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Classicsfan,
I believe that justice must be carried out. If someone accidentally killed your family or unknowingly stole from you, you would say that they are innocent of any reprimand? Let’s say that I unknowingly fed your child something they were deathly allergic to and they died as a result. Does my non-knowledge of their allergies excuse the fact that because of something I did someone else died?
To take the mortality issue out of the question, if I was going to buy a new pair of sunglasses and put them in my cart, then accidentally walked out of the store with it, the store is justified in bringing charged against me if they had video of me doing so, yes? I am not an evil person or knowingly a thief, but unknowing and non ill intentioned thief I am, and need be dealt with as such.
Would you praise a intentionally evil minded person who unintentionally did a good deed? If a murderer killed someone who was planning on killing many more people, perhaps in a terrorist attack, are they worthy of praise? What do you think?
-Dan
I would say that we should not, morally speaking, be responsible for evil acts that come about by mistake or without our knowledge. Evil and wrong doing needs to be a conscious decision, or else you cannot call the person who commits the act evil. Practically speaking, evil things can be done accidentally or without the participants knowledge, but you cannot really call the individual who accidentally caused the act evil any more than you could blame an asteroid for careening into the earth and causing massive destruction. Now, if the asteroid, in the vastness of space, eyed a pretty blue planet and launched itself at the sphere knowing of the massive death that would come, that would be different.
Unfortunately, I do believe that justice is more important than the labels we ascribe to crimes committed. Evil unintentionally committed is still evil and need be dealt with through the law. However, I feel a more lenient eye should be cast on accidental evil doers. Without knowledge of the effect of our actions, we cannot be said to fully own them. Perhaps every time I step in a puddle on a rainy day I am smashing and annihilating a microscopic civilization of sea monkeys. While this is doubtlessly sad, and if it were proven I should be held responsible and made to avoid frolicking through the puddles, I don’t believe you can call my innocent puddle splashing an evil. Still, the innocent need justice and the guilty, knowing or not, need punishment….
