Returning to my office from a class discussing the link between autonomy and understanding, I found a news item about whether Lynndie England, the Army clerk photographed abusing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, was competent (Jury asks if Lynndie England knows right from wrong). A little sample:
I am especially intrigued at the suggestion, implicit in the ruling of the trial judge in May, that following orders is sufficient reason to doubt that England could distinguish right from wrong. It would seem that not only is "just following orders" a valid and exonerating excuse for misdeeds, but that following orders is an act that cannot be judged by standards of right and wrong. The argument can be restated: If one intends one's action to follow an order, that action is neither right nor wrong. It is simply order-following.
Her defense argument rests on nearly the same principle. She could distinguish right from wrong - and hence could not excuse her actions by claiming to be criminally insane. However, she may not have been able correctly to distinguish right from wrong because she was following orders.
A general rule in the morality of responsibility is that any person with the rational capacity to distinguish right from wrong bears responsibility for right and wrong action. The excuse of "only following orders" has been rejected on the grounds that an order does not cancel out the responsibility to judge independently whether the order is right or wrong. War crimes prosecution following WWII hinged on this, for instance.
Here, the arguments are working in a new direction. It's not her responsibility to act rightly that's in question. Nor is it her rational capacity in general that's in question. Somehow, it seems, the act of following an order cancels out judgment. The reports coming out of this trial suggest a legal/moral move to excuse her, not from her actions, but from making judgments. It's rather mind-boggling.
England's lawyers are arguing that because of these traits, she simply complied when abuse ringleader Charles Graner, 37, her boyfriend with whom she has a child, told her to pose with the leash and in other photos that caused worldwide outrage.
Graner, now serving a 10-year sentence for his leading role in the abuses, said on Thursday that he was acting properly to control prisoners by stacking them into a naked pyramid and by putting a leash on one mentally ill Iraqi.
The judge declined initially to ask the question, which stirred up a legal's hornet's nest, because the defense is not arguing that England was criminally insane and thus could not tell right from wrong.
"She had the ability to know right from wrong," military defense attorney Jonathan Crisp told the judge outside of the presence of the jury. But "she did not believe it was wrong because of the trust she placed in Spc. Graner."
England had originally pleaded guilty to seven counts of abuse during a trial in May. But the trial's judge negated the plea deal after hearing evidence suggesting that she thought she was following orders from a superior and thus may not have known she was acting wrongly.
I am especially intrigued at the suggestion, implicit in the ruling of the trial judge in May, that following orders is sufficient reason to doubt that England could distinguish right from wrong. It would seem that not only is "just following orders" a valid and exonerating excuse for misdeeds, but that following orders is an act that cannot be judged by standards of right and wrong. The argument can be restated: If one intends one's action to follow an order, that action is neither right nor wrong. It is simply order-following.
Her defense argument rests on nearly the same principle. She could distinguish right from wrong - and hence could not excuse her actions by claiming to be criminally insane. However, she may not have been able correctly to distinguish right from wrong because she was following orders.
A general rule in the morality of responsibility is that any person with the rational capacity to distinguish right from wrong bears responsibility for right and wrong action. The excuse of "only following orders" has been rejected on the grounds that an order does not cancel out the responsibility to judge independently whether the order is right or wrong. War crimes prosecution following WWII hinged on this, for instance.
Here, the arguments are working in a new direction. It's not her responsibility to act rightly that's in question. Nor is it her rational capacity in general that's in question. Somehow, it seems, the act of following an order cancels out judgment. The reports coming out of this trial suggest a legal/moral move to excuse her, not from her actions, but from making judgments. It's rather mind-boggling.
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