Subjectivism and Ted Bundy on rape

"In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure that I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you."



Ted Bundy, a man who raped and murdered many innocent women, is quoted from in the book: Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong by Pojman.

When people do wrong acts, they look for any way out that will justify what they are doing. "Everyone else is doing it," "No one is perfect," "It doesn't hurt that much," "Why not steal five dollars, they'll never know the difference," etc. I thought Ted Bundy's was especially interesting. It is also telling against the ethical theory called Subjectivism. Ethical subjectivism states that morality is a matter of taste like preferring vanilla ice cream to chocolate. If someone is against rape, it's simply a matter of taste and nothing more. If someone is for killing the Jews, it's no different from preferring ketchup on your hot dog.

I think this view is very wrong. One big reason is the absurd results that come of it. We don't punish people for matters of taste. We would never say, "I like vanilla ice cream, you don't like vanilla? Well then you should be in prison." However, there are certain wrong acts that we do and should punish people for.

It also makes it impossible to criticize others for their moral views. I would never write a paper arguing why someone should prefer vanilla ice cream over chocolate or why they should enjoy mustard over ketchup on their hot dog. It would make no sense to attempt to change someone's preferences in these areas. However, it does make sense and there is good reason to attempt to justify your moral views and to show how other ones are unjustified.

In other words, if someone says to you, "I like coffee with no sugar," they don't have to give arguments and evidence for why. The simple fact that they like it is enough. However, if someone says, "I like killing 7 year olds on the weekends," then they must give evidence and argument to back it up (and so would the person who says they don't like killing 7 year olds on the weekends).

Alright enough of that. Now for some Ted Bundy.

"Then I learned that all moral judgments are 'value judgments,' that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either 'right' or 'wrong.' I even read somewhere that the Chief Justice of the United States had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured out for myself--what apparently the Chief Justice couldn't figure out for himself--that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any 'reason' to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring--the strength of character--to throw off its shackles...I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable 'value judgment' that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these 'others?' Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more than a hog's life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as 'moral' or 'good' and others as 'immoral' or 'bad'? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure that I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me--after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and inhibited self."--Ted Bundy, Quoted from Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 5th edition, p.30

As a sidenote, I am also reminded of the statement of Frank T. J. Mackey (played by Tom Cruise) from the movie Magnolia. He is a motivational speaker in a sense but he motivates guys to (in his words) "tame the cunt." He teaches men how to get women to be all over them and to get them in bed. He justifies this by saying the following:

"I will not apologize for what I want. I will not apologize for what I need. I will not apologize for who I am."

I hope I have made it clear by now that there are some cases where one should apologize for who they are. I hope I have made it clear that ethical subjectivism is a bad position. I hope I have made it clear how important it is to be a good person and to study the subject of ethics so that you too will not fall into the trap of living a lie like Ted Bundy did.

"You cannot punish me because you are not perfect"

Rationalizations: The Perfection Argument

Your daughter is caught stealing. You go to confront her and tell her that she is to be punished. She responds that you cannot punish her because you have done bad things too. “Who are you to punish me?” She asks. Many people attempt to use the reasoning that you yourself are not perfect, therefore you are not justified in punishing me. Or, that the punisher has to be a better person than the person being punished.

This is however, fallacious reasoning.

Limited Application—Connection with hypocrisy

This objection does have a limited validity. Its fallaciousness can be seen once this validity is explained. If I were arguing that my daughter is to be punished for her crime and that I am not to be punished for my crimes, then that would be inconsistent. For example, let’s say I stole when I was a kid. As long as I admit that what I did was wrong, there is nothing inconsistent with punishing my daughter for stealing when she is a kid. If however, I do not believe that what I did was wrong and I punish her for performing a similar act, then I am being hypocritical. However, if I acknowledge that what I did was wrong and that punishment would have been justified, then I am not being inconsistent in punishing my daughter.

Limited Application—Connection with Character

There also may be another limited application of this principle. It is connected to the belief that bad people are not good discerners of what is right and wrong. If it were to be shown that I was a bad person, then perhaps what I am punishing someone for is not in fact wrong.

However, even with this belief, this does not salvage the principle. First, if the person deserving of punishment believes that what he did was wrong, then connecting it with the character of the punisher is irrelevant. His act is still wrong and deserving of punishment. Second, the objection could be turned on the one who is to receive punishment because he may be a worse person and therefore even worse at discerning moral truths.

Objection #1: No one is perfect.

If the principle was true, then no one would be justified in punishing anybody. The court system would be an immoral thing to set up. Jurors deciding people’s fate would be evil. It would be the case that we should just let everyone run wild. Since this is not the case, the reasoning is fallacious.

Objection #2: It does not establish hypocrisy.

Simply because I got a tattoo as a kid or smoked cigarettes does not mean that I believe now that I was justified in performing those activities. One example of the use of this argument was in the show The Osbournes. Jack, who is Ozzy Osbourne's son, smokes and does drugs. Whenever Ozzy would yell at him for doing drugs, Jack would reply with, "You did drugs when you were younger. You are a hypocrite to tell me to not do any."

However, this response confuses the definition of “hypocrisy.” A hypocrite is one who says, “When I do X it is okay but when you do X, it is wrong.” Ozzy would be a hypocrite if he believed that when he did drugs as a young boy it was okay but wrong for his son. However, if he believes that it was wrong for him to do and wrong for his son to do, then he avoids hypocrisy. He can then tell his son to not do drugs and if he does them, he will be punished, despite the son’s sayings otherwise.

Conclusion

So, as is apparent, to argue that, “Person X cannot punish me because person X is not perfect” is fallacious reasoning. It is a rationalization that is used most likely because the wrongdoer will try whatever he can to avoid punishment. This is one of the ways of attempting to “neutralize” the person’s wrongdoing but it simply does not work. Despite its fallaciousness, people often yield to it like it is magically true. It is a false belief that has caused many wrongdoers to fail to get what they deserve.

Victimless Crimes

Yesterday, while I was finishing going pee in the bathroom, I realized something. The argument that a certain crime is victimless begs the question. Allow me to elaborate.

Let's take druge laws. A lot of time, people argue that with drug laws, when people break them, it is a victimless crime. It is a crime where there is no victim. No one is being wronged in the situation. Since no one is being wronged, there should be no law against it.

However, why not consider the person who is taking drugs to be a victim? Perhaps he is a victim of the big tobacco companies who just want him to get hooked because they want to be rich. Perhaps he is a victim of an alcohol company who wants the same.

But not only that, to say a crime is victimless is equivalent to saying that the crime is not wrong. There is only a "victim" in a certain situation when a wrong act was committed. So, starting from the statement "This crime is victimless" is just simply equivalent to saying, "This crime is not wrong." Therefore,one cannot use the claim, "This crime is victimless" to prove "This crime is not wrong." If someone already believes the crime to be wrong, they will not think it is victimless. Minimally, in the drug-taking situation, one could argue that the drug user is wronging himself. He could further argue that big companies are wronging him as well.

So, the argument that "X is a victimless crime" to prove that "This crime is not wrong" does not work.

(One could prove that there is no victim by saying that the person taking the drugs is harming himself but not wronging himself. I see this as a very impossible argument to make. If one did make that argument, however, they would not be begging the question.)

The Singer Solution to World Poverty--Something all humans need to really think about

The Singer Solution to World Poverty
Peter Singer
The New York Times Sunday Magazine, September 5, 1999, pp. 60-63

"In the Brazilian film "Central Station," Dora is a retired schoolteacher who makes ends meet by sitting at the station writing letters for illiterate people. Suddenly she has an opportunity to pocket $1,000. All she has to do is persuade a homeless 9-year-old boy to follow her to an address she has been given. (She is told he will be adopted by wealthy foreigners.) She delivers the boy, gets the money, spends some of it on a television set and settles down to enjoy her new acquisition. Her neighbor spoils the fun, however, by telling her that the boy was too old to be adopted —he will be killed and his organs sold for transplantation. Perhaps Dora knew this all along, but after her neighbor's plain speaking, she spends a troubled night. In the morning Dora resolves to take the boy back.

Suppose Dora had told her neighbor that it is a tough world, other people have nice new TV's too, and if selling the kid is the only way she can get one, well, he was only a street kid. She would then have become, in the eyes of the audience, a monster. She redeems herself only by being prepared to bear considerable risks to save the boy.

At the end of the movie, in cinemas in the affluent nations of the world, people who would have been quick to condemn Dora if she had not rescued the boy go home to places far more comfortable than her apartment. In fact, the average family in the United States spends almost one-third of its income on things that are no more necessary to them than Dora's new TV was to her. Going out to nice restaurants, buying new clothes because the old ones are no longer stylish, vacationing at beach resorts —so much of our income is spent on things not essential to the preservation of our lives and health. Donated to one of a number of charitable agencies, that money could mean the difference between life and death for children in need.

All of which raises a question: In the end, what is the ethical distinction between a Brazilian who sells a homeless child to organ peddlers and an American who already has a TV and upgrades to a better one —knowing that the money could be donated to an organization that would use it to save the lives of kids in need?"

...

"In the world as it is now, I can see no escape from the conclusion that each one of us with wealth surplus to his or her essential needs should be giving most of it to help people suffering from poverty so dire as to be life-threatening. That's right: I'm saying that you shouldn't buy that new car, take that cruise, redecorate the house or get that pricey new suit. After all, a $1,000 suit could save five children's lives.

So how does my philosophy break down in dollars and cents? An American household with an income of $50,000 spends around $30,000 annually on necessities, according to the Conference Board, a nonprofit economic research organization. Therefore, for a household bringing in $50,000 a year, donations to help the world's poor should be as close as possible to $20,000. The $30,000 required for necessities holds for higher incomes as well. So a household making $100,000 could cut a yearly check for $70,000. Again, the formula is simple: whatever money you're spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away."

Some may argue against his proposal. They might say that since the money is just being given away without any incentive, people will take what they wish and not do things like get a job or start to support themselves. These people will live longer and reproduce. Therefore, giving more aid would simply create more need, not less of it.

However, why think this will happen? There is no evidence that the people who are near death would just do nothing once they didn't have to worry about malnutrition and death of loved ones and sickness, etc. Imagine that we cured people of their sickness, gave them a sufficient amount of food, gave them a nice place to live, set up factories where they could work, and said, "Okay, if you want to keep what you have, you must work."

I think most people who are near death would agree to these conditions. I think most people who are suffering from malnutrition wouldn't mind working once they got enough food and water and shelter to do so.

There is no good reason why essentially all Americans cannot give aid to dying countries. The price of a new TV is not just a couple thousand dollars, it's a couple hundred lives.

See my paper on possible objections to giving aid here.