I was reading a children's book recommended to me by a friend. This is one of the books in the well-known "Series of Unfortunate Events" books, from which the movie starring Jim Carey was made last year. In the opening few chapters, this statement is made:
"Since their first encounter with Count Olaf, the villain's wickedness and deception had run rampant all over the Baudelaire's lives, and it had become difficult for the children to keep from becoming villains themselves."
I read this sentence, then stopped and stared at it. I had to read it at least once more before I could go on. Something about it needled me. Having read one of the other books in this series, I knew that the three Baudelaire children were unfailingly good-hearted and quite morally high-minded. I knew, therefore, that at no point, while under the malevolent thumb of Count Olaf, did they say to one another, "You know, this life of wickedness and deception has a certain lure to it, doesn't it? Maybe we should consider it for ourselves, eh? What the heck! Let's turn villain!" Thus, I can only think that the author must mean something else entirely by the phrase "it had become difficult for the children to keep from becoming villains themselves." In short, the author must mean that, in their attempts to escape the dangerous hands of the Count, the children might have done something which, had it been done by Olaf, would have been considered villainous.
Thus, villainy is defined by the action, not by the motive.
Am I right in guessing that the author feels that it would be better in the grand scheme for the children to have simply allowed Olaf to succeed in his evil aims than for the children to have engaged in any action that could, on a purely superficial level, have been described as villainous? For instance, if escape meant lying to a villain, or taking a villain's car, or trapping a villain in a locked room, are we to accept that that would make the children villains themselves?
I mean, what??
I recognize this philosophy as the same that says that enforcing the death penalty on a murderer reduces society to his level, making murderers of us all. The philosophy sees only the act, and never the motive (unless the act is racially motivated, then God help you). Frankly, I find this philosophy so utterly bereft of even the most remote intelligence that it astonishes me that anyone adheres to it. And yet, adhere to it many do, and with passion. I have friends who believe this with a fervor, and I do not believe they are idiots.
And yet...!
How could anyone truly not recognize the importance of motive in an act? The mugger in the garbage-choked alley cuts with a knife, but so does the surgeon in the operating room. We don't arrest the surgeon for assault or attempted murder, because we understand that it is not the action itself which constitutes the crime, but the motive and the goal (although the action must occur; no one goes to jail for simply having a motive, fortunately). It astounds and shocks me that some people claim there is no moral difference between the murder of an innocent woman at the hands of a rapist and the officially sanctioned death of that serial rapist for the protection of society. It absolutely floors me that some people would choose to do nothing to stop dangerous people (because it might require actions that dangerous people have utilized to cause harm and death to the innocent) and then do not feel responsible when dangerous people continue to cause harm and death to the innocent.
It seems to me that this is the fatal flaw in any attempt at morality divorced from God, morality on a strictly human level. If (as this philosophy seems to say) morality is not based on any universal code of right and wrong that originates, by necessity, in the heart and soul of man, then it must by necessity be defined merely by the action alone. According to this philosophy, it isn't wrong to kill a person because it is wrong to value her purse or her sex more than her life. It is simply wrong because it results in a willful death. Motive is utterly irrelevent and shouldn't even be considered or addressed. We shouldn't attempt to train our thoughts to value people and life, or to respect property, or to prefer truth and justice. These are apparently utterly irrelevent constructs of a religious worldview. Thus, a death enforced by the state for the protection of its citizenry is no different on a moral level than the death of an eight-year-old girl at the hands of her abductor.
And this is apparently perfectly legitimate to many people.
I truly want to understand this position, if I can. Surely I am missing something extremely lucid and poignant about it, am I not? I know that all the good-hearted and apparently intelligent people I know who believe this cannot simply be cold-hearted dummies. I am trusting in that confidence, because I do not want to believe they are cold-hearted dummies. And yet, if this is all there is to it, that the action alone defines the crime, and not the motive and the goal, then I am afraid I have no choice.
Maybe I should ask the Baudelaire children if they'd rather be knocked-off by Count Olaf than, maybe, steal his car and make a break of it. I wonder what they'd say?
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