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Of Good and Evil

This article began as email correspondence about various things with another person.

ME: in a previous letter: You can go your entire life choosing between wisdom and foolishness without ever judging good and evil.

HIM: Personally, to me this is a rather vexing point: _how_ do I distinguish wise and foolish choices, or make any moral decision, without first judging good and evil?

ME: You choose to take an umbrella with you when it's raining. Does this mean that rain is evil? Ninety percent of the value judgements you make on a daily basis have no relevance to any standard of Good and Evil. Bad for you or good for you yes, but the things themselves that are bad for you or good for you, i.e. rain or being dry are not good or evil. Each has its appropriate place and can help you or hurt you depending on the circumstances. The thing to realize is that in all cases where you believe that some absolute choice between good and evil is necessary, you are wrong. Only a choice between relative values.

Let me give you an example from my days as a police officer. Rather in the auxiliary police academy. There was a man who killed an 8 year old girl, kept her dead body in his room and repeatedly had sex with it until the smell got really bad and he was caught. He was sentenced to prison. A few years later, he was paroled. After all there are no little girls in prison, so he was a model prisoner. A year or two after that, he killed another little girl, kept her dead body in his room and repeatedly had sex with it until he was caught again. Now, he should not have been put into regular prison when he was caught the first time. He should have been put under psychiatric care. But, people judged him as evil, and wanted to punish him, instead of putting him somewhere he would do no more harm. Then, his behavior was good, so he was judged as good, even though the circumstances of his good behavior was completely irrelevant to what he had done. So he was released back into society. Where he killed another little girl. If he had been judge as sick instead of evil, and locked up until either cured or dead of old age, that second little girl would still be alive today.

I could kill a man like that without hesitation, or I could just as easily lock him up for life. What I don't like is seeing moral judgements replace intelligence. With the result that innocent children die ugly deaths.

That was the end of my comments in the email, but it is a major issue to me. Not from the civilian point of view, but from the law officers point of view.

Think about what the 'criminal justice system' did to the arresting officer. He took that man off the streets, expecting that that person would never again have the opportunity to repeat that crime. Instead, a few years later, he had to face the dead body of another little girl. This is a criminal betrayal of trust. Police Officers have to trust the 'criminal justice system' to finish the job after they apprehend a criminal. When the system fails to do that, it places good, honest, and decent men and women under a breaking strain.

When they are facing a situation like that they have to make a choice. Take the law into their own hands, and remove the problem, or trust the 'criminal justice system' and face another dead child a few years down the road.

It also places society under a breaking strain. After enough cases like that make the evening news, most citizens are of the opinion that police officers should take the law into their own hands and remove the problem.

This destroys due process, and destroys the rights of the citizens, and will inevitably lead to vigilante 'justice'. Which really means murderous injustice based on gossip and judgements where the judged party never had a chance to offer any defense or was even told they were on trial.

Society must have the courage to make the hard decisions. Either pay the money necessary to incarcerate these people for life or until professionals are willing to base their reputations on pronouncing them cured, or use the death penalty. I don't care which. I don't hate these people. I cannot imagine they chose to become what they are. If they can be cured fine. If society cannot afford the financial burden of imprisonment until cured, then the death penalty works.

Do it either way, but stop waffling around, and make a real decision. Was the guy himself, good or evil, or was he sick? I don't know about good or evil, that's between him and God and the little girls. I have no doubt that he was sick. Fine, rabid dogs are sick, that doesn't mean it's wrong to put them down. Sometimes you have to make hard choices. Life imprisonment/treatment at the expense of society, or death. There is a caveat here. Caveat is latin for beware. Not all child abusers or sex offenders kill their victims. If they feel that they will receive an automatic death sentence if caught, they are more likely to kill their victims who would be witnesses against them if left alive. Therefore, children will be safer, if such persons expect psychiatric treatment instead of a death sentence.
 

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