So why do we murder? Would you murder someone?
The overwhelming majority of men do not murder under normal circumstances, well...not outright murder. Only a small percentage of men commit murder in everyday life. I'm not one of these men.
Anarchical times produce yet another echelon of murderers. The mass executions and rape-camps that appeared after authority broke down in the Balkans come immediately to mind. Lynch mobs are composed of such men as well. These crimes are committed by those who under normal circumstances refrain from committing evil merely out of a fear of personal punishment. I don't number among these men either.
There is a third group of men who would perhaps murder while living with extreme stress, or while experiencing intense fear. I suppose what first comes to mind is the way men act under the pressures of battle. Would I murder an "enemy" while he held his hands in the air? I don't think well under stress, though I've been told that I continue to act well. My moral autopilot appears to hold me on course even while my rational-self falls to pieces. Still, my morality has not, and I hope never will be tested in a war. Under extreme enough circumstances, even the best of us might act badly.
One might conceive of a number of cases that don't fit neatly into the above three environments. I once read that a 19th century French jury would not convict a man for a "crime of passion." The example given was that of a man who returned home to find his wife in the arms of another man, and subsequently killed either one or both of them. The implication of this general acquittal is that no one expected that a man could act differently under such an emotional situation.
Obviously, we take another view today. Xev admits that she would kill someone that murdered or raped a member of her family. Thinking in terms of Kant's categorical imperative, let's suppose that familial revenge killings were a universally accepted behavior. Now suppose further that someone murdered a relative of Xev's. Xev rightfully kills the murderer. But now the original murderer's brother rightfully kills Xev. So Xev's father kills this brother. Then the brother's Uncle...
I'm sure you take my point. Revenge killing "La Cosa Nostra" style, only makes a wicked mess of things. This is why it's so important that we have an uncorrupted legal system to dispense fair and swift judgment. If OJ Simpson had murdered my sister and gotten off by way of his greasy "dream team" of lawyers, I admit that I'd be tempted to find him on a golf course and dispense the "justice" that our courts failed to deliver. I'd be tempted, but at the same time I understand that I'd go to the "big house" for doing so. I doubt my sister would prefer to see me rot in prison for the rest of my life, in exchange for avenging her death.
As I wrote in my first paragraph, under normal circumstances most men would not commit outright murder. However, we are guilty of murder to a lesser degree. At least I am. Let me explain:
Imagine a country in which a woman thought to be guilty of adultery is put to death by public stoning. Would you stand in the first row so as to get a "good shot" at her with your stones? Would you stand behind and hand stones to those who are doing the throwing? Would you drive the truck that delivered the stones to the place of execution? Would you pump gasoline into the truck which delivers the stones? Where would you draw the line of participation in her murder?
At the base of this mountain, in Underhill, Vermont is a Marine Corps armament testing ground, run in conjunction with General Electric (yes, the folks who bring "good things" to life). Throughout the summer, hikers dropping by my hut invariably ask about the strange "buurrrppp" noise they hear. Once past my lame joke about it being the call of a lovesick moose, I explain that they are hearing GE's Vulcan cannon, a six-barrel, 20mm gun capable of firing 6,600 rounds per minute. This is the same weaponry used by in the past by right-wing Central American governments to slaughter their own people, courtesy of my tax dollars. I don't simply put gasoline in the truck that carries the stones. In effect, I hand the stones to the executioners. Thus I share the guilt (and an anguish) for a vast number of murders.
I bear a small responsibility for each murder, yet lucky for me, no one thinks to multiply my tiny responsibility for each murder by the vast number of those whom I have a hand in murdering. It would be like trying to reconstruct a single body from the many victims of a mass murderer, by putting together a hand from one victim, and a leg of another...
In his
Existentialism and Human Emotions, Jean Paul Sartre wrote:
"...man is responsible for what he is. Thus, existentialism's first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him. And when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men."
Michael
