My mother recently gave me a couple of P.D. James books, both of which I’d read years ago, but I accepted them anyway. Since I always enjoyed P.D. James’ writing, I started re-reading one a few days ago, Death of an Expert Witness. As I read last night (while listening to Forrest Gump in the background – it was a heavy night for armchair philosophy), I came across an intriguing passage. The conversation you are about to read takes place between Adam Dalgliesh (the detective) and the 15-year-old daughter of a murder suspect:
“Are you going to discover who killed Dr. Lorrimer?”
“I hope so. I expect so.”
“And then what will happen to him, the murderer, I mean?”
“He’ll appear before the magistrates. Then, if they think that the evidence is sufficient, they’ll commit him to the Crown Court for trial.”
“And then?”
“If he’s found guilty of murder, the judge will pass the statutory penalty, imprisonment for life. That means that he’ll be in prison for a long time, perhaps ten years or more.
“But that’s silly. That won’t put things right. It won’t bring Dr. Lorrimer back.”
“It won’t put anything right, but it isn’t silly. Life is precious to nearly all of us. Even people who have little more than life still want to live it to the last natural moment. No one has a right to take it away from them.”
“You talk as if his life were like William’s ball. If that’s taken away, he knows what he’s lost. Dr. Lorrimer doesn’t know that he’s lost anything.
“He’s lost the years he might have had.”
“That’s like taking away the ball that William might have had. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just words. Suppose he was going to die next week anyway. Then he’d only have lost seven days. You don’t put someone in prison for ten years to repay seven lost days. They might not even have been happy days.”
“Even if he were a very old man with one day left to him, the law says that he has a right to live it. Willful killing would still be murder.”
The girl said thoughtfully:
“I suppose it was different when people believed in God. Then the murdered person might have died in mortal sin and gone to hell. The seven days could have made a difference then. He might have repented and had time for absolution.”
Dalgliesh said:
“All these problems are easier for people who believe in God. Those of us who don’t or can’t have to do the best we can. That’s what the law is, it’s the best we can do. Human justice is imperfect, but it’s the only justice we have.”
I find that an extraordinary passage to have been included in a piece of pop lit. Here are some questions to consider in the comments:
- Do you agree that questions of life, death, justice, etc., are easier for believers than nonbelievers?
- Do you agree that people who have even just a little bit of life want to live it to the last “natural” moment? What about terminally ill people who want to control their deaths to some degree and die with dignity?
- Did you see, as I did, a parallel between the idea of imprisoning someone for ten years to repay the loss of seven days and the idea of a deity punishing someone for eternity for the “sins” of a finite lifetime?
- What did you think about the girl’s assumption that the days when people believed in God were past?
As always, let me know what you think in the comments, and let me know if something else in this passage caught your attention.
– the chaplain
desertscope
August 29, 2010 at 2:07 pm
1) Issues of life, etc. are easier for believers in most cases. Unfortunately for believers, cases exist where the concept of divine justice works against their desires. In the case of this story: A murderer is sentenced (in most of the world, this is limited to life or less, but in the U.S. it may be death). After being remanded to the penal system, the convict is granted some amount of time, during which he may “accept Jesus” and receive eternal forgiveness for his sins. It has been my experience that most believers have strong feelings regarding vengeance (paradoxically, if I understand the teachings of Jeebus correctly). While execution would grant the corporeal revenge, the conversion would allow the murderer an eternity in paradise.
2) I imagine the ability to choose when to end one’s own life would grant a certain peace even through a painful terminal illness.
3) Excellent point.
4) Her assumption can be correct, depending on the circumstances of the listener. When I am among physical scientists at conferences and such, those who are bleebers keep it to themselves. At work, my colleagues are about 60% atheist/agnostic. In most of the first world, the educated classes are majority non-believers.
The Vicar
August 29, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Hmmm.
1. A logical, consistent believer in one of the world’s major religions actually has a harder time arguing against certain kinds of murder. After all, if everyone gets an afterlife, then the murdered person will (usually, given that most people believe in the local majority religion by definition) go to heaven a little sooner — which is actually good — while the murderer will receive whatever punishment is actually just when they die, which is also necessarily good. (The same can be said for abortion: a baby has committed no serious sins, so a just god would necessarily allow it into heaven, and therefore abortion is nothing to get worried about because if it is a sin then the people who carry it out will receive whatever punishment is just upon their deaths. To interfere is, logically, taking matters out of the hands of god, which is wrong.) The problem, of course, is that almost no believers are logical or consistent.
2. It is standard practice, when considering a robbery, to assume that the victim would not have voluntarily surrendered what was stolen. It is technically possible that you would have spontaneously given a mugger all the money in your wallet, but nobody even bothers considering that as a defense after the mugger is caught after holding you up. Likewise, if a murderer cuts off your life, the assumption is that you would not have committed suicide, even though this is technically a possibility.
3. Not really; philosophically, the objection to infinite punishment is that it is infinite. Forty years of imprisonment (or even literal life imprisonment) is not infinite. At some point in the future, there will presumably come a time when there is no way to even know that a murder victim ever existed, let alone that they were murdered. An infinite punishment will have just as long to run at that point as it would when it started, and that is necessarily unjust. Whereas even in the most extreme case — some hidden victim, whose existence was completely unknown to the world, killed a millisecond before they would have died of natural causes, and the murderer punished for the remainder of their lifespan — there is at least some ratio between the magnitude of the punishment and that of the crime.
4. I thought it was probably used by the author to characterize the girl as a harsh, unthinking, naive adolescent, since that’s how that sort of passage was used throughout the first half of the century in similar fiction.
PhillyChief
August 29, 2010 at 7:42 pm
• Yes
• The answer is in your question.
• No
• Silly girl.
1minionsopinion
August 30, 2010 at 9:01 am
“I suppose it was different when people believed in God.”
How far in the future does this story take place?
I’ve only read one P.D. James book, Children of Men, which I quite enjoyed. I think I may have to try this book now, too.
alex-a
August 30, 2010 at 10:28 am
* Difficult questions are not necessarily easier for theists. They do, however, tend to be easier for those too lazy to think and have all answers laid out for them by their holy book or, even better, holy man. It’s much easier to make a decision if you don’t have to make one.
* I can’t help but think of Dr. House, who says somewhere in the first season that there’s no such thing as dying with dignity; death is always ugly. Live with dignity as long as you can.
* On death penalty, I don’t really have an opinion. I see a lot of arguments on either side, some good, some shit, but ultimately there is no “killer” (pardon me) anywhere in sight. I think for the sake of safety and a lack of definitive conclusion, it’s best to do away with executions, at least for now.
* I think the author is projecting his wishful thinking.
People will always believe in gods. Just like they will have irrational fears, hopes and dreams, and other such stuff. Not to say that we need religion, but as long as we have emotions (which are too often irrational), we will fall for religion as well.
Postman
August 30, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Questions of life and death are easier for believers in that they don’t have to think about it; just do what their religion tells them. Though, in all fairness, I’m sure many of them do.
I may be kind of a dick, but even though I’d be dead and couldn’t care at that point, and even if a murderer only took a couple of hours which I required for other purposes, I’m for bunging him in jail for the max.
As for the days of belief in myths being past… don’t I wish.
Sarge
August 31, 2010 at 8:06 am
1 Some believers do the absolutist thing, but most people prance and dance around the questions. There is a very large “Yes, but…” attached, the more personal the situation, the more weaving and dancing around these questions and “Yes, but…”-ing seems to be encountered.
2 The question is the body or the mind? There will come a point when my life will be intolerable due to pain and breakdown, and I will still, even if they shut me down, fight for my last breath, physically. Seen it.
3 Don’t know
4 Those days are not evident around here!
(Aside, travelled through Berkley Springs over the weekend and actually saw a church sign I could believe in: “Forbidden Fruits Produce the Worst Jams”. Not even I would disagree with that!)
CommiusRex
September 9, 2010 at 10:01 am
PD James is, of course, British. Over here, there would be no reason for that passage to be considered particularly extraordinary even for a mass-market author. We atheists are generally only considered controversial if we’re too ‘obnoxious’ about it – Dawkins gets a fair amount of criticism, generally over ‘tone’, but the UK is not a religious country by any means. Ostentatious displays of religion are generally regarded as in poor taste. This also explains why the little girl considers belief in God to be a thing of the past – although the small towns and villages tend to be more observant, urban Britain is, by and large, a place where anyone taking religion too seriously will be considered a bit peculiar…