Growing up a lot of different things about Christianity wouldn't make sense to me, and oftentimes I wouldn't get very intuitive or philosophically satisfying answers. But, over time, it's been making a lot more sense, especially as I think about different issues more. The Ethics class I mentioned last semester was helpful in that regard, and often times, it would make me think... man, the Bible has some good ethics.
That was exactly what I thought when I read Thomas Nagel's essay on Moral Luck. It goes something like this. First of all, there's something called the "control principle": We believe that people shouldn't be held responsible for things outside of their control. For example, if I flick on a light switch to turn on the lamp, but someone has secretly wired that switch to an electric chair and it kills somebody, it was not my fault at all, I'm not a murderer. I shouldn't be held responsible for that.
On the other hand, sometimes it seems like we do hold people responsible for things outside of their control. For example, a truck driver is sleepy and nodding off at the wheel, but makes his route without incident, and we wouldn't charge him for a crime. An identical truck driver driving the same route is also sleepy and nodding off, but a little girl walks into the middle of the road at the wrong time and because the driver was nodding off he hits and kills her. The first and the second man were in the exact same state, except that the second one was unlucky and now a criminal.
That is tough, huh? Seems like we really don't want to hold people responsible for what's out of their control, but at the same time sometimes we have to. Nagel said that the control principle is true, but in the way we actually act there is a contradiction and we should just accept the contradiction. I think there's no real contradiction; an important distinction has to be made between what the government's role is in administering justice and actual guilt, which is why two people can have the same amount guilt but receive different punishments. Administered punishment should ultimately align with actual guilt, but the government is limited in knowledge and can only deal with what actually happened, and so it must be limited also in the breadth of administered punishment.
Here's a third case that I like which should be helpful. Let's say I point a gun at my roommate Tommy, and Mike points a gun at his roommate Sean. We both fire. Mike's gun goes off and actually kills Sean. My gun jams, and it doesn't fire, so Tommy's not dead. The government deals with these two cases differently, charging me with attempted murder and Mike with actual murder, because there's a restraint of practicality. Generally, people who are able to carry out an attempted murder successfully tried harder, had more malicious intent, deliberated it more, etc., and so the government has a different policy of amount of punishment to deal with attempted murders than actual murders. Still though, it seems right that they are both just as guilty of murder. And that's what Jesus thinks too.
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment" (Matthew 6:21-22). Again, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 6:27-28). For a long time, I thought this was unfair of Jesus. But it actually makes a lot of sense.
There is a lot of sin in our hearts that we could carry out if we had the opportunity, but circumstances discourage it. I won't do this wrong thing because I might be caught, and people will think of me in such a way, and I might be punished. But, given the right opportunities, I would. And I am as guilty as the person who is given those opportunities and actually does. It is fair for God to hold us responsible for what is in our hearts.
Anyway, I thought that that was a pretty cool instance where something in the Bible at first seemed really counterintuitive, but actually ended up making a lot of sense.
4 comments:
Hey joe, i really enjoyed this post while being distracted from studying for my midterm which is in 4 hours. yay! keep up the good work
Nice post. Its the ring of Gyges idea all over again, asking what we would do if no one could see us. But God knows our hearts and sees no difference between thought and action, and that's why He can judge us. But I wonder what God will do with the truck driver who accidentally killed the girl? If its all a question of intent, what do we make of that?
It's hard to say, but I think it also involves responsibility. Legally, the truck driver is guilty of manslaughter and not murder because it wasn't intentional. Seems like God would hold him accountable for negligence, but that God would also hold other negligent truck drivers guilty of negligence even if they got lucky. Though yeah, in this case it's hard because we don't want to let off the manslaughter driver too lightly, and it seems harsh to put a lot of guilt on the lucky driver.
An easier example would be like when we look at New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina. They knew for a really long time that the levies wouldn't hold, each round of government officials just thought that it wouldn't happen when they were in office. It seems fair to say that the government officials who failed to fix the problem 10 or 15 years ago are just as guilty as the officials who were in office when the levies broke 3 years ago, and God will be a fair judge.
Joe, I really liked and benefited from this post. I never thought about the difference and limitations between what the government can do and what is actually just. It makes a lot of sense that a perfect judge will administer much different punishments than imperfect ones, yet we still have the responsibility as imperfect judges to punish when the cases are clear.
Amazing, Jesus's teaching on hate is the same as murder is actually the most consistent and most fair. I wonder though, what about circumstances that create a certain character in people? Such as being filled with hate because of childhood abuse. Do these fall under an extension of moral luck? I suppose this is not out of God's reach to judge, though how do we treat them?
Post a Comment