Regular prison guards are responsible for unlawfully imprisoning people.
If I were unlawfully imprisoned by a random sicko, I’d be justified in attacking that person to secure my freedom. Especially if they told me they would imprison me for months or years or the remainder of my life.
Does this now justify prison riots?
The reality is that we MUST have people with the authority to take actions that adversely affect the lives of others. LEOs, lawyers, judges, doctors, university admissions personnel, it’s insane to believe we are justified in using physical threats or violence in order to influence how these people are able to impact our lives.
The doctor who refuses my liver transplant is making a choice that will result in my early demise. He could choose to allow the transplant and let me live, but he’s not.
The prison guard who is overseeing my undeserved 6 year stay in lockup is voluntarily taking part in my illegal imprisonment. Why doesn’t he deserve a shiv to the back?
Perhaps the university admissions person is different, maybe I’ll just threaten to trash her car the way she’s trashing my kid’s future.
They can’t know whether he is innocent or guilty. That’s why they should stay away from the execution. If they participate, they’re responsible for their choice and actions and definitely guilty if the convict turns out to be innocent. I’m strongly opposed to collective guilt, but on the other hand very heavy on personal responsibility. If you participate in the killing of a man, you don’t get to hide behind laws or other people’s decisions after the fact.
In your example, you can’t know for sure that the juror will cause you to be sentenced to death. That’s not self-defense.
Also, I completely fail to see how the guard is indirectly responsible. He’s the one strapping the convict to a bed so that he could be conveniently killed. How could this possibly be “indirect” responsability? It’s much more direct than the responsibility of everybody else, except the person actually doing the injection.
I tend not to be much interested in completely unrealistic hypotheticals. If magic is involved, then I guess it’s morally OK for me to kill the juror to preserve my life. Not an issue I’m going to give much thought to, though.
I completely disagree with “ignorance of innocence” being an excuse, as you probably noticed. Take responsibility for your actions, or don’t kill people. Especially people you’re not sure are guilty.
And I disagree with you. Morality and legality don’t coincide. As an adult in a free society, if you’re not forced to participate, you have to take responsibility for your actions. I don’t care for Murphy’s law, so I will say it : thinking otherwise results in excusing participation in Nazi crimes too. And I’m not exaggerating for effect. At the contrary. In a free society, you can easily avoid participating in a killing, not so much in Nazi Germany. If you don’t, you have to accept the consequences, legal or otherwise.
And by the way, I also deny to the state the power of life and death over me. But that’s a much larger issue I’m not really interested in discussing here.
No one is condemned to death row in the United States as a result of a moral judgment. The guards are free to make whatever moral judgments they like, as we all are. What’s demanded of them is that they follow the law, just like everyone else, no matter their moral perspectives.
Trust me, you don’t what a society where everyone does what they think is right, instead of obeying the law.
You didn’t explain why this applies to execution, but not to imprisonment. Locking an innocent person in a cage for decades isn’t all that different from executing them, and by some measures, it’s worse.
Sure you do, just like if you kill someone through accident, rather than malice or negligence, you get to “hide behind” that.
Think of a soldier. He’s participating in the killing of men, on the basis of laws and other people’s decisions. Does that make what he’s doing wrong? No.
All the guard is doing is carrying out the will and judgment of another. He’s the proximate cause. The court supplies the will and judgment, they are the ultimate cause.
So, your morality is entirely consequentialist, then, with no room for intent to play any role at all?
Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they do not. Murder is wrong, and murder is illegal. Jaywalking isn’t wrong, but it is illegal. Adultery is wrong, but it’s not illegal.
Yes, you have to take responsibility for your actions. That includes refraining from murdering prison guards.
And they know that. They nevertheless volunteer to participate in an execution, knowing that the convict might be innocent.
I understand the argument. However, this situation is really easy to handle. Nobody is forcing them to take part in an execution. They don’t cause any trouble by not volunteering. If they do, they endorse the responsibility of the killing, be it rightful or wrongful.
Because I’m pragmatical. One must dra a line somewhere. Besides, imprisonment is very different by nature. You can put an end to the emprisonent, indemnize the wrongfully convicted man. There’s nothing you can do if you have executed him.
Nope. Mistakes are excusable. You don’t participate in an execution by accident. You willfully choose to do so.
That’s one of the reason why I didn’t want to discuss the general issue of state’s power. Precisely, I believe that a soldier endorse a responsibility too (the extent of which varying an awful lot depending on the circumstances). To put an end to that hijack, suffice to say that I’m a conscientious objector.
He is the proximate cause, indeed. So? You’re arguing against personal responsibility, here. “I’m enforcing other people’s decision” isn’t a get out of jail card. If you accept to kill someone on orders, then do so but don’t try to evade your responsibility. That’s the argument all sorts of very unsavory people have used.
Absolutely not. Intent is paramount. And in this case the intent is pretty clear : killing someone. Who might be innocent. You need, IMO, an extremely convincing reason to justify that. “Someone in authority told me to do so” doesn’t cut it.
I argue it’s self-defense. I guess that was pretty clear.
I disagree that this is the guard’s intent. If you get a pardon or a stay, his job is to ensure that you are very much alive, and I expect he will do that to the best of his abilities.
I think you want a guard who specifically does not intend to cause you to die, and I think that’s generally what you get. You get guards who faithfully uphold the letter and spirit of the law. I’d much rather have LEOs who are “following orders” than LEOs who don’t need or want an order to proceed with an execution.
Agreed…but that responsibility doesn’t forfeit their lives, which are just as valuable as the convict’s.
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
Because I’m pragmatical. One must dra a line somewhere. Besides, imprisonment is very different by nature. You can put an end to the emprisonent, indemnize the wrongfully convicted man. There’s nothing you can do if you have executed him.
[/quote]
I fail to see any sort of bright-line distinction between a guard who escorts an innocent man to the gas chamber, and one who throws him in a cell for the rest of his life. Either the man’s innocence entitles him to kill anyone in the way of his escape, or it doesn’t. We’re talking about abstract moral imperatives, pragmatism needn’t enter into it at all. What moral argument makes killing to escape execution acceptable, but killing to escape imprisonment not?
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
Nope. Mistakes are excusable. You don’t participate in an execution by accident. You willfully choose to do so.
[/quote]
But it’s not participating in an execution that you have a problem with (unless I’ve misunderstood you), it’s solely participating in the execution of an innocent man. That is a mistake.
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
That’s one of the reason why I didn’t want to discuss the general issue of state’s power. Precisely, I believe that a soldier endorse a responsibility too (the extent of which varying an awful lot depending on the circumstances). To put an end to that hijack, suffice to say that I’m a conscientious objector.
[/quote]
Appreciated, but it’s difficult to discuss this otherwise, as the guards being agents of a legitimate state is rather key to my postion, and I think those of most others who agree with me. Certainly, if a local gangster sentenced you to death and send goons to fetch you, fight back with all the lethal force one can muster!
There’s a rather wide gulf between “get out of jail free” and “have a shiv jammed into your throat”. That aside, I can’t fathom how the guard could be said to be responsible for the innocent man being convicted (and the conviction being upheld on appeal), which is the actual error here. Yes, the guard is responsible for carrying out an execution…but he is not responsbile for wrongfully executing an innocent man, because he doesn’t decide innocence or guilt.
Paramount, you say? I respectfully disagree that you’ve made intent paramount to your position, given that the same intent (killing someone, pursuant to law) is acceptable to you, or not, based on factors beyond the knowledge of the guard. That seems entirely consequentialist to me. Which is fine, that’s a valid ethical framework, it just isn’t one I agree with.
It was; I argue that there are exceptions to self-defense, and that this scenario involves one of them.
If your job is to assist in executing me you’d better get paid very well because you are quite literally my mortal enemy. I will take every opportunity to hurt, maim or preferably kill you.
State-sanctioned or not; I really don’t care: It’s you or me. I’m the last soldier defending this fort and the Indians aren’t known to have any mercy, I’m taking as many of the fuckers with me as I can.