Attitude and Ethics

{ Podcast this essay } Suppose a person far more powerful than myself were to suddenly grab me, overwhelm me, and do some evil deed. Perhaps they would grab my arm and beat someone to death. Or perhaps they would work me like a puppet somehow. Would I be responsible for the consequences? I don't think so, at least at first glance.

Suppose I would try to resist, but to no avail. Then, of course, no one would say I was ethically accountable. One ought to be held accountable for what one can control. And I can't control what this powerful person is doing to me. Therefore, I ought not be held accountable for it. At first glance this seems right.

Recently I was on a trip to Boston, and I rode the subway. The platform of the subway was very crowed during the end of the work day. Suppose someone had pushed me from behind, and the force of their push had toppled me into someone in front of myself. And that poor someone fell onto the tracks and was crushed by the train.

No one would say I was to be held accountable for what happened, but the person behind me would be held accountable for what happened. In this case, it was presumed I was pushed inadvertently into a innocent bystander. Perhaps I would have protested along the way.

But now let us vary the scenario a bit. Suppose I am standing on a subway, and I see someone in front of me, known to be a heinous serious killer who got off on a technicality. Perhaps he has a dastardly look on his face. Perhaps I recently heard him whisper to an accomplice that he is going to kill again as soon as he gets the opportunity.

Again, Dick the Bruiser, sneaks up behind me and pushes me forward. I recognize Mr. Bruiser's grasp; I recall, and note yet again, his power at propelling me forward toward the person in front of me -- albeit, this time a serial killer. Past experience and attestation by expert witnesses agreed the first time Mr. Bruiser pushed me that there was nothing I could have done about it. He was just so huge.

This time, however, I recall all this, but I see where I'm being pushed. Even though I can't stop it, and even though I'm not responsible for starting it, I find I'm now glad Mr. Bruiser has pushed me. Quickly, and along the way as he's hurling my body into this serial killer, before the platform drops onto the tracks, I say, "Yes, Mr. Bruiser. Push harder. Faster!" All the while agreeing with him, all the while knowing (counterfactually) there is nothing I can do to stop him.

Again, the inevitable collision. Again, a body drops onto the tracks. But this time it is the body of a serial killer. The train runs over him. But in this case society has been granted an advantage by such a man's death.

Again, the question is asked: would I be ethical responsible for the serial killer's death? Ought implies can. I ought to be held accountable for something I could have stopped. It has already been stipulated there is no way I could have stopped this.

I enjoyed the inevitable outcome. It seems, therefore, even though I might be in agreement with the outcome; even though it might be held that the outcome was unethical -- killing a person arbitrarily without due processes seems about as unethical as could be in otherwise civil circumstances.

Now people might not approve of my attitude toward this. One should perhaps always have a revulsion toward unethical acts which end in the death, even murder of another person. And it is this very revulsion at the possibility, even likelihood, of further deaths at the hands of this serial killer which brought me to such a celebratory state upon being pushed again by Mr. Bruiser.

Certainly Mr. Bruiser would be rightfully held guilty. He didn't have the set-up that I had. He didn't hear the whispering of the serial killer to his friend. He didn't have the relevant moral knowledge, perhaps, that the serial killer was rightly accounted as guilty. So Mr. Bruiser would be send to prison, and rightly so.

I would, perhaps, be socially condemned, but there are seemingly no grounds to convict me. There was nothing I could have done about it. Furthermore, people are not held legally accountable for their emotional responses to certain circumstances. People are held accountable for their actions. This might be just a claim about legal ethics, and not ethics proper. As a legal matter, it would not be right to hold someone accountable to the state for their emotive responses.

Still, perhaps, as an ethical matter, we should see ourselves as somehow flawed when we enjoy being a part of unethical circumstances, even if we cannot stop or interfere with ongoing circumstances into which we are involuntarily drawn.

REFERENCES

[image] "Boston Subway" Flickr by saaam Uploaded on July 27, 2005.


O.

Legal ethics, so-called torture, and Guantanamo Bay

{ Podcast this essay @ 5min. } Two stories came across the BBC wire within the last few days which attracted my attention. One concerns, Majid Khan, who is a Pakistani-born US resident. He is currently detained at Guantanamo Bay. His claim is that he was "mentally tortured". Naturally, he proclaims his absolute innocence of all charges. He's been accused of planning to blow up US gas stations and fuel depots. I think, therefore, he is indeed a person who could be used to harm the US. Detaining him on those grounds is not completely without merit, as long as there is some evidence that uncommitted parties would find telling against allowing him unimpeded freedom of movement.

What I found intriguing about Mr. Khan's story concerns the exact nature of complaints he brings regarding his torture at Guantanamo Bay:

"I swear to God this place in some sense worst than CIA jails [sic]. I am being mentally torture here," he said. "There is extensive torture even for the smallest of infractions." Mr Khan complained about how US guards had taken away pictures of his daughter, given him new glasses with the wrong prescription, shaved his beard off, forcibly fed him when he went on hunger strike, and denied him the opportunity for recreation. This led him to attempt to chew through his artery twice, Mr. Khan said. Later, Mr Khan produced a list of further examples of psychological torture, which included the provision of "cheap, branded, unscented soap", the prison newsletter, noisy fans and half-inflated balls in the recreation room that "hardly bounce".[1]

Unquestionably, giving a man some cheap, branded, unscented soap will break him everytime. In fact, I well recall a stay at a Days Inn in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma where I had to use that kind of soap, and it drove me into such distress that I had to take a few moments to blow into a beach ball so as not to hyper-ventilate, and so as to work off my angst at the whole experience!

On a more serious note, I can appreciate the despair of sitting in a prison, lonely, scared, and unable to track any sort of schedule for due process of an alleged crime against me. Still, some people maintain such a petty undeveloped character, that they really cannot appreciate the difference between their own psychological trivialities, and actual dire circumstances. Mr. Kahn's whining strikes me as indicating this weakness of character. Compare him with someone like James Stockdale,[2] or other POW survivors, and the contrast becomes very clear.

On another side of the Guantanamo issue is the account of Lt Cdr Matthew Diaz, a US Navy lawyer who faces six months in prison and dismissal from service for sending a human rights organization the names of 550 Guantanamo Bay detainees. As he was completing is final days of a tour of service at Guantanamo Bay in 2006, he sent an unmarked Valentine's Day card to a lawyer associated with The Center for Constitutional Rights. That organization had won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that terrorism suspects had the right to challenge their detention, yet the Pentagon was refusing to identify the men, hampering the group's effort to represent them.[4]

What is interesting about the Diaz case is how he had "observed the stonewalling, the obstacles we continued to place in the way of the attorneys." He continued, "I knew my time was limited. ... I had to do something."[4] Diaz also explained how he was moved to act because prisoners' rights under the Geneva Convention had been violated: "No matter how the conflict was identified, we were to treat them in accordance with Geneva, and it just wasn't being done."[3] On my view, his actions are morally praiseworthy, though I think the execution of the plan was not well done. Later, Diaz claims he was acting "irrationally"[3] and even claiming "it was 'cowardly' to release the names and other identifying information in that manner."[4]

I am certainly not in agreement with Diaz that it was cowardly to do what he did, and I suspect he's saying this to lesson the consequences that are being levied on him for his otherwise praiseworthy actions. (Also, his light sentence of 6mos., as opposed to 14 years, leads me to believe others, likewise, think he was motivated by ethical reasons.) However, I do agree that he was somewhat irrational in what he did, for there were probably much more subtle ways for him to reveal the names of Guantanamo prisoners without him being the one who becomes the scapegoat for an on-going oppressive political policy carried out at the Pentagon. (Fortunately we still have a free press and a separate court system which eventually counteracts oppresive policies by US agencies.)

Guantanomo Bay is a very instructive study about the inconsistencies and tensions in the broader US legal process and in the treatment of internationals who are not straightforwardly protected by political commitments embedded in the documents and heritage of US traditions.


REFERENCES

[1]"US detainee 'mentally tortured'" BBC News (Accessed 5/19/07)

[2] "James Stockdale Biography - Congressional Medal of Honor" Academy of Achievement See also "James Stockdale Dies; Won Medal of Honor, Ran for Vice President" The Washington Post

[3]"Guantanamo lawyer faces jail term" BBC News (Accessed 5/19/07)

[4] "Jury: 6 Months in Prison for Navy Lawyer" The Washington Post

O.