That makes sense to me in an everyday sense. Though I’ve heard stories about how psychopaths abuse this pattern. For instance there’s the case of prison classes meant to increase empathy, where the resulting ‘success’ with respect to recidivism rates turns out to be illusory - i.e. the ex-prisoners learn how to manipulate and get away with crimes better due to their increased sophistication.
Are you saying the criteria is completely aesthetic? Is it no different than the choice of a snack?
An example might be best because mercy could mean so many things. I mean, we could throw the book at every offender that enters a court. A manslaughter charge could be considered mercy as opposed to calling it murder. I think, like most other things, we look at what facts we have. If, for instance, we can conclude with some confidence that someone did something immoral, but with the best of intentions, maybe it was an honest mistake. Accidents happen. Or if something immoral is done out of ignorance rather than malicious intent, as another example.
Would you say that the ultimate example of mercy as portrayed by Christian traditions (an undeserved gift) has no place in your view of objective morality? This gift of mercy seems awfully arbitrary, and even absolute. I mean… I think it resists the application of game theory to make sense of it.
But doesn’t that “gift” coincide with a belief that everyone is born guilty and ought to seek salvation? I certainly don’t believe anything close to that.
If you simply just mean an undeserved gift, we’d have to talk about what people deserve.
Yes, it does. I wasn’t suggesting that you should agree with the idea or take it for granted. Nonetheless, this idea isn’t so easily excised from the concept of morality. If morality is objective, then there is always a correct action in any given circumstance. Or at least there are incorrect actions. The situation in that sense is watertight. Mercy either has a place in that watertight situation, or it is arbitrary and immoral, non-moral, or extra-moral.
My approach (at the moment anyway) is that we are godlike, in the sense that a profound lack of shame regarding our own being - our own ‘subjective’ situation - will in fact lead to a more virtuous and joyful world than any system or authority can create. In such a world, authority would be recognized with delight, rather than submitted to grudgingly.
If you take away everyone’s emotional reactions…yes.
Sure, people can fool us. We can be fooled. But the criterion remains for me. I have little faith in a court of law determining someone’s actual remorse. The rewards and punishments are so clear in that case. I was thinking more in general, including one to one relations with people one knows. I agree that one may not be able to tell, but still for me it is a big factor.
If we are thinking in terms of courts, then I think there are all sorts of extenuating circumstances that would make me in favor of mercy.
There was a case where a father shot, in cold blood, the sexual abuser of his child. The guy wasn’t convicted yet. Still, I think the father deserves mercy, if not dismissal of all charges.
Recent trauma, being victimized by systematic bullying, people who have not been helped by authorities who commit certain crimes, a poor person stealing food
exceptional reactions - where the court can determine that the person is not usually like that and so on…
We get confused by a word like say ‘murder’ when in fact there are killings in vastly different contexts, contexts that go well beyond what can be distinguished by the varying degrees of murder.
Assuming this is a serious answer, I’m intrigued. Can you say more?
I agree.
In the end everyone suffers until they die. I think that if a person lives a life with no suffering, then the end will cause them to suffer so much more that it evens out, if a person lives a life of suffering, then in the end they probably feel relief, so it balances out. I remember a class once where a professor was telling everyone to stop and think about all the things in the world that are out of balance, and my assertion for each case presented was one that involved understanding that the world has a tendency to balance itself. So what you do, and whether you’re merciful can only matter on the short term, in the end, both you, and the person to whom you may or may not be merciful will die and that’s it. Nothing you can do either way will change it so it doesn’t really matter except in some social context, which is probably founded on emotional reactions.
Mercy, or forgiveness, is contextually fluid and resists hard exact definition. No small part of the act of mercy is that one cannot separate themselves from the act, and are part of whatever gives rise to the experience where mercy is given. Being merciful is a co-dependant act -ie- deserving mercy isn’t the same as receiving it.
Consider: Someone acts toward you harmfully. Whether you grant mercy may depend on what you had for lunch. If you’re in a foul mood, you may not grant mercy or forgiveness. But if you’re in a magnaminous mood, granting mercy or forgiveness can be an easy act. You can’t separate the act from who and how you are in the moment.
I know this quote. I can’t recall the exact source either but the context is about brotherhood.In these days sisterhood is included.
It refeferences conduct of honor in war and life. A courageous honorable human does not beg from the enemy or their opponent or the person they have wronged. The dishonorable coward betrayer will beg.
Which person deserves mercy? Its a rule of thumb saying, just to safely guide in adverse times.
I’m having a hard time understanding your logic. Mercy isn’t about some sum total of something, maybe it makes sense to think of it as dropping the sense of there being an equation or a balance at all - completely.
I agree, and I agree whether I’m in a cynical mood or an expansive mood. I guess that’s why I’m posing this question to the people talking about morals as objective - just as a way of exploring the idea further.
If you look at suffering as the inevitability that it is, then you might see the futility in trying to stop it.
A person who holds such a view might be inclined to be merciful all the time.
The Quality of Mercy
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
William Shakespeare
1600
One of the few things I remembered from my school daze! Pound of flesh and no more. Brilliant.
But more than likely, when it felt good and not when it didn’t.