Is There Really No Such Thing?
Ramblings - 9 Comments » - Posted on September, 25 at 9:02 pm
In my Women and Criminal Justice class we were discussing social disruption and the repeating patterns that lead to the creation of female offenders. Specifically the effect economic marginalization has women. There is a distinct pattern that society and the criminal justice system seem bound and determined to ignore, but I digress.
There just so happens to be one person in our class, who also happens to be male, who seems to believe that his way is the right way and if you disagree with him then you’re wrong. He claims to be liberal minded and yet holds very conservative views and knee-jerk reactions. Needless to say, some very interesting discussions have arised because of him.
One such incident occured today when he declared, quite vocally, that there is no such thing as a “moral offender”. If you have committed a crime it is because you lack morals, and to say that a criminal only committed the crime because of X Y and Z circumstances is to say that the ends justify the means.
Needless to say I strongly disagree with this, otherwise I wouldn’t be blogging about it.
Morals are comprised of the values and teachings that have been instilled upon us by a combination of a variety of sources. Our family, friends, religions, society, polictics, and even life experiances combine to give each person their own set of “morals”. My morals do not necessarily have to coincide with yours or others because they are my own set of values and beliefs. They are the things that define me as a person, they are the lines I will not cross and they are the rules that I live by. Certainly there will be common threads and beliefs that I share with the “majority” because my morals, as well as the majority of other’s, are influenced by the society that we live in and a society is governed by the “majority”.
But is it correct to say that a person who has committed a crime, no matter how heinous or benign it may be, is immoral? If you have, in some way, gone against the moral views of yourself or others are you necessarily a bad person who is immoral? Can you be moral if you have ever committed a wrong? If not, then is there a single moral person on this planet?
Tagged: majority-belief, moralityPosted in Ramblings | 9 Comments »
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I believe you can be a moral person and still commit a crime. Some people commit crimes for reasons that are valiant and/or moral. It’s not right to say that all criminals are immoral. There are a lot of criminals who have better morals than most “good” people.
Haha nope there are no moral people in this world cause we’ve all done wrong sometime. I think most people’s morals have similar themes, and society seems to have a collective moral compass. I suppose it depends on the crime and what led up to it whether or not the crime is immoral. I’m sure few will disagree that a rapist who stalks random women just to rape them is immoral. But a husband who murders his wife’s lover when he catches them together, well is that really going against morals or is that more of a snap in judgment?
This reminds me of the movie, The Vanishing, with Keifer Sutherland and Jeff Bridges. Bridges character was a good father, loving husband, etc… and wanted to see if he was capable of doing something evil. Which he did. The movie wasn’t that great – kinda meh – but the thought of someone flipping the switch like that, just to experience the loss of morality, then going back to normal life after the fact was unsettling. Anyhoo.. for some reason reading your post made me think of that movie
Charity,
You bring up an excellent point. There are quite a few criminals who have better “morals” so to speak than those who do not commit crimes. I can think of one person I know who does not always walk the straight and narrow and in fact earns her income through illegitimate means. But she’s a wonderful parent, her kids are well behaved and well-mannered, and they never want for anything.
Valyna,
That actually sounds like an interesting movie. I may have to rent it just to see it, even if you say it’s not that good. The premise behind it has great appeal.
Julie,
But is the rapist immoral because he/she rapes women? Now I’m not advocating rape or knocking victims here, but just because they rape women, does that necessarily mean that they lack moral values?
If the rapist sees these women as inferior or lesser than themselves than they are not necessarily violating their own morals by committing this horrendous crime.
Do you see what I am getting at with this? By trying to determine what is and is not moral behavior we put other’s acts under a microscope and judge them based on our own moral beliefs. This person who rapes women might see the women he rapes as vile and evil, but he/she is a loving father/mother and spouse. They don’t believe in hunting, vote regularly, donate time and money to causes (despite not having much of either) and never try to skip out on jury duty.
They are living by their own morals, which may not necessarily coincide with society’s, but they have their morals that they live by which makes them moral.
Morality and law are gray areas as they should be. It’s frightening when anyone tries to paint either in black and white.
Part of the problem is what people consider to be morals.
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.” Terry Hands
Situational ethics/morality has allowed many
Germans to live with killing off an entire race;
Christians to justify slavery;
USA to send US citizens of certain ethnicities to internment camps during WWII;
Jihadist Muslims to kill men, women and children to get a “go directly to paradise” pass.
.