2nd time) ?
One 'free strike' and you are out (or 'In') ?
On a more serious note, what is intent? On a purely primal level, if you punch someone in anger, in the moment of doing it, theres every chance you do want them dead - on at least a notional level. Is that 'intent to kill'? How do we make windows into men's souls to make such a fine judgment?
My Coutts card doesn’t have contactless, so I get to annoy people in the queue twice
It's not about ethics, I think. It's simply that we're a nation of pirates, blackguards, violent drunks and scoundrels. And, most importantly, proud of it.
So when such questions arise, the major part of us will instinctively side with the weaker, more vulnerable party, the underdog.