Making a Moral Decision: President Bush’s Choice

Writing an article titled “The Moral Case Against the Iraq War”, published in the May 31, 2004 issue of “The Nation”, Paul Savoy takes a moral stand against the war in Iraq. In making his case, he demonstrates that the Bush administration used the same moral reasoning that Raskolnikov used in Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” to morally justify the war in Iraq. Here are some excerpts from the article:

“Michael Ignatieff, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, argued this cost-benefit analysis in making the moral case for war in the New York Times Magazine before the invasion: "The choice [was] one between two evils, between containing and leaving a tyrant in place and the targeted use of force, which will kill people but free a nation from the tyrant's grip." Ignatieff concluded that killing people was the better choice if the United States was willing "to build freedom, not just for the Iraqis but also for the Palestinians, along with a greater sense of security for Israel." {Later, in his speeches, President Bush echoed the sentiments of Michael Ignatieff as justification for the invasion of Iraq.}

“This is the moral reasoning of Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. Invoking the lesser-of-two-evils defense to justify his killing an old pawnbroker and stealing her money, Raskolnikov argues: "Kill her, take her money, dedicate it to serving mankind, to the general welfare. Well--what do you think--isn't this petty little crime effaced by thousands of good deeds? For one life, thousands of lives saved from ruin and collapse. One death and a hundred lives--there's arithmetic for you."

{30,000 - 100,000 dead Iraqis and freedom for 25 million.}

“What is overlooked by those who believe the benefits of the war outweigh the costs is that killing even one innocent person to benefit others violates the most basic human right--the right to life. The right to life is one of those unalienable rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. "Life is the immediate gift of God, a right inherent by nature in every individual,"

“Even more horrifying than the torture of Iraqi prisoners by their American captors has been the unnecessary suffering and death inflicted on the Iraqi people by the war itself. One of those children on whose unavenged tears the edifice of freedom has been built in Iraq was 12-year-old Ali Ismael Abbas, who was so badly burned in a US missile attack on Baghdad that his entire torso was black, his arms so mutilated that, as New Yorker correspondent Jon Lee Anderson described the hospital scene, they ‘looked like something that might be found in a barbecue pit.’ His family, which included his pregnant mother, his father and his six brothers and sisters, were all killed by the blast. Some of their bodies were so unrecognizable that all Anderson could see in morgue photographs was a collection of charred body parts and some red flesh“.

“The remains of other family members were mutilated grotesqueries. ‘[His mother's] face had been cut in half, as if by a giant cleaver, and her mouth was yawning open.... The body of his brother was all there, it seemed, but from the nose up his head was gone, simply sheared off, like the head of a rubber doll. His mouth, like that of his mother, was open, as if he were screaming.’”

“Viewed in the light of our own moral ideals, as embodied in our constitutional tradition, the right to life is so fundamental that killing the innocent to advance the cause of freedom of electoral choice or any other purpose, however worthy, must be regarded as wrong. We denounce terrorists because when the freedom of self-determination they seek is weighed in the balance against the right to life of innocent people, it is the right to life that our collective conscience has decided should prevail.”

“Terrorism is simply a criminal technique for coercing a political agenda by killing innocent people. And it should make no difference whether the people who do the killing are freedom fighters like Palestinian suicide bombers, who purposefully kill civilians, or freedom fighters like the American liberators of the Iraqi people, who aim at military targets but who know with substantial certainty that they will incidentally kill civilians. In the eyes of the criminal law, a person is regarded as intending the death of another when he either has the purpose to cause the death of the victim or when he knows that death is substantially certain to result from his acts.”

“Freedom and democracy for Iraq are ‘worth fighting for, dying for and standing for,’ President Bush declared in a November 2003 speech, but no one asked the Iraqis who were killed in the war whether they were willing to sacrifice their lives as part of a demonstration project to create a democratic revolution in the Middle East. The very minimum that people have a right to expect from any effort to graft democracy onto their nation is that the donor nation honor the principle of no extermination without representation.”

After reading this article, please feel free to make comments, both pro and con, on the stand that Paul Savoy took against the moral reasoning used by our leaders in invading Iraq.

Making Moral Choices: Raskolnikov’s Choice

In Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, the main character Raskolnikov, an impoverished student, is forced to pawn a watch at a much lower price than its value to an old woman, a hated money-lender who takes advantage of people. He then plots and carries out the murder of the old woman, who has a considerable amount of money in her apartment. After killing her, he steals the money. He feels justified in his decision to murder her, arguing that:

1) she is a malicious old woman, petty, cantankerous and scheming, useless to herself and to society (which happens to be true), and her life causes no happiness to herself or to others; and

2) her money if found after her death would only fall into the hands of chiselers anyway.

Whereas, he would use it for his education.

As Raskolnikov overhears a conversation between a student and an officer he has never seen before, he begins to form a rationalization for the crime:

“I could kill that damned old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the faintest conscience-prick," the student added with warmth. The officer laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was!

"Listen, I want to ask you a serious question," the student said hotly. "I was joking of course, but look here; on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You understand? You understand?

"Yes, yes, I understand," answered the officer, watching his excited companion attentively.

"Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman's money which will be buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock hospitals--and all with her money. Kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a hundred lives in exchange--it's simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence! No more than the life of a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact because the old woman is doing harm. She is wearing out the lives of others; the other day she bit Lizaveta's finger out of spite; it almost had to be amputated.

"Of course she does not deserve to live," remarked the officer, "but there it is, it's nature."

What is your opinion? Was the murder justified? Why or why not?

What Kind of Smileage Do You Get?

My wife and I thought we had seen everything that people can do to distract themselves while driving. But today 's driver wins the prize. As he pulled out from a signal light in his 6000-pound SUV, we observed him steering with his left hand, while with his right hand he was vigorously brushing his teeth with a toothbrush. We couldn't tell whether or not he was using toothpaste, but we saw him check his teeth out once or twice in his rear view mirror while brushing and driving. Can you top that? What are the most bizarre or dangerous things you have seen drivers do to distract themselves while driving?

Making Ethical and Moral Decisions: The Vivisection

Do you remember when you were in a high school biology class and participated in dissecting a frog? Last year, a substitute teacher in Utah got a better idea for the students in a high school biology class made up of advanced students. Instead of a dissection, he took them to witness a vivisection of a dog. When the media heard of the incident, they had a field day. After reading this article, please state your views on the vivisection incident.

By Suzanne Dean

For the Deseret Morning News

MANTI — South Sanpete School District officials said they would review state education policies regarding humane treatment of animals with all science teachers following an incident in which students observed a veterinarian cut open the abdomen of a live dog and then view the dog's internal organs.

One parent, Linda Sears of Mayfield, Sanpete County, strongly objected to the lesson and refused to let her daughter participate. Parents of the nine other students in the class approved their children's participation.

Following the Tuesday incident, Sears informed KUTV, Channel 2, which aired a story Wednesday. That touched off a furor among animal rights organizations around the nation, Superintendent James Petersen said. The district received numerous calls Thursday, including an invitation to explain the incident on NBC's "Today" show.

The controversy started when Douglas Bjerregaard, a long-time teacher who is now retired, was substituting at Gunnison Valley High School and proposed to take an advanced biology class to a local veterinary clinic to witness what Petersen describes as a "surgical procedure" on a dog. Others in the community have described the procedure as an autopsy or even a dissection.

Bjerregaard is also mayor of Mayfield, a town of about 500 a few miles outside of Gunnison.

Gunnison Valley High School Principal Kirk Anderson said district policy, which mirrors state policy, requires the school to get parental permission before students witness or participate in dissection of animals. The school reached all parents the morning before the visit to the clinic, he said.

The dog involved was a stray who had been brought into the clinic. "It was unadoptable and, in fact, a dangerous dog," Petersen said. "It had been determined that it needed to be euthanized."

The dog was anesthetized and put on a breathing tube while a local veterinarian, who Petersen describes as "very caring about animals," performed the procedure. Following the procedure, the veterinarian euthanized the dog.

Since Tuesday, Petersen said, district officials have determined that having high school students watch such a procedure on a live dog was a violation of state policies.

"It was not intended in any way to harm or be disrespectful of the animal. But it's not a procedure we would want to continue or are in a position to defend," he added.

Anderson said Bjerregaard taught science in the South Sanpete District for more than 30 years before retiring a few years ago.

"He's very well regarded as a teacher," Anderson said. When a regular teacher had to be out for illness for a couple of weeks, "he was the best substitute we could get, and we were lucky to get him."

After Sears and animal rights advocates objected, the principal called all students who had witnessed the operation into his office. "All of them were very complimentary toward the lesson. They said they had learned a lot. They were not traumatized. One said he was sorry that the dog had to die."

Neither Bjerregaard nor the veterinarian could be reached for comment.

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Two Scenarios and Moral and Legal Responsibility



Imagine two scenarios. In the first, you are driving down the street and are suddenly overcome by a fit of sneezing. You veer off to the right, and by the time you come to a stop, you realize, to your horror, that you have hit a young woman walking on the sidewalk. She is pinned against a brick wall and, despite emergency treatment, will be paralyzed below the waist for life.

In the second scenario, you are driving a pickup truck on a fine summer morning when you suddenly notice a bee buzzing around inside. You are frightened because you think you might be allergic to bee stings, and while trying to kill the bee with a handy newspaper, you swerve into oncoming traffic, hitting a small car head-on. The driver, a young father of two, is killed.

Are you morally responsible in either of these cases (both of which actually occurred), and should you be held legally responsible?