A Moral Hypothetical Concerning the Boston Bombings

[Litmaster]

I posed this question to some friends of mine this morning and now I’m posing it to you. I wanted to introduce a hypothetical scenario in order to ask a moral question related to the Boston Bombing:...

[Litmaster]

Think carefully, for this is not a simple case of ‘kill or be killed’. I purposely left some variability into the scenario, accounting for the free will of all parties involved: you, the crowd, and the guilty man.

THE GUILTY MAN has free will, just as anyone does. Certainly he is choosing to escape the park, so as to avoid likely death. And it's possible that, despite his words, he may not act on them; he may be bluffing, or may have a St. Paul-esque conversion experience on the way home, repent, and become an altogether different type of person. There is further variability even in the event that he does escape and, unchanged in character, lives to commit further crimes. He may fail in these attempts, or get killed by police, etc. You simply don't know what will happen if he escapes the park. However, you did hear his words stating his intention to cause more harm if he escapes. And you know he has been found guilty of such crimes in the recent past.

YOU have free will in the sense of throwing the rock or not, whatever your reason for or against. But hurling one rock does not make it definite that the guilty man will die: your throw may miss, or not land a fatal blow even if it hits. Or you might even miss intentionally, but there is no guarantee that this action will not trigger others to throw with fatal aim.

THE CROWD has its own (collective) free will as well. Even if you hurl your rock first, there is no certainty that others will follow, so it's possible that you may be the only one to hurl a rock and that the guilty man may escape the park anyway. Or perhaps no one will throw a rock at all. The only thing you know for certain is that no one has thrown a rock as of this second.

But you have to decide what YOU will do RIGHT NOW. He's now only 130 feet from the pavement, and closing the distance fast...

[Litmaster]

One more thing: We all know this is not a truly realistic scenario, so please don’t try to be creative or clever and try to alter the scenario to weasel out of the stated parameters. I’m interested here in your moral reasoning, in why you would choose to throw or not throw. If you care to answer, then please share below.

[Osiris]

What do you hope to gain by this?

[turbo]

In viewing the news all day Friday, I can see most of the citizens of the US throwing that rock, and if they all miss, they will act in other ways.

[LiamKerrington]

Since this is a hypothetical, I will get into it ... Be warned - you may not like what I write; I was simply asked for my opinion, and I understand that this is not meant to become an argument. In the light of this understanding I would be glad if you don't throw stones at me ... Thanks in advance.

(1)
I was raised in a Christian society, which makes me partake in certain or uncertain Christian ideas. One of those is: "The one without guilt may throw the first stone." And I am as little without guilt as anyone else. Another is about the antithesis of the eye-for-an-eye-scheme.
These two concepts alone would keep me from throwing a stone or even mentally supporting anyone to do so.

(2)
Another reason why I would not throw a stone is that I believe in natural law and the legal concepts of Western Worlds. Hence I know that justice may be brought on criminals by the will and the force of the State/ public authorities, and not the means of any other civil person or group of persons. The State or public authorities are empowered by the people through elections; and the people simply "give away" this part of their power, because they know that in general any public authority will treat and deploy their powers with great responsibillty. Ok, you may argue that by being chosen as one of 10.000 in your hypothtical this choice was made by the public authorities which would make me kind of a deputy of some sort; but I counter that with the simple (legal) fact that civilians asked to fulfill public tasks (especially deputy sheriffs or jury-members) are asked to comply with the laws and legal ideas in existence and not to refer only to individual moral standards. But this is your case: 'base your decision on moral alone.' And this would make my task not one as a duty for the public, but one of my personal agenda in the end; thus I don't act on behalf of the public authorities elected by the people and therefore not for the people as such.
That being said: I have some understanding of constitutional law, criminal law, law of damages etc. I would know that, if I threw a stone only based on my moral understanding, I would violate certain sets of legal concepts which ere made by the people I elected or by the people elected by my parents or grand-parents; therefore I would violate the democratic principles my ancestors and I try to live by as the paramount idea of the Western World. Throwing the stone would be like neglecting these basic principles, which I could not allow me to do. Although this might sound like a legal argument, it, too, is a question of moral as well: Even if given the power to violate existing law without risking any punishment or debts, it is part of my moral understanding to comply with the rules instead of ignoring them in the face of a single event only because I received the freedom to do so.

(3)
Now, in your hypothetical, you mention that Mr Tsarnaev may return to his criminal roots; and you even consider the idea that he may tell me and all the others that he will gladly restart bombing and killing as soon as he is a free person again. Ok, words are just words. Since everyone knows what he is up to it should be no problem for police forces to take preventional action - like mirroring the guy and paying close attention to what he is doing and who he is talking to. Since he could remain a threat, any public authority as well as the civil society would react accordingly. I would not feel any threat based on what he says; since he is "known" to the public, he cannot act as freely and anonymously as he did in the first case, which in return would make it a lot harder for him to act as a criminal again.

(4)
Finally: You ask us not to change the paradigms of your hypothetical. Granted. But as I understand it, he is guilty based on what is the outcome of the court-session. I myself consider any court-decision only half as solid as it may seem. For once the guilty plea by Mr Tsarnaev may be the result of a psychological trick - not by others, but by himself, maybe for example to protect others or because he simply got stuck in his own mindset and has started to confuse things making him believe in his guilt although he himself might have been only an inferior pawn in the scheme of others. Also it may have happened that probably not all of the important clues of the case were considered in the trial. This is just my opinion: But although your hypothetical speeks of the 100% guilt of Mr Tsarnaev, I say that it is only a 100% guilt in the legal system he was sentenced in. The legally approved 100% guilt might be less solid from other perspectives - in my humble opinion. Don't misunderstand me: I have no reason to distrust the outcome of the legal process, and I would gladly submit to the outcome of the trial, because the legal system is one of the fruits of the democratic principles of Western nations like the USA, UK, France or Germany (or many other nations ...).
edit:
What I say, is: Many cases cannot be solved without the aid or concepts of a legal system; such legal systems are mandatory to solve problems or issues at hand; thus - although a judgement might not be perfect from various perspective, it is solid and valid in the legal sense.
So what I tell you here is that I totally agree with the judgement and the legal estimate that Mr Tsarnaev is 100% guilty, but he may be not as guilty as it may seem from the legal perspective; so: who am I to punish him with throwing stones at him, if there is at least a slight chance that he himself might be a victim to a certain, maybe even only small degree?

(5)
This idea I wanted to write down earlier, but I forgot to do so, because your question, Lit, is really tough as nails:
I imagine that someone would throw the first stone; and maybe this would lead to others following his or her example. Maybe I would dive into this group-frenzy as well. Not one single stone, maybe not even 10 or 20 would be enough to stop Mr Tsarnaev; but the amount of all stones finally kills him.
I could not live with the idea that it could have been me and my stone that has killed a human being. Even considering what Mr Tsarnaev has done, he remains this: a human being. And my moral simply forbids to kill someone else. No. Matter. What. I could betray myself by claiming that my stone only hurt him and it was the stone of someone else who killed him; but this claim would be as false as the claim of anyone else saying this. And this would be a totally unacceptable situation for me - living either with the uncertainty that I may have killed someone, the certainty that I added to the killing of someone else, and finally considering lying to myself and/ or others about it.
Now, you may answer to this that police forces kill people as well; even people kill in self defense. These situations are by no means comparable to the hypothetical here. For once: police-forces are actually trained to shoot people without the purpose to kill them; and if they focussed a lot better shooting into legs or arms (although much harder to hit) may save lives; and reacting to a violant action in self-defense is the opposite of willfully using the old-aged method of 'stoning someone to death' ...
/edit

Now you have my (moral) reasons why I would not throw the stone. What about the reasons for what exactly you would do? In all honesty I have some trouble sharing my opinion with anyone if he or she simply avoids taking a position him- or herself. You have established this hypothetical (as you did in the other Boston-thread), but you have not taken your own position. Is this the case because you have no answer yourself, yet; or do you want to test the people you keep in touch with? I don't ask this in order to challenge you, but only out of curiosity.

All the best!
Liam

[Litmaster]

What do you hope to gain by this?

Gain? I guess
1. To add something else to keep this dead-ass forum going in the off-season
2. To gain some insight into how different people would regard the matter

No other motive, really. We could tell fart jokes if you prefer, but not everyone is into that, and even I am not into that all the time.

So?

[Litmaster]

In viewing the news all day Friday, I can see most of the citizens of the US throwing that rock, and if they all miss, they will act in other ways.

So what would YOU do in that situation?

[Litmaster]

Now you have my (moral) reasons why I would not throw the stone. What about the reasons for what exactly you would do? In all honesty I have some trouble sharing my opinion with anyone if he or she simply avoids taking a position him- or herself. You have established this hypothetical (as you did in the other Boston-thread), but you have not taken your own position. Is this the case because you have no answer yourself, yet; or do you want to test the people you keep in touch with? I don't ask this in order to challenge you, but only out of curiosity.

Thanks for the thoughtful response! And you're right, I haven't given my reasoning on purpose--not yet--because I didn't want to alter any one else's response or give the impression that there was some 'right' answer here I was looking for. This isn't meant as some kind of moral 'test' or anything. I have no 'right' answer in mind, only my opinion on what I would do, and why.

I've gotten dozens of responses to this on Facebook and they have been all over the map:
some would throw the stone right off
some would throw only if others started throwing first
some would throw only as a last resort, if it were clear no one else would throw
some would not throw, at all, under any circumstances


And all have had different reasons for making their choice. I'm honestly not seeking some 'right' or 'wrong' answers, and won't be looking up or down at anybody based on whatever they say. If anything, you could say this is a way to get to know people on the forums a bit better.

[LiamKerrington]

Thanks for the thoughtful response! And you're right, I haven't given my reasoning on purpose--not yet--because I didn't want to alter any one else's response or give the impression that there was some 'right' answer here I was looking for. This isn't meant as some kind of moral 'test' or anything. I have no 'right' answer in mind, only my opinion on what I would do, and why.

I've gotten dozens of responses to this on Facebook and they have been all over the map:
some would throw the stone right off
some would throw only if others started throwing first
some would throw only as a last resort, if it were clear no one else would throw
some would not throw, at all, under any circumstances


And all have had different reasons for making their choice. I'm honestly not seeking some 'right' or 'wrong' answers, and won't be looking up or down at anybody based on whatever they say. If anything, you could say this is a way to get to know people on the forums a bit better.

It's cool.

[Solanine]

I would categorically not throw the first stone. I do not support capital punishment and will absolutely not execute on the orders of the government.
Even with a guilty man going free I would never violate anybody else's right to life or have my rights violated.