Using the terminology in the way that I have been trying to: He was “responsible” to the degree that what happened was likely and foreseeable. He was “blameworthy” or “culpable” to the extent that it was foreseeable and he was doing something with no meaningful benefit, or honorable purpose, or redeeming value.
So, without having seen the film or knowing too much about the circumstances of its production, I would personally say that Van Gogh is “responsible” to only a very small degree (the murder had to have been considered very unlikely, if it was even considered as a realistic possibility), and “blameworthy” not at all.
Sure. As before, that doesn’t mitigate Jones’ responsibility in any way, but if you start flying planes into skyscrapers then all sorts of horrible things are going flow from that, and you bear responsibility for the degraded world that results, in both general and specific terms.
Obviously the situations aren’t perfectly analogous, but, to me, it seems that if you say Jones is not responsible in any part for these murders, you should probably also say that Al Qaeda is not responsible in any part for, say, the Iraq war.
My impression is that van Gogh’s film wasn’t made for the purpose of pissing people off. It wasn’t made to express contempt and scorn for Islam and Muslims per se. It had content other than provocation. In short, it wasn’t trolling.
To disagree slightly with LHoD, I would say that the protesters *could *be considered blameworthy to a small degree, since I think the clearly correct course of action is to ignore this asshole completely, and I would *suspect *that the protest was (subconsciously) more about venting anger than trying to bring about the best long-term outcomes.
But yeah, fundamentally, marching in favor of tolerance is just a different sort of thing from burning someone’s cherished symbols out of spite.
To use a less overheated example: if a friend loans you his laptop and you leave it on the dashboard of your unlocked car while you run into Starbucks, you’re not blameless for the resultant theft … and that’s just a matter of carelessness – if there were somehow a degree of conscious risk-taking or even malevolence involved in your decision, it would be much worse.
I understand this part. I also understand that saying Jones bears some responsibility for what happened in no way absolves those who murdered or assaulted of any responsibility.
In light of this, can anyone morally criticize Islam knowing that there is a chance someone will be murdered, assaulted or have their property destroyed over it?
Okay, I agree he was trolling. But I don’t see how that’s relevant to assigning responsibility. Would it be better if Jones made a more thought out criticism of Islam and then burned the Qur’an?
I’m not sure I understand – in the post you quoted, I said that Van Gogh was not blameworthy, and we’ve had several other posts, by myself and others, describing how it can be (and usually is) ethical to criticize Islam in spite of the potential for retribution.
It still wouldn’t be good, but it could be “better.” Intent matters.
Well it largely depends on how I’m using the words in order to make my point, but what I’m saying is this: I’m responsible for a consequence if – and to the degree that – it’s foreseeable. This means that I have to take it into consideration and acknowledge that I helped to bring it about; I don’t get to say that since it wasn’t my goal, I don’t have to think about modifying my behavior because of it. However, I’m only **blameworthy **(i.e., deserving of moral condemnation) for a consequence if I in fact *ought *to have modified my behavior. Am I doing a good, worthwhile, or important thing? What are the good consequences of my action that will counterbalance the potential bad consequences?
In other words, I have to own up to the results of my choices, and be able to defend them as honorable in light of the positive and negative consequences, instead of taking credit for the good consequences while hand-waving away the bad ones as someone else’s fault. That’s what it means to be “responsible” but not “blameworthy.”
I on the other hand DO think he intended for people to be hurt or killed; why else would he bother to do what he did?
Again, no I don’t because I see no reason to think that van Gogh was trying to cause violence. Without the same intent, the two cases aren’t at all the same.
He’s a guy who thinks Muslims are Satanic and wrote a book about it. I expect that he thought a lot about it. Anti-Muslim hatred in America is an old vice; I read a while back about how the communists were originally demonized in America by comparing them to Muslims.
For the same reason that someone might, say, burn the flag: to protest or condemn, to draw attention to his particular cause. Hell, if he were really out for blood, why would he have backed down the first time, when there was a ton of press attention, and gone ahead with it this time, when there was almost none?
It isn’t enough that he was callously indifferent to the deaths he might cause? He has to be a scheming monster, lusting after bloodshed for its own sake? Because there are really very few of those sorts around, though I gather you believe otherwise.
If you say so. But wearing the short skirt still puts some of the blame for her rape on her own shoulders.
It, or something like it, was foreseeable. Ayaan Hirsi Ali urged him to get a bodyguard and take other precautions.
And how conveniently it affords you a method by which to absolve from responsibility the acts you approve of as having a honourable purpose, and put blame on those you disagree with as having no redeeming value. Jones is guilty because to you his act served no purpose (never mind that it may have to himself which Dorkness already said he couldn’t care less about, and indeed it is a brave new world where conservative has to defend to a liberals that blasphemous and anti-authoritarian acts have merits by themselves), Van Gogh was blameless because to you his movie had a purpose. His killer must have thought otherwise. So by your thinking the killer must have been correct to put some blame on Van Gogh.
I’ve been using those words in a very particular and explicitly defined way, so it kinda throws me for a loop when you quote them back to me in a much more casual fashion, as I *assume *you’re doing here. But anyway, as I’ve explained, I’m not absolving anybody of “responsibility” for the consequences of their actions, but some bad consequences do not necessarily make an action morally blameworthy.
Ultimately, yes. If someone disagrees about that, then of course they’re going to come to a different conclusion about his moral culpability. That’s fine – it means we can discuss who’s right – but I still haven’t seen anyone take that position. Do **you **think that what Jones did was good or worthwhile? Or was it a stupid action with suspect motives and horrible consequences?
No, by my thinking the killer must have thought he was correct to put blame on Van Gogh, but that kinda goes without saying: no matter whose “thinking” we’re working with, the killer thought he was doing something good.
I have an inconstant ideology. On some days I am religious and like to show respect for religion and various powerful institutions and authorities. On other days I despise all the same. The first is an acquired taste, the latter the product of my Marxist parents.
Today I feel like the good old-fashioned anarchist, so I say that what Jones did was good and well. Send the parasite princes and priests and Imams to the guillotine for the amusement of the people, cut up the holy books and use them for toilet paper, put the flame to the sacred places. Tomorrow I may feel different and more in line with people who are more bend towards respecting religious authorities.
Because he’s an asshole? Because it plays well to his congregation?
Van Gogh certainly knew his film would be inflammatory as did the Dutch cartoonist who drew pictures of Mohammad. I fail to see why you think that doesn’t matter. So it’s okay to criticize Islam, even if you’re perfectly aware that the potential for violence is real, so long as your intentions are pure?
Maybe if it was published in 2000 I’d agree but since it was published in 2010 I don’t think so. Given his history I’m sure he wasn’t exactly tolerant but I don’t think he ever would have published his book had Islamic fundamentalist not put themselves in the spotlight. Where did you read that communist were first criticized by comparing them to Muslims here in the United States? I haven’t heard that before and you have piqued my interest. It reminds of of Thomas Paine’s effort to channel American anti-Catholicism by comparing King George to the Pope.
Not a fair comparison. It’s about intent and knowledge as well.
If Jones had no real anticipation of violent backlash from his act it would be different.Because of what had happened previously Jones was well aware that his completely unnecessary act held potential harm to innocents and Americans. That changes his moral perspective, and responsibility as well.
There is a moral imperative to weigh benefits vs costs when making a choice that has such potential. The primary responsibility is first on those who commit the deed and the Muslim leaders who incited them, but Jones is not free from any responsibility. He did an ignorant bigoted useless thing knowing it’s potential, for what purpose?
That goes to what I said earlier. Some Muslims react like jerks to a Koran burning, but Americans don’t react the same way to a flag-burning. Therefore the Koran burner is responsible in a way that a flag-burner is not. That doesn’t make sense.
And intent and knowledge apply just as much to a woman without a bra as to a Koran burner. Some men are going to react as jerks. Is it therefore the case that a woman who goes out in public without a bra bears some responsibility for being assaulted?
Do you believe that flag-burning is ignorant, bigoted and useless?
That’s the difference IMO. Details and circumstance matter. He had been told very explicitly, by knowledgeable authorities that because of a precarious political and emotional position in Afghanistan that his symbolic act of religious expression posed serious and real dangers to innocents. Knowing that, and still deciding to go forward places some of the responsibility on him. IMO, it’s akin to our principle of law about inciting to violence.
That said, certainly those who committed the act and then Muslim leaders who used the event to incite bear much more responsibility.
Jones might be able to claim that what he wanted to express, whatever point he thought he was making, was worth the risk. I think that’s the choice responsible adults make. We have a right to strongly disagree and tell him so.
If responsibility were a zero-sum game, then it’d be paramount to assign zero responsibility to the victim. And when talking with the victim after the fact, it is crass and cruel to the extreme to engage in I-told-you-sos.
But before a crime is committed, there are actions a potential victim can take to increase or lessen the risk of being victimized. And a person is responsible for their own safety. If a person engages in an act that increases their risk of victimization, then yes, they bear some level of responsibility for that. They don’t bear blame, because that’s different, as Varlosz has pointed out, and their responsibility doesn’t decrease the responsibility of the perp.
We certainly do have that right and I don’t think anyone here is disputing that. I certainly think Jones, and others who burn books, is an asshole. What concerns me is that I do not believe the line between legitimate criticism of Islam and trolling is always so clear. If threats of violence are sufficient to cow people like Jones into silence then I fail to see why it should not be sufficient to stop other actions or expressions that some Muslims dislike. This isn’t just an isolated incident Muslim fanatics trying to silence critics which is one reason I’m concerned about this. I don’t honestly know where I can draw the line between legitimate criticism and trolling.
After five pages I doubt we’ll reach a consensus. I do thank everyone who participated in the thread. While I don’t agree with your conclusions I understand where you’re coming from.
I think it does. You’re leaving out a very important third party. The people affected, or not affected by the fallout from some choice.
Look at the example given about having Jews for neighbors. The act is the same, but the surrounding circumstances affect the potential outcome, and should affect the what action is chosen.
There is a moral imperative to decide, how might my action affect others, and, in weighing those two, deciding if the action taken, is worth the potential.
Certainly choosing to tell the Nazi that your neighbors are Jews is superficially an innocent act that doesn’t absolve the Nazi’s of their crimes. But knowing the potential outcome of revealing that information, clearly changes the morality of sharing it or not.
Not the same. In this case, there was a clear warning about the tinder box that could be ignited. You need to be more cautious about lighting a match when there’s a lot of flammable material around.
A woman dressing very suggestively going out is one thing. Going to a gathering of sexual predators is a different choice.It’s also different to risk yourself, and to knowingly risk others.
It can be but I honestly see a difference. Burning a flag seems to be more about making a statement against the policies of a certain government. Burning a so called Holy book seems to be more of an insult to a much more inclusive group.
Regardless, people can and will insult large groups,and at some point, Muslims must learn and live the concept of free speech and a reasonable response to a certain action.
I have little doubt that Jones action was used by people for political purposes and people already filled with resentment were pushed over the edge.