Socrates: When you hear the phrase “justice has been served,” what assumption do you make about the events that have occurred?
Nick: Since I associate the phrase with criminals, I would assume that the person who is speaking feels that a criminal got the punishment that they deserved.
Socrates: As humans, should we even have the right to punish other humans?
Nick: Like small children, we all need redirection now and again. Should our actions deserve punishment, than it is our price to pay. When I imagine justice being served, I instinctively think of violent offenders who have become a danger to society and imagine that they deserve all of the punishments they receive.
Socrates: So, in other words, you feel that if you commit a crime, you should pay fairly for your mistake?
Nick: I do.
Socrates: And you believe that you should receive the death penalty for killing your mother, the woman who brought you into this world?
Nick. Yes sir, I most certainly do.
Socrates:What Imagine the following scenario: You are 18 months old and live with your mother and your six year old brother in a bad neighborhood. You find a handgun one morning and are full of excitement because you believe it’s just like the one your brother wears around his hip when he pretends to be a cowboy and you think that your mother must have bought this one for you and just forgot to give it to you. Of course it was for you! Your brother has one and no one else she could think of would want a toy gun as a present.
It’s heavier than the one your brother wears though and you remember a moment when your brother “shot” mommy and she pretended to be seriously injured which sort of scared you except that everyone erupted into huge fits of giggles. Eager for a repeat of such delightful entertainment, you wait patiently for your mother to finish with her outside gardening and come inside.
When the door knob finally turns, you jump up into your pose and in your best imitation of the cops you’ve seen on tv, should “Freeze, or I’ll shoot!” and pull the trigger. For a long moment as the bullet tears towards your mothers chest, you’re proud of her acting skills. She’s almost got you fooled. The the bullet tears through her rib cage, and she falls to the floor. Before the reality of what you have just done is fully formed, you are on your knees hugging your mother as she struggles to breathe, covered in her blood and telling her how sorry you are.
After imagining this reality, do you still feel that punishment should always be given?
Nick: Of course not. The child did it in innocent ignorance. While the right choice may have been to immediately set the gun down where she found it and inform her mother of its location in the house, at such a young age she lacks both the experience and the mortality necessary for such a precautionary action. There should be no punishment for an accidental death. Living her life without her mother will be a heavy enough burden for her to carry.
Socrates: So the statement has changed. People should receive fair punishment to suit the crime that they purposefully committed. Correct?
Nick: That is my belief, yes.
Socrates: What about self-defense?
Nick: Self-defense is legal and fully within your rights.
Socrates: What if you break the law while defending yourself or your loved ones?
Nick: I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand. Wouldn’t it be the burglar who is breaking the law?
Socrates: Not always. Consider this scene: During a mid-night trip to the restroom, you hear the crash of intruders who have just invaded your home. Retrieving your handgun from underneath the sink, you check that it’s loaded as you hear your wife scream from the master bedroom. Quickly, they have both her and your daughter restrained and are ransacking the jewelry she’s collected form your presents over the years.
One of the intruders makes a comment toward your daughter, and your wife’s eyes fill with fire. Ready to fight in any way she can she struggles against her ropes. The second intruder laughs coldly and sets down his firearm. You take a deep breath. With only one intruder armed, he’s your first target and you can’t afford to miss. The minute intruder #2 starts pawing at your little girl, you raise from your hiding position and fire off three quick shots into the intruder still before turning your sights onto the interrupted rapist. He tries to flee, but in your haste to act and the desperation to protct your daughter from an unspeakable fate, you fire off three more quick rounds. Shooting a man in the back in no longer self defense and you are no longer justified by the law for your actions. You have just committed murder.
Do you feel that you deserve the death penalty for these actions?
Nick: I would hope that a fair jury would hear all of the evidence and refuse conviction, but no, I do not feel that a father put into such a position should have to suffer the death penalty. That man is the hero of his family and such a fate would be an insult.
Socrates: Again, the statement has changed. The new statement says that punishment should be given to those who commit criminal acts, but not if they were unaware of the consequences or defending their loved onces. Is this an accurate statement of your beliefs?
Nick: Definitely.
Socrates: Let’s change the topic for a moment. Before we decide how we should punish evil deeds, how do we identify an action as evil in nature?
Nick: Any action that is taken with the intention of hurting someone else is evil, except for in the cases of self-defense as you so kindly reminded me.
Socrates: That’s a fair statement. Is evil a universal truth or are some evils in the perception of the individual, unique as always in their opinions?
Nick: I think some things such as genocide are without a doubt universally evil. However, I feel that participating in a moment of infidelity while your spouse or girlfriends isn’t home is a horrible thing. Yet I know people who have not a worry on their conscience both during the act and afterwards. They truly believe that they have done nothing wrong.
Socrates: In that case, who’s right is it to decide which actions that the human population considers evil in nature to determine the punishment necessary?
Nick: I think that all over the world people are behaving in a way that although many would consider their lifestyles to be the darkest evils of all, they are merely doing what it takes to survive role life has handed them. These guys will murder you without a second thought because you threatened the life of their boss’s daughter, but they have zero guilt for these necessities. In their opinion, if you were unintelligent enough to take the risk, you were unintelligent to lay dead in the dirt. It was entirely your fault, and the idea that someone may judge them for this decision in the future has never even been considered. If we take this into consideration, there isn’t a soul on this planet qualified to determine what is truly right or wrong universally.
Socrates: Do you have any thoughts on why I may have asked you this question?
Nick: I feel that you are trying to prove that punishment for an evil act is unjustified because your conclusion about evil is that no man commits an evil act with the knowledge that it is evil. You state that if this is the case, then all evil acts are acts of ignorance.
Socrates: If an individual is unaware of the moral dilemma that his or her actions may pose, what action do you feel should be taken?
Nick: Ignorance is not an excuse.
Socrates: Do you feel that a crime that is broken accidentally as a result of the non-existance of such knowledge is grounds for disciplinary action as well?
Nick: I certainly do. It is your duty to maintain control over your own behaviors and actions at all time, even in circumstance where you might not know all the rules.
Socrates: Growing up, did your family have any unspoken rules for the household?
Nick: Yes, we did. Our rules were pretty much the same as every family’s: don’t lie, cheat, steal, or swear.
Socrates: The problem with unspoken rules are that they remain unknown until they are broken. Can you remember a time when your broke your family’s unspoken rules because you simply didn’t know there was a rule against it?
Nick: Fairly well, actually. One of my buddy’s had a brother that had learned a new swear word and spent the entire afternoon repeating it. I then repeated it at the dinner table.
Socrates: What happened next?
Nick: I was given several lashes and was grounded to the house for a lengthy amount of time.
Socrates: Did you feel that your punishment was fair?
Nick: Not at all. A simple statement that the word I spoke was against our family rules would have been plenty. Instead, I spent a large portion of my summer vacation locked inside my home.
Socrates: To put it in your words, we all need redirection now and again.
Nick: That doesn’t make the experience any more thrilling.
Socrates: Do you stand by your statement that ignorance is not an excuse?
Nick: No.
Socrates: So once again, we are changing our statement. Criminal offenses should be fairly punished as long as the offense was not pre-meditated, came with no intentions, or was performed in self-defense as well as the protection of loved ones, yes?
Nick: That sounds good.
Socrates: If no human knowingly commits an evil act, what can we assume about evil and ignorance?
Nick: We can assume that evil is ignorance.
Socrates: Since you do not feel that actions performed in ignorance deserve punishment, what else should we conclude?
Nick: Since most humans would not knowingly perform an evil deed, evil itself is ignorance. Whether this ignorance is a lack of knowledge of what laws you are potentially breaking, the ethically correct things to do, or something else entirely, the root of it is based in decisions to do the right thing even when it’s the hard thing and to lean to the side of right more often than the side of wrong.
Socrates: If everyone was convinced that evil was ignorance, what affect would this knowledge have on our current disciplinary systems?
Nick: Private prisons would be relic of the past. While the evil of some criminals caused by their ignorance must stay in lock-down mode, I feel that having the lock-downs built inside of fortresses and allowing members to freely roam inside would ease the difficult burdens that come along with losing control and earning a life-time ticket to resort inside. However, I challenge you to not use evil’s relationship to ignorance as an excuse to behave freely. Instead, maintain responsibility for your own actions, even if no one else does.