Looking back on the unit, or should I say reflecting, the most prominent and impactful reading has certainly been Dylann Roof’s ‘Manifesto.’ The sheer conviction in his hate, the factual information interpreted in a way I would never have thought to interpret it. I think I may have mentioned it but reading that piece felt like watching a 7 car pile-up. It was horrifying and yet I could not look away and found myself completely caught in thought about what he said, and what he had done.
One thing which also came to my mind was the discussion we had about veterans and their alienation from public life, all the while being praised and lauded for their service. Personally, I am and have always been anti-war as a concept, particularly those wars in which the US so often engages which are more colonial and imperial than anything. The comments in the presentation about protestors failing to take into account the difference between the war itself and those who fought really got to me. While I try to separate the two, and while it logically makes sense that someone could be a part of a war they did not want, it can still be hard. And there still remains a sort of stigma against military service-people largely based in my opinion of the administration in charge, and the commander in chief.
Now, while these two points probably seem entirely distinct, I was bouncing between them, trying to figure out why these two had come to the forefront of my thoughts when I made a potential connection. Now do bear with me, as this is basically a total stretch and not entirely clearly thought out.
When I was studying the philosophy of Law, one of the most impactful things I had heard was what I believe to be a quote from HLA Hart. Now, I haven’t been able to verify it, but I will look more this evening. The comment was on the Nuremberg trials, specifically on this classic example of someone turning in their neighbour, or family, or friend to the Nazi regime. The question, according to Hart, was whether to allow a gross injustice to stand, or whether to violate one of the most basic tenants of criminal law, viz. no retroactive punishment. Simply put, do you respect that they were following the laws of the time, or do you judge their actions morally and punish using the law. According to Hart, despite the horrendous things done under the Nazi regime’s law, they could not convict them from a legal perspective, not without some form of international law having been in place prior to World War II.
Granted, this may seem entirely disconnected. But, we can see a much less severe perspective on this applying to veterans. Especially in the Vietnam war, or other wars which hold public disapproval. Here are groups of people who joined the military to protect their country, or perhaps due to the draft, and who wanted to do the right thing. As such, they had to follow orders, even when they thought those orders were wrong. And yet, socially, we punish them. On the other side of things, we have Dylann Roof. He certainly thought he was doing the right thing when he killed 9 people in Charleston, despite our inability to see quite how he thought that. We find his actions despicable and deplorable, but what if 20 years from now, that becomes the social norm, and a court convenes to punish those people who didn’t kill their black neighbours? I would not say they would be morally justified in doing so, but they certainly would be legally viable, so long as that was the law.
To me, it just all screams of the complicated interaction of our legal systems and moral thought. We see laws as being grounded, perhaps, in morality, but how can we be sure we got it right when the past is so full of what we see as mistakes in moral thought. Dylann Roof didn’t think he was evil, he had reasons for acting the way that he did, even though it was contrary to laws. Veterans may very well be in an opposite situation, of joining the military for a reason and carrying out orders they do not agree with simply because they feel compelled by their institution. While they are certainly on a different level entirely (at least in my opinion). These questions about morality in following laws when one disagrees is one of the most interesting intersections of ethics and law to me.
Honestly, I’m not certain how well thought out any of that was, but I’m rather ill and may not be thinking clearly.
A really interesting connection here!
I’ve been thinking about ethics of care vs. justice recently, and a paper I’ve read by Marilyn Friedman notes that care ethics (characterized by an empathetic concern for individuals) is a symbolically feminine/female approach (while justice ethics, or the more “rule-based” concern, is symbolically masculine/male). Not to say these are innate or biological, but that we’ve come to associate and categorize the genders ethically into such a stark dichotomy that it seems almost unworldly to have a person, regardless of sex/gender, be both empathetic and adhering to rigid law.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about my younger brother, who is studying criminology to become a police officer. I told him my thoughts about the police-system and that I personally felt that the institution was inherently oppressive. He didn’t understand this until he learned that the RCMP was created to police Indigenous people on reserves and limit their access to basic necessities. The dilemma is (in this case and in the one with the soldiers) that if you disobey an unjust “rule” or “law” out of an interest of care ethics, you will be reprimanded (especially as someone who is supposed to uphold the law).
I fear that while law might have its primary duty to some moral code (whatever it may be), it often fails to take into account the notion of care.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/care-eth/