As a non American ... :) Mine was a political moment, during the 1997 election in the UK, when I felt I realized that a really small number of people were capable of manipulating events. Often they have a pious- sounding front man like Tony Blair (or they are such a person). And they lack a moral sense. For a while this depressed me terribly. Eventually I somehow went back into myself, and found a kind of detachment from human affairs I didn't used to have.

This is not at all how I used to see the world. In a way though, in the long run I feel more at ease with myself, less urgently feeling I should *do* something. These bastards are stronger than me. I need my own space of reasonableness. I can't ignore the unpleasant triumph of evil people, but I can understand that I'm not responsible for them.

I think I saw this film a good deal of time ago. I have little memory of it. Based on the scene, my guess is Woody Allen had been reading Dostoevsky. That would explain the move's title as well.

People do indeed get away with murder. Some feel guilty over it. Some do not. I don't know if, in this movie, prosperity resulted from the murder. Dostoevsky and others pondered whether the fact that people get away with murder indicates the universe, or God, is unjust and whether getting away with it establishes it is no wrong.

It's unclear to me why anyone would believe that the fact people get away with murder bears any relation to whether it's good or bad to murder, unless they assume that murderers must be punished somehow in order for it to be bad. I think that begs the question. It's also unclear to me why the fact that a person prospers after doing something bad indicates that the universe is unjust or is an injustice.

There's no reason why the universe should conform to our expectations. The fact it doesn't shouldn't be surprising, given that we're such a tiny part of it.

As a non American ... :) Mine was a political moment, during the 1997 election in the UK, when I felt I realized that a really small number of people were capable of manipulating events. Often they have a pious- sounding front man like Tony Blair (or they are such a person). And they lack a moral sense. For a while this depressed me terribly. Eventually I somehow went back into myself, and found a kind of detachment from human affairs I didn't used to have.

This is not at all how I used to see the world. In a way though, in the long run I feel more at ease with myself, less urgently feeling I should *do* something. These bastards are stronger than me. I need my own space of reasonableness. I can't ignore the unpleasant triumph of evil people, but I can understand that I'm not responsible for them. — mcdoodle

Never mind my mental problems, mcdoodle. I actually do know that people are people no matter where they are. It's been my practice to withhold respect if I note that a person is bigoted. It becomes a little daunting when I see just how many people there are who I don't respect. If I had a more political nature, I would have long since worked it out and laid it to rest.

But regarding crimes and misdemeanors, you're saying you sort of insulated yourself from the world and its truths? Does that work?

It's unclear to me why anyone would believe that the fact people get away with murder bears any relation to whether it's good or bad to murder, unless they assume that murderers must be punished somehow in order for it to be bad. — Ciceronianus the White

What does "murder is bad" mean to you? Is it just true instinctively? Is it true because a lot of people agree that it is? Is it empathy that makes it bad? I guess I'm asking for your theory of morality.

I think that begs the question. It's also unclear to me why the fact that a person prospers after doing something bad indicates that the universe is unjust or is an injustice.

There's no reason why the universe should conform to our expectations. The fact it doesn't shouldn't be surprising, given that we're such a tiny part of it. — Ciceronianus the White

I think what's shocking about it is the realization that brutality, for instance, can be a magic. In some cases, it gets you what you wanted, there's no blowback from it, and as opposed to making your position less secure, it makes it more secure. It continues to pay dividends down the line. Isn't this why parents teach their sons to belt the playground bully right in the nose? Because they know it works this way.

It just occurred to me that this may be a case of a woman trying to understand men. (I'm female.)

I haven't seen this Allen movie, though I probably should. It looks pretty good. I've like most of his movies.

When reading or viewing fiction, it can be quite interesting to hear about murder; or amusing, pleasant, shocking, horrible -- various possibilities. We can enjoy these sorts of things in fiction. We can even enjoy these things when they are real, reported clearly, but reported from quite some distance--both in kilometers and in emotional relevance.

Both the British and American House of Cards involved murder, and it was successful, career-benefiting, very convenient cold blooded murder. Did murder most foul lessen our interest in Tony Soprano? Breaking bad? Not really. As long as there is not too much gore. It's ok to dissolve the murder victim in acid, as long as we don't have to view any incomplete results.

As far as I know, I haven't met anybody who has personally gotten away with murder, benefitted handsomely from it, and had few, if any, regrets. Lesser crimes, maybe. Murder, no.

We have had a number of scandals where presumably decent people carried out various violations of the law -- and what is considered proper whether it is illegal or not -- and got away with it. J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO comes to mind; Hoover strikes me as the prototypical presumptive good gone very bad. Richard Nixon would be another one -- not just for Watergate. He was considered a sneaky, crooked politician before Kennedy was elected President.

The real world quite frequently fails to conform to my expectations. The guilty should confess or be found and prosecuted. If not prosecuted, they should suffer in some consequential way, both for the crime and for not confessing. Most often and most likely this won't happen. Crime pays, most criminals are not caught, (though how likely one is to get away with actual murder depends on one's city of resident, race, economic status, and so on. Mayor Betsy Hodges of Minneapolis would probably fail miserably as a murderer-beneficiary. On the other hand, in a city with phlegmatic law enforcement in the ghetto, some drug dealer could be bumped off without too much concern by the police (provided he was black and ghetto).

We can entertain more than one viewpoint at a time: Pleasure in seeing the fictional character get away with it, and honest indignation when the local police chief is found to be running a car theft racket (or murder for hire scheme, whatever you want). We can be appalled and not surprised at the same time. I am usually appalled, and usually not too surprised when people do bad things. I assume people will do bad things, but I am always shocked - SHOCKED! - when they do.

Naturally, I keep a double standard available for my own difficult situations. I might do something wrong, even egregiously wrong, but if I don't have to deal with consequences, I might not get around to being shocked and appalled for a long time. Maybe never. It depends. I'm probably not unusual.

What does "murder is bad" mean to you? Is it just true instinctively? Is it true because a lot of people agree that it is? Is it empathy that makes it bad? I guess I'm asking for your theory of morality.

That's quite a request. If you want a theory, I'd have write a book or essay, and I'm not sure I have what would constitute a formal theory in any case. So, a summary must suffice.

I think murder is bad because I think I shouldn't kill without good cause. I think that we should have reasons, good ones, for what we do. Sometimes, what is moral is determined by asking "Why?" instead of or in addition to "Why not?" Thus, "Why should I murder someone?" I'm something of a Stoic, or try to be. I accept that it's foolish and destructive to desire or be overwhelmingly disturbed by what isn't in my control. What's in my control, as a rule (to which there may be exceptions), are my thoughts, emotions and actions. Hate, avarice, envy, anger result when we want or fear things beyond our control. Generally, our desire to murder is due to our concern with things beyond our control and our inability to self-regulate what is in our control due to our desire for things beyond our control.

I suppose that's the essence of one "theory." Another might have its basis in the fact that I think I should not be murdered, and this should be respected by others. As that is the case I think it's likely others feel the same way, and I'm unable to believe that I'm so special or unique that my desire not to be murdered should be honored but the desire of others not to be murdered should not be honored.

Simple answers to a difficult question, I know.

You aren't a moral realist and you aren't a utilitarian. You lean toward saying that mastery of the passions is a virtue. Very Roman of you.

Do you know about the religious ceremonies the Romans did to justify their wars? Originally, a priest would appear at the battlefield and toss a sword out toward the enemy to signify that the gods approved of the bloodshed that was about to commence. Eventually, they just tossed the sword into a vacant lot somewhere... the front line was too far away.

I'm just saying.. if you're a Roman, you aren't the old school variety who turned to a priest to learn whether there is a good reason to kill somebody's son. You're more the naturalistic, Lucretius style Roman, right?

But if we're going to be thorough about our naturalism, we should note that "survival of the fittest" isn't the contemporary evolutionary biology viewpoint because their is no scientific criteria for "fittest." It's all mutation, genetic drift, and some adaptation.

So if scientists can't identify the "good" the way Rand would have liked to think, how do we come to understand that good reason for killing? Just sentiment? Because people in general deserve respect?

Maybe.

But I think it's more that people who are treated with respect know how nice that is and empathetically want others to feel that goodness too. Vast swaths of the human population don't know what it means to be treated with respect. Thus Mark Twain was right: 'Sometimes it seems a pity Noah didn't miss the boat.'

Thanks for discussing this with me.

But regarding crimes and misdemeanors, you're saying you sort of insulated yourself from the world and its truths? Does that work? — Mongrel

I think 'insulated' is too strong, but I created a buffer-zone. I hit rock bottom, and from then I started looking for other things to care about - that I might care about. To me this is a little like getting over addiction, in that if you think about what you used to be addicted to all the time - well, in my case - you never get over it. Your life is still about the thing you're forsaking, like a lost lover. The only way forward I found was to invest myself in different activities, from games to physical exercise to...well, one thing is philosophy, though I am not very interested in Ethics, more in Metaphysics, Epistemology, Mind and Language. I find the analytic approach to ethics amazingly banal, it's as if sociology and politics haven't been discovered yet. But what we mean by 'what we mean', all that stuff, it turns out, fascinates me :)

I'm still a backroom boy for the UK Green party locally (because I believe the Greens are right, if a minority sport), still I hope a generous person. But the weight of other people's crimes and misdemeanours, the burden of feeling I ought to do something about them - that's mostly lifted. What, after all, is it that's burdensome about how other people act? I see that insight in Landru sometimes: that in his view 'The unexamined life is not worth living' means me, and my life, not a lot of rules about other people. A lot of people express well-thought-through opinions about other people's lives, and nevertheless have as I see it an unexamined life themselves.

It strikes me you are not distinguishing between the ethical, that something is right or wrong, and the causal, when are humans caused to act rightly or wrongly. From what you've written here, it's almost like you are expecting causal reason for human actions ( "because it will get me X," "I will avoid Y if I do,"etc. etc. ) to define the ethical significance of an action. As if, for example, murder is okay in instances where people get away with it, for they are gaining what they want and are not losing anything.

Ethics really has nothing at stake here. Whether or not someone gets away with something has no effect on its ethical significance. A murderer who gets away with it, and everything they wanted, isn't any less immoral than someone who got caught. The "why is it immoral" simply isn't touched by whether or not a person leaving wrongly is caught and/or punished. Whether someone does right/wrong ( "Have they acted morally?) is a different question than whether they should or should not ("Is this action ethical?" ) perform an action.

'The unexamined life is not worth living' means me, and my life, not a lot of rules about other people. — mcdoodle

This is the kicker, really. It's enough to swallow knowledge of man's inhumanity in cases like the Soviet Union or Rwanda. I had some Nietzsche moments along that trail. It's when I encounter it first hand.. in myself, that another dimension to it opens up.

Not to burden you with TMI, but I'm a mean drunk. Fortunately it doesn't happen often, but it has happened. It's a Jekyll/Hyde situation. I don't identify with that person. I called her Bitch Monster.

It's by way of Bitch Monster that I discovered that being an asshole can be magic. You get what you wanted, there's no price to pay for it, and it earns rewards down the line. As opposed to making your situation less secure, people rally round in approval.

I don't know what to do with that. I look out at history and present day affairs and I think... that's it. The world is full of bitch monsters getting what they want. And the ones that correspond to my normal, sober self... what are they doing? Embracing death? Yea, sort of.

Do you know what I mean?

Whether or not someone gets away with something has no effect on its ethical significance — TheWillowOfDarkness

This thread was mainly directed at Ciceronianus.. because I know he isn't a moral realist. At baseline, I am, though it's not that I think God has decreed that I must act thus and so. It's something else.

I don't know what to do with that. I look out at history and present day affairs and I think... that's it. The world is full of bitch monsters getting what they want. And the ones that correspond to my normal, sober self... what are they doing? Embracing death? Yea, sort of.

Do you know what I mean? — Mongrel

This would make a great premiss for a novel, by the way. The quiet decent woman who discovers she can disclose the inner Bitch Monster after the right amount of alcohol. And slowly she starts disclosing BM more and more...

I am mildly mean when drunk but only in a hopeless, there-he-goes-again way...mostly I don't drink now, and this is part of distancing things. But I have different ways of recognising that within me are all sorts of dark possibilities. In a sense it's mean to judge other people till you see something of them in you.

To me you are conflating the monstrosity and the achievement of getting what they want, though. Determination and persistence are also available to the gentle and radical :) 'Why do sinners ways prosper?' one can despondently ask one day (http://www.bartleby.com/122/50.html for the Hopkins poem), but then there are the likes of Jimmy Carter and Taylor Swift, seemingly decent people doing the right thing...(unlike Woody Allen, the sardonic commentator who finds himself in the moral mire eventually)...and lots of people I know who quietly make the world of civil and civic society run, unsung Honorary treasurers and voluntary carers...not embracers of death...

The Jekyll/Hyde story does it justice.

Woody Allen has demonstrated himself to be an amoral figure with his statement (now a fixture of American English): "The heart wants what it wants."

But I know you're right. Society couldn't persist without those who embrace simple mercy in their dealings and just flow like water around the assholes of the world.

I know...

I'm fond of Roman history, and of some of the Romans. My nom de forum/blog gives that away. Roman Stoicism appeals to me more than Greek Stoicism; it's more human. Though Cicero claimed to be an Academic, he clearly favors the Stoic view.

As for pre-battle rituals, a favorite Roman of mine, due to one act only, is Publius Clodius Pulcher. He commanded a Roman fleet during the first Punic War. It was thought appropriate to consult the Sacred Chickens before battle. They would be brought forth and given food. I assume this was done with whatever solemnity was possible. If they ate the food, things would work out well for the Romans. Before this battle, however, they wouldn't eat. When told of this, Publius Clodius famously remarked "Then let's see if they will drink" and had them thrown into the sea. The Claudii were generally arrogant to the extreme, but I think kindly of him for his conduct in that case. The Romans lost the sea battle, by the way. The Sacred Chickens would not be mocked.

Ritual was important to the Romans and used to be important to that remarkable ghost of the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church. But though I might admire the beauty of ritual, it doesn't impress me as far as providing guidance is concerned. Lucretius, though an Epicurean and not a Stoic, was wise in many respects as was Epicurus.

I think it's possible to determine with some accuracy and is a basic manner what people desire, what they love and hate, want and dislike. So, it's possible to use that as a basis on which to make judgments of value, moral judgments, in the exercise of practical reason. Just as it's possible to make intelligent value judgments (regarding what we ought to do, who we should consult, to obtain certain ends) it's possible to make intelligent moral decisions.

that people commit crimes, hurt other people, kill (or worse), and they get away with it. They pay no price. Instead, they prosper from it. They become more powerful and insulated. — Mongrel

They don't always get away with it. Sometimes they get away with it, just like sometimes good people suffer. I think the suffering of good people is exacerbated in our age because mercy triumphs over justice too much - in other words, one is seen as being morally deficient if justice (punishing wrong-doing) becomes more important than forgiveness. This I think is wrong - there is no shame in strength, justice and power if they are used for good causes, and justice is a good cause. It is only those morally deficient people, who desire to do evil and hurt others, and who don't want their victims to have means of defence and retaliation, that promote forgiveness. For them, they want forgiveness to be a universal law, because they want to be forgiven - allowed to get away with doing evil.

Isn't this why parents teach their sons to belt the playground bully right in the nose? Because they know it works this way. — Mongrel

Yes. Violence and power can be used for good purposes. Beating up a bully is a good thing - and yes - it works. Hobbes was right.

If it has come home to you that this is true, what sense do you make of it? Is it in keeping with the way you've always seen the world? Or does it conflict with your habitual view? If so, do you make changes to your outlook? Or do you tuck it away and ignore it? — Mongrel

Yes it is in keeping with the way I've always seen the world. It doesn't conflict with my view. I do not tuck it away and ignore it. I seek to develop the strength and power required to defend myself and others I care about.

Wow @Mongrel thanks for posting that clip. I saw the movie about 5 years ago and enjoyed it but I can't remember this scene and it really hits home. It's interesting that you focus on the external aspects of the situation, the murderer getting away with it, whilst this scene speaks to me almost entirely about the psychological aspects. As Ciceronianus mentioned the title echos Dostoevsky and I see this clip as an answer/reaction to Crime and Punishment.

***************************Large Spoilers for C&P follow.****************************

It's been a while since I've read C&P so this may not be the most accurate summary. In C&P Raskalnikov murders a pawnbroker and her sister. He has a moral theory which justifies the murders, something about great men being beyond moral codes. Even though he has this theory he is plagued by the murders, going in and out of fevers, in constant fear of being found out and feeling the desire to confess. In the end he eventually confesses and regrets his crime.

One of Dostoevsky's points is that we can create our own moral codes if we want, even disregard morality and become nihilists but we can't escape our human nature. Part of this nature is that we can't murder others and feel completely fine about it. Even if we are not punished by others, our punishment will be our inability to live with our actions.

This anecdotal summary of crimes and misdemeanors is directly speaking to that. This phrase may get thrown around too much, crimes and misdemeanors is from the perspective after the death of god. The man starts with the 'empty' universe in which he commits his crime, he doesn't even need to create a moral theory to justify it. The guilt that he feels is not because of a deep seated human nature but remnants of his childhood education, his fathers voice and a god that he has rejected are things of the past, a past time before gods death in his life. As such the guilt holds him for a little bit but then fades, there is no eye opening experience where he comes to realize a moral truth about the world. Finally in absence of god we don't recreate him to take responsibility and punish ourselves, we rationalize, deny and move on.

Too me that's the interesting aspect. From my world view it's entirely clear that people do crimes and get away with them. The 'chilling' aspect of the story is not that people can prosper from murder it's that the universe does not have an inbuilt 'just and moral' structure, we cannot violate the universe, it is empty and indifferent.

There is always something to gain from crime or else there would be no criminals. Thousands of crimes are committed everyday all around the globe. There are mobs, gangs, gun violence and bullying in schools. So many people being murdered for life insurance. People profit off crime all the time. Theres drug trade, there drug mules, there drug lords, there is prostitutes and illegal sex trafficking. If you are really shocked by this you need to get out from that little rock you live under and realize this world is a messed up place. Try asking a cop this question and watch him laugh at you. This question is way too obvious. Its like asking if people need food to live.