Number 93 : July 1998 |
May I say that I did not intend my remark about abortion not being murder if it was legal for publication ? I gave Theo permission to quote from my letter to him, but I didn't expect him to use that bit as I'd said I didn't want to discuss abortion. I think it is too serious a topic to be used for provocation, and I would not attempt to discuss it now because my knowledge is probably out of date. I may return to it later after more research and thought.
However I was taught that in philosophy it was important to define one's terms ; and I don't believe that means rewriting the dictionary. Anthony now says that he believes the state commits murder. The same definition applies, if it is not unlawful it is not murder. In addition I think there may be a case for arguing that murders are committed by human beings, not by abstract entities like the state; but I don't feel inclined to pursue that just now.
So perhaps I may return to what I meant to comment on in the first place, which is when, if ever, we might be justified in killing a human being. I think the best way to tackle this is to consider in what circumstances, within our own experience or hearsay knowledge, killing human beings has been considered justified in the past, and analyse the reasons.
It doesn't seem all that long ago that capital punishment for murder - death by hanging - was taken for granted in this country. The justification was threefold:
The main objections to capital punishment were:
Another obvious example of killing that was considered justified happened during the war. There was no doubt that killing by the armed forces in war-time was legal; and most people thought it was justified because:
In spite of this some people still believed that killing human beings was wrong. The strength of their feeling was recognised by allowing them to register as conscientious objectors. Those who had been brought up in pacifist traditions had to make a choice, knowing that if they stuck to their principles they would probably be called cowards and treated with contempt.
When the time came for me to stand up and be counted I had already chosen (I thought) a career in farming, so I joined the Women's Land Army. I think the war was over by then, anyway. and I probably gave better service to the country and humanity in general by milking cows than I would have done by learning to operate a searchlight or something; but I always felt a nagging suspicion of guilt that I'd evaded the issue and taken the easy way out. I found out later that this feeling seemed to be common also to many people who hadn't been allowed to join the armed forces because their normal jobs were more important to the war effort. It was not so much that they had avoided the danger - nothing could guarantee safety from off-course bombers unloading their bombs at random - but that by keeping themselves free from sin they had avoided their share of the communal guilt.
Not everyone took it as seriously as that, but for a good many people in those days, to kill or not to kill (or be associated with killing) became a serious choice in real life, not just a romantic spy-story speculation.
It is much more unusual for people to be forced to make such a choice now. Though Anthony may like to consider whether the state misleads people by advertising joining the army as a way of learning a trade, seeing the world, enjoying comradeship etc., while ignoring that the main purpose of army training is to teach people to kill human beings. But I think most people don't need to have that explained.
One incident which was widely reported some years ago shows that it is possible to be confronted with a difficult choice unexpectedly, perhaps even now. A man was walking along a quiet country road when he found a crashed vehicle. The driver was alive and conscious but trapped in such a way that the walker couldn't pull him out. The vehicle was starting to burn and the driver begged to be killed to save him from the agony. The driver was an ex-commando so was trained to kill with his bare hands and did what he was asked to do, before hurrying away to find a phone. Was he right or wrong ?
I think the court decided that the walker could not be convicted of murder or manslaughter because there was no proof that the victim was dead and not just unconscious before the fire finished him off. But the walker believed he had killed a human being and that he had made the best decision he could at the time.
What these examples all illustrate, I think, is that sometimes people may have to make an individual moral judgement about whether to kill a human being. If there can be a general rule applicable to all circumstances, I suggest that it might be something like: "Killing of human beings can only be justified if it prevents more suffering than it causes." I don't know whether it's necessary to add that the killing should be as humane as possible, or whether that is implicit in the phrase as it stands.
I'm aware that I'm probably only scratching the surface of what could be said, but I regard it as a starting-off point and present it, tentatively, for your consideration.
Sheila Blanchard
Sheila : Oops - must have lost the plot slightly. Apologies for printing what I shouldn’t have !
As a general aside (not directed at Sheila) might I just apologise to you all for not, in general, corresponding with you individually over your Commensal submissions. I’m just too busy at the moment (and, knowing me, will continue to be so until I retire ... so you’ve only got another 10 - 20 years to wait for the personal touch !). So, if you can phrase things so that they can be imported into Commensal that would help me a lot.
Back to Sheila : you raised some interesting issues & I’ll leave the creative bit of building on what you’ve said to others. There were a couple of points you made that I thought were a bit odd, however.
Firstly, surely your point that "if it is not illegal it is not murder" is a disastrous notion ? Wasn’t this the Nazi’s defence in the light of the charge of genocide at Nuremberg and the various de-Nazification courts ? The Nazi genocide was state-approved, indeed state-driven, (as were those in Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, ... etc.). So, these state-approved mass-killings were not the paradigmatic mass-murders they’re made out to be ? I can’t imagine for a minute you mean this, but this is what your definition implies. That is, unless you’re saying that national law is over-ridden by international law. This might be fine, but I don’t think the international law was in place prior to Nuremberg (which led to some complaints that the victors were creating the law retrospectively to punish the vanquished, the major legal discomfort here being felt in the prosecution of military commanders). It is true that the state doesn’t kill, but orders, encourages or allows its citizens to kill. But Nuremberg demonstrated that obeying the state is no defence where "crimes against humanity" are involved. Also, that those who are responsible for setting up the state to command such things are especially culpable. Whether killing is murder is governed by a higher authority than the law, though I don’t know what that authority is (assuming it not to be divine). Whatever murder is, "taking the life of another for no good reason in cold blood and against their will" must be murder whether the state allows it or not; and no doubt numerous other killings fall into the category of murder whatever the State says.
With respect to capital punishment, isn’t the main objection that to your point (iii) ? That is, that capital punishment doesn’t deter ? This has been demonstrated empirically, but the logic behind it is that "professional" killers don’t intend to get caught and "amateur" killers, who kill on the spur of the moment in a fit of passion, don’t care about getting caught until it’s too late. The only people deterred by capital punishment are those never likely to murder anyone - which is what gives deterrence its popular appeal to ordinary people - and it’s this sort of person that occasionally ends up on the wrong end of a miscarriage of justice.
I think you’re a bit harsh on the armed forces. It’s like saying the purpose of police training is so policemen can whack people with their truncheons more efficiently. Often, the show of force is sufficient, which is what "peacekeeping" forces are all about. But, you’re right that any show of force must be backed up with a willingness to use it if necessary.
Finally, I though your definition of when killing human beings is justified was somewhat hair-raising and open to all sorts of abuse. As it stands, it’d allow a vigilante to empty a few hospices and exterminate a few million Ethiopians; or worse, depending on one’s view of the quality of life in "this vale of tears".
Theo