Here is an example of compassion. I take the money that I was planning on spending for a marvelous and much anticipated vacation in Cape Town (South Africa) and give it to the family members who have just lost their home due to a tornado. Compassion is not merely about responding to someone who is suffering. For if it were, then any would-be-robber or would-be-murderer would be entitled to compassion if something went wrong with the person’s life in the attempt to commit the wrong in question.
Only as a joke—and a poor one at that—would it make sense to talk about having compassion for an individual who broke her or his leg in trying to murder someone. In general, having compassion for an evil person very nearly stands as an oxymoron—something akin to adding water to chicken in order to make the chicken’s skin less permeable.
Against the backdrop of the preceding remarks, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenney MacAskill’s decision to release Abdel Basset al-Megrahi out of compassion, owing to al-Megrahi having cancer, stands as an utterly misguided decision.
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi’s merely having cancer does not in and of itself constitute a reason to show him the act of mercy that consists in releasing him from prison. It is easy enough to see this. For suppose that al-Megrahi holds that his killing the 270 people in the Pam Am flight 103 stands as one of the most heroic things that he has ever done. What is more, let us also imagine that he maintains that he would do it again if given the chance, even though his body is riddled with cancer.
Let me mention that there is a very poignant question about morality and the fantastic that I shall raise at the very end of this blog-entry.
Now, Justice Secretary MacAskill’s decision might have made some sense had al-Megrahi shown considerable contrition and engaged in behavior that served to redeem morally others in prison. However, what we do not seem to have is any kind of moral turn-about on al-Megrahi’s part. Certainly, the Justice Secretary certainly did not cite any such turn-about in explaining his decision.
Instead, the Justice Secretary provided an intellectually and morally bankrupt rationale, namely that al-Megrahi has a terminal illness. I find myself fumigating every time I consider analogous situations. Jack-the-Q, who raped and murdered 40, is now dying from cancer. So we should show mercy upon him and release him from prison. And there is Opidiopo who sexually molested and murdered more than 60 boys. He, too, is now dying from cancer. So, of course, he should be shown mercy and released from prison.
One needs to be something akin to a moral monster to think that either Jack-the-Q or Opidopo deserves mercy merely because they both have terminal cancer. To state the obvious, barring a miraculous conversion that has the blessings of one of the great prophets (pick you religion; pick you prophet) people like Jack-the-Q and Opidopo ought to rot in prison.
A very grave wrong need not be premeditated. In a fit of rage people have committed considerable harm, including murder. Yet there are egregious wrongs that can only be premeditated. Rape is a very premeditated evil. Child sexual is a very premeditated evil. And guess what? Blowing a plane out of the sky is also a very premeditated evil.
Indeed, blowing a plane out of the sky is something that one plans for months on end. And if that were not enough, there is the utterly crass indifference to the extraordinary suffering that one is causing others.
When a person is so terribly inured to the enormous suffering that he has caused others, it takes much more than the truth that the wrongdoer has been afflicted with terminal illness in order to justify releasing the person from prison—in order to make sense of the claim that owing to terminal illness the person is owed mercy.
While these sorts of matters are not about a moral calculus as such, there is the immutable fact that al-Megrahi inflicted an enduring pain upon the families who lost their loved-ones. For instance, there are the parents who lost their children; and there are the children who lost their parents. Al-Megrahi inflicted a pain upon these surviving family members that will be with them for the rest of their lives. It is simply not conceivable that Justice Secretary MacAskill could have reasoned that the life-long pain of these individuals pain in comparison to the pain of al-Megrahi having terminal cancer.
This is why I have entitled this blog-entry “Evil Compassion”. The only way to make sense of Justice Secretary MacAskill’s decision is to draw the conclusion that he, himself, is a callous and evil person. Either that, or the life of one or more of his family members was being threatened. Or, he is intellectually bereft. Or, finally, there is the issue of whether there was politics or big-business behind the decision.
For some, of course, there is the question of whether al-Megrahi committed the horrendous deed. Justice Secretary MacAskill, however, did not have that concern. We know that he had deemed to al-Megrahi to be fully culpable.
This brings me to the question of morality and the fantastic. As we endeavor to make sense of Justice Secretary MacAskill’s decision, I fear that we cannot rule out the following type of case: The Justice Secretary had very good reason to believe that unless al-Megrahi was set free, a measure of terrorism would be unleashed upon the West that was unlike anything the West has ever known. Would MacAskill’s decision to release al-Megrahi, then, be morally justified?
This is a purely speculative question on my part. I have absolutely no information that entitles me to hold such a view. Yet, we live in an era when it is no longer possible to rule out such a scenario, given the level of technology available across the globe. If perchance this was the issue which Justice Secretary MacAskill faced and with which he wrestled, might he be considered a courageous person, although so very, very, very many in the West should think that he made a decision that entirely morally indefensible? Notice that if it can be said that the Justice Secretary did the right thing, it turns out that precisely what Scottish Justice Secretary MacAskill cannot say is why he made that decision.
Political assassins and terrorists strike at the life blood of open, constitutional and democratic societies. Absent the death penalty, (which I agree should be abolished), these assholes should rot to death in prison whenever they can be caught and convicted. That’s what Megrahi was doing when he was let out, “Scot-Free”.
Thank you for your insightful essay on the ironies of compassion. It is a sad and bizarre day when, in order to trumpet the value of compassion, which I’m sure everyone agrees, in their own way, is important, Justice Secretary MacAskill decided to rule this way in such an extreme, and arguable, case. I appreciated your example of the hobbled murderer, and the lack of compassion he would reap. My favorite example of something like this is the farcical notion of someone who had murdered his parents begging in court for leniency because he is an…orphan. The fact that I cannot remember whether this is a joke or not is telling.
In Poor Richard’s Almanack, Mr. Franklin wrote, “He that is of Opinion Money will do every Thing may well be suspected of doing every Thing for Money.” Insert the word, “Compassion,” in place of, “Money,” and you’ll no doubt see where I’m going. Every virtue, if taken to an extreme, will become a caricature of its former self. B. Franklin was a very successful printer who retired at a young age. He didn’t think money was a problem, just money at any price. Similarly, modesty in dress is often considered a virtue, but this in no way entails that one should be expected to walk around with nary an ankle showing, i.e. the burqa.
The final section of your blog, on the fantastic, is, I think, not as much of a conundrum to me as when I first read it. It is not a fantasy that similar decisions have to be made, and have been, for a long time. The problem with hypothetically letting al-Megrahi go in order to prevent a terrorist attack is that hostage-trading (so to speak) is often futile. The withdrawal of the threat of attack is only as good as the one promising it. I wouldn’t trust a non-state political actor who would use violence against civilians. Not in the least. By making such threats, they submit their sense of honor, (which should at least be expected in a negotiation), and one released captive would most probably not satiate those promising to stand down.
Thank you for your insightful essay on the ironies of compassion. It is a sad and bizarre day when, in order to trumpet the value of compassion, which I'm sure everyone agrees, in their own way, is important, Justice Secretary MacAskill decided to rule this way in such an extreme, and arguable, case. I appreciated your example of the hobbled murderer, and the lack of compassion he would reap. My favorite example of something like this is the farcical notion of someone who had murdered his parents begging in court for leniency because he is an…orphan. The fact that I cannot remember whether this is a joke or not is telling.
In Poor Richard's Almanack, Mr. Franklin wrote, "He that is of Opinion Money will do every Thing may well be suspected of doing every Thing for Money." Insert the word, "Compassion," in place of, "Money," and you'll no doubt see where I'm going. Every virtue, if taken to an extreme, will become a caricature of its former self. B. Franklin was a very successful printer who retired at a young age. He didn't think money was a problem, just money at any price. Similarly, modesty in dress is often considered a virtue, but this in no way entails that one should be expected to walk around with nary an ankle showing, i.e. the burqa.
The final section of your blog, on the fantastic, is, I think, not as much of a conundrum to me as when I first read it. It is not a fantasy that similar decisions have to be made, and have been, for a long time. The problem with hypothetically letting al-Megrahi go in order to prevent a terrorist attack is that hostage-trading (so to speak) is often futile. The withdrawal of the threat of attack is only as good as the one promising it. I wouldn't trust a non-state political actor who would use violence against civilians. Not in the least. By making such threats, they submit their sense of honor, (which should at least be expected in a negotiation), and one released captive would most probably not satiate those promising to stand down….