Thanks Hidden, that's a fantastic essay
I've often gotten into the vengeance-or-not argument with friends, who will inevitably bring up the whole, "If your family was murdered, you'd want to kill their killer!" line. And when I say I wouldn't, the response is either, "You would if it actually happened," or, "How can you be so cold-hearted?"
When I get into those kinds of arguments, I say, "You're right, I probably would want the killer dead." It's entirely different when the problem is personal. Emotion can be a fundamentally irrational thing. My mind may reason that it is wrong to take vengeance, but that doesn't make me desire to do so any less. There's a discord in how I feel and how I think in such a case.
I don't profess to be as altruistic as those victims described in the article, but I believe I can, on some level, distinguish between what I "know" is "right" and what feels good. The problem arises when the law must decide between appealing to one or the other to ideally create the best result.
The first requirement of a sound body of law is, that it should correspond with the actual feelings and commands of the community, whether right or wrong. If people would gratify the passion of revenge outside of the law, if the law did not help them, the law has no choice but to satisfy the craving itself, and thus avoid the greater evil of private retribution.
You know, as much as I am against the death penalty, this quote actually makes me think.
A delegate normally ought to vote as a reflection of his/her constituents wishes, and so too should a law usually reflect the wishes of its society/culture.
In other words, if, hypothetically, gay marriage was universally opposed in the United States, I sometimes wonder whether or not the "best" (if not the right) thing to do would to keep gay marriage as being illegal. In spite of the fact that
I think gay marriage should be legal, based on a more universal ethical principle, that lofty thinking really means nothing when it comes to the policy in practice. Rather, perhaps I should first be campaigning to change the minds of the constituents, not the delegates, so that the delegates may always represent us faithfully.
But that begs the question of where to draw the line. Gay marriage is one thing, the death penalty is another. If most US citizens hypothetically are for the death penalty, should I still apply that logic? Or should I, in the belief that it is inherently immoral, go against their wishes and change the law to curtail the these lawful killings as soon as possible? It's largely dependent on how one regards the value of human life.
