I’d like to inquire as to what, specifically, you disagree with. I understand that you don’t think any person is inherently evil, however I hold that actions are a reflection of one’s character. While this CEO may indeed have done a couple good turns for people he personally knew or cared about, his actions and decisions as the CEO of a health insurance company have inflicted incalculable suffering upon hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people and their families. As a human being, I could never imagine doing such things, nor do I want to.
This, to me, reflects a deeply sociopathic character. Selfish, arrogant, greedy, and malicious. This was a person who saw themselves above mere mortals such as you and I, whom he saw as tools, disposable and replaceable. And when you see yourself as above mere mortals, would you not want the mortals to believe it, as well? Is it then, so surprising that the mortals stop seeing you as human altogether?
I agree with everything you say, up until the last sentence. Probably as a disclaimer, I study psychology and want to become a clinical psychotherapist. I deeply believe that no person wants to be bad. In fact, I am of the utmost conviction that every person has the potential to become a better person than they are right now. That does not absolve him of his crimes - in fact, it is quite the contrary: he chose to go down the path of evil and to condemn people to die. But that doesn’t mean that he cannot ever change to become better.
It is a part of my life philosophy that every person can heal. Obviously many people won’t do so - this guy DEFINITELY would’ve had the chance to go to a psychotherapist himself, for sure. But that does not mean that he deserved to die. My argumentation is heavily based on Albert Ellis (one of the founders of cognitive-behavioural therapy) and REBT. In short, Ellis said that our actions do not determine us as whole human beings. The fact that we often act badly doesn’t make us bad human beings, nor does the fact that we act well makes us good. We are simply humans, and to judge us means putting yourself in the shoes of a God. We can and should judge our actions, by all means - but we are far, far more than actions. To judge a person as a whole is a position I do not want to take. And even though this guy wanted to see himself as a God, I personally want to stay human and recognize that he is and was a broken spirit and a human, just as you and I are. Even though he might have wanted to discard his humanity, he still is and stays human.
Tl;Dr - terrible actions, has committed countless crimes. But his actions don’t determine his worth as a human. Thus I do not want to say that he deserved to die, nor that he was evil as a human.
terrible actions, has committed countless crimes. But his actions don’t determine his worth as a human.
Alright, I’m confused with this take. What does determine the worth of a human? I would argue it’s only their actions that do, as that’s the only thing that has an effect on the world. Whether he believes he’s doing good or evil doesn’t really matter if he is actually doing evil.
Value is pretty much required to be something that can be measured. You can’t measure all possible futures. You can measure what they’ve chosen to act on. I don’t really care if Hitler was mislead into believing Jews were evil and could have been a better person. I care that he chose to do immense harm to innocent people. It would have been better had he been murdered earlier, regardless of if there was a chance you could convince him with a really good argument or whatever.
Sure, I hope everyone improves and it’s a shame when people die, but when someone is actively choosing to remove that choice from others, their value is less than that of everyone else.
That is actually a very interesting take, thank you for sharing.
For me, it was always clear that actions do not define us as people. I never thought that people might see it differently.
I think it is important to distinguish the term value here. I hope we both agree that every person has dignity. I live in Germany, and the first sentence of our Constitution is “Human dignity shall be inviolable.” That means that I do not have the right to judge a persons value as a person - the Nazis were a famous example for doing that. That’s why in today’s judiciary system, at least in Germany, we e.g. do not lock people away forever: a person always has the chance to improve, work upon themselves, and get out of prison. The prison time can be extended into infinity, if a person poses a threat to society - but if they don’t, they can get free. Their value to society may be close to zero, perhaps negative - but they still possess value and dignity as a human.
This guy was subtracting value from society, and his value to you and me was probably negative. But it still is different than a humans internal value. To murder a person is to take their internal and external value, and to break their dignity. This is something which is not compatible with my consciousness.
I agree with everything in your comment, except for this:
To murder a person is to take their internal and external value, and to break their dignity. This is something which is not compatible with my consciousness.
The issue is the justice system has been perverted to protect these people. There is no legal avenue to stop this person from doing harm. This leaves only extra-legal options (namely murder, though maybe there’s other options but I don’t know what that’d be). In my ideal world, murder wouldn’t be necessary ever. We don’t live in that world though. Murder that is done to save lives is a positive in my opinion.
Its the trolley problem. There’s an uncountable number of different versions of them (some with babies, some with murderers, some with millions of people, etc.), but they effectively all center around when you think killing is acceptable. Different people will have different lines, but almost always everyone will agree there is some point where at least one person’s death is an acceptable outcome that they’d take part in.
Yes, I understand. It is really really gray and complicated here. I’m very conflicted here - on one hand, murder is always a death of a human being who could improve and also has good sides, see my parent comment. On the other hand, exactly as you write sometimes the death of a person means that others will survive.
My point is that no person deserves to die BECAUSE OF WHO THEY ARE - that’s exactly what the Nazis did. But I absolutely understand the ethical argument that people deserve to die for WHAT THEY DO. If you cannot stop a greedy CEO otherwise (because the judicial system is maybe a little tiny bit biased towards the rich), there really isn’t another choice for fulfilling your rights. And I can honestly respect your argument that in this case, murder may be an overall good thing. I don’t know where the line for me is, to be honest - but I acknowledge that is has to exist somewhere.
I hope you understand though why from my perspective the dragon metaphor is a bit too simple, because as our thread shows the topic isn’t easy at all :/
Another factor to consider is dehumanizing people is often the first step in justifying atrocities against them, such as the murder of this doubtless terrible CEO, and that has an impact on both the person doing the dehumanizing and the person or persons being dehumanized.
I disagree. Still thank you for replying - I appreciate it. It got me thinking about my personal position.
I’d like to inquire as to what, specifically, you disagree with. I understand that you don’t think any person is inherently evil, however I hold that actions are a reflection of one’s character. While this CEO may indeed have done a couple good turns for people he personally knew or cared about, his actions and decisions as the CEO of a health insurance company have inflicted incalculable suffering upon hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people and their families. As a human being, I could never imagine doing such things, nor do I want to.
This, to me, reflects a deeply sociopathic character. Selfish, arrogant, greedy, and malicious. This was a person who saw themselves above mere mortals such as you and I, whom he saw as tools, disposable and replaceable. And when you see yourself as above mere mortals, would you not want the mortals to believe it, as well? Is it then, so surprising that the mortals stop seeing you as human altogether?
I agree with everything you say, up until the last sentence. Probably as a disclaimer, I study psychology and want to become a clinical psychotherapist. I deeply believe that no person wants to be bad. In fact, I am of the utmost conviction that every person has the potential to become a better person than they are right now. That does not absolve him of his crimes - in fact, it is quite the contrary: he chose to go down the path of evil and to condemn people to die. But that doesn’t mean that he cannot ever change to become better. It is a part of my life philosophy that every person can heal. Obviously many people won’t do so - this guy DEFINITELY would’ve had the chance to go to a psychotherapist himself, for sure. But that does not mean that he deserved to die. My argumentation is heavily based on Albert Ellis (one of the founders of cognitive-behavioural therapy) and REBT. In short, Ellis said that our actions do not determine us as whole human beings. The fact that we often act badly doesn’t make us bad human beings, nor does the fact that we act well makes us good. We are simply humans, and to judge us means putting yourself in the shoes of a God. We can and should judge our actions, by all means - but we are far, far more than actions. To judge a person as a whole is a position I do not want to take. And even though this guy wanted to see himself as a God, I personally want to stay human and recognize that he is and was a broken spirit and a human, just as you and I are. Even though he might have wanted to discard his humanity, he still is and stays human.
Tl;Dr - terrible actions, has committed countless crimes. But his actions don’t determine his worth as a human. Thus I do not want to say that he deserved to die, nor that he was evil as a human.
Alright, I’m confused with this take. What does determine the worth of a human? I would argue it’s only their actions that do, as that’s the only thing that has an effect on the world. Whether he believes he’s doing good or evil doesn’t really matter if he is actually doing evil.
Value is pretty much required to be something that can be measured. You can’t measure all possible futures. You can measure what they’ve chosen to act on. I don’t really care if Hitler was mislead into believing Jews were evil and could have been a better person. I care that he chose to do immense harm to innocent people. It would have been better had he been murdered earlier, regardless of if there was a chance you could convince him with a really good argument or whatever.
Sure, I hope everyone improves and it’s a shame when people die, but when someone is actively choosing to remove that choice from others, their value is less than that of everyone else.
That is actually a very interesting take, thank you for sharing.
For me, it was always clear that actions do not define us as people. I never thought that people might see it differently.
I think it is important to distinguish the term value here. I hope we both agree that every person has dignity. I live in Germany, and the first sentence of our Constitution is “Human dignity shall be inviolable.” That means that I do not have the right to judge a persons value as a person - the Nazis were a famous example for doing that. That’s why in today’s judiciary system, at least in Germany, we e.g. do not lock people away forever: a person always has the chance to improve, work upon themselves, and get out of prison. The prison time can be extended into infinity, if a person poses a threat to society - but if they don’t, they can get free. Their value to society may be close to zero, perhaps negative - but they still possess value and dignity as a human.
This guy was subtracting value from society, and his value to you and me was probably negative. But it still is different than a humans internal value. To murder a person is to take their internal and external value, and to break their dignity. This is something which is not compatible with my consciousness.
I agree with everything in your comment, except for this:
The issue is the justice system has been perverted to protect these people. There is no legal avenue to stop this person from doing harm. This leaves only extra-legal options (namely murder, though maybe there’s other options but I don’t know what that’d be). In my ideal world, murder wouldn’t be necessary ever. We don’t live in that world though. Murder that is done to save lives is a positive in my opinion.
Its the trolley problem. There’s an uncountable number of different versions of them (some with babies, some with murderers, some with millions of people, etc.), but they effectively all center around when you think killing is acceptable. Different people will have different lines, but almost always everyone will agree there is some point where at least one person’s death is an acceptable outcome that they’d take part in.
Yes, I understand. It is really really gray and complicated here. I’m very conflicted here - on one hand, murder is always a death of a human being who could improve and also has good sides, see my parent comment. On the other hand, exactly as you write sometimes the death of a person means that others will survive.
My point is that no person deserves to die BECAUSE OF WHO THEY ARE - that’s exactly what the Nazis did. But I absolutely understand the ethical argument that people deserve to die for WHAT THEY DO. If you cannot stop a greedy CEO otherwise (because the judicial system is maybe a little tiny bit biased towards the rich), there really isn’t another choice for fulfilling your rights. And I can honestly respect your argument that in this case, murder may be an overall good thing. I don’t know where the line for me is, to be honest - but I acknowledge that is has to exist somewhere.
I hope you understand though why from my perspective the dragon metaphor is a bit too simple, because as our thread shows the topic isn’t easy at all :/
Another factor to consider is dehumanizing people is often the first step in justifying atrocities against them, such as the murder of this doubtless terrible CEO, and that has an impact on both the person doing the dehumanizing and the person or persons being dehumanized.