Topics Ethics

Question It seems that when a person commits a heinous act, that act is in no way "compensated for" by any amount of good they may have done prior or since. A firefighter who has saved dozens of lives, lives frugally and volunteers all his spare time for those in need is nonetheless damned if he commits one murder. It is clear that the crime itself is a terrible thing and cannot be excused, and should definitely be sanctioned, but it seems we go further and label the firefighter himself a terrible person, regardless of anything else he might have done. Is that really the case?

Accepted:
April 5, 2012

Comments

Very interesting! In the case you describe, the conclusion seems quite plausible. We might even think the firefighter worse than an "average person" or a gang member because we (perhaps rightly) think the firefighter should know and act better, especially given that he has in the past shown so much respect for human life. Still, there are cases in which we do sometimes overlook minor wrongs in the case of persons who have otherwise lived exemplary lives of virtue. I believe that Martin Luther King, Jr. was not always faithful to his wife and plagarized parts of his doctoral dissertation, but it would seem very small minded to hold these against the man who led such a radical movement on behalf of Black Americans and for the cause of fairness and integration. Gandhi, apparently, was not a good father (he was not abusive, per se, but not commendable), but this again seems very minor and of only minimal significance, given the greatness of Gandhi's achievement. If we imagine King and Gandhi did something worse (imagine they burned dozens of innocent people for the sake of entertainment), matters would be otherwise. Perhaps a tough case would be President John F. Kennedy. As more and more is known of his infidelities, I think there is some tarnishing of his character in public, popular culture.