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.