Q&A: What Is the Subjective Attitude Toward a Murderer Acting from Pure Intentions?
What Is the Subjective Attitude Toward a Murderer Acting from Pure Intentions?
Question
For example: a teenager is raised with brainwashing that in order to stop Arab terror one must carry out a "price tag" attack and take the lives even of innocent people. He goes out with pure intentions and commits the murder while wholly immersed in devotion and conviction, etc.
It is clear that from the standpoint of society and the public we are supposed to put such a person in solitary confinement for life. The question is, from a subjective standpoint, if I have the ability to help him, should I do so, because after all he was driven purely by pure intentions?
(I would ask you not to answer me: Hitler also murdered millions of people from pure intentions. I would ask instead for a reasoned explanation of how we should relate to a murderer acting from pure intentions, whoever he may be.)
Answer
I did not understand what it means to help him. Judgment of a person is based on his motives, and if he is indeed certain that this is the proper way to act, then he is not guilty. Of course, restraint and prevention must still be applied in his case.
Discussion on Answer
I wrote it. Should I write it again?
You conclude that he is not "guilty," and on that point I myself agree with you.
But how can we accept that if this were a serial murderer who, for the sake of racial purity, feels he must murder thousands of people? How can we judge him as not guilty? (For example, if I were to meet him in prison, would it be proper for me to smile and ask how he is doing and be buddy-buddy with him, since he is not guilty and there is already restraint in place because he is under arrest?)
Something is still missing in my understanding. Thanks.
You asked me not to answer you that Hitler also murdered millions, and now you are saying something very similar to me.
You do not have to be buddy-buddy with anyone. To each his own taste. I too am not inclined to be buddy-buddy with people who, in my view, do terrible things.
So how am I supposed to judge him? As a disgusting murderer, or sympathetically, as someone who is "mistaken"?
(Of course, his sentence would be prison and preventing the act from recurring.)