Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Violating Strict Deontological Constraints: Excuse or Pardon?

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Criminal Law and Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Deontologists often assume that ethical constraints hold ‘come what may’ but that violations of the constraints (such as violation of the torture prohibition) can be excused or pardoned. Vinit Haksar has argued for pardon as deontologically appropriate mitigation for the violation of deontological constraints. However, the reasons he adduces against excuse are inconclusive. In this paper, I show how complex the question of excuse versus pardon for deontological transgressions is. Liability for the development of character traits and the assumption of agent-centered responsibility have to be taken into account before the possibility of pardon can be identified as appropriate deontological softener for strict constraints.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See Haksar (2011: 339).

  2. For definitions or characterizations of deontology see Alexander and Moore (2007); Gaus (2001). This paper operates on the basis of a classical, ‘Kant-like’ conception of deontology, however it is also compatible with a threshold deontology (see Alexander and Moore 2007, pt. 4). Threshold deontologies assume that a deontological constraint is valid up to a threshold of consequences, above which consequentialist considerations hold. My argument could be applied to constraints below the threshold if other reasons for excuse or pardon, than the value of consequences, are admitted.

  3. I will understand ‘catastrophic’ in a wide sense, which includes horrible outcomes for just one person. Losing a child because of a crime may thus be catastrophic to the parents.

  4. Being in a genuine moral dilemma implies that an agent is bound to act wrongly whatever he does. Many deontologists, such as Kant, believe that there are no true moral dilemmas. This is a familiar position in the debate on moral dilemmas and I will, without further ado, argue from it.

  5. These judgments are made from a present moral perspective and it should be clear that the mentioned prohibitions did not appear wayward from a Christian moral perspective in Kant’s time. However, I will not discuss the historicity of moral judgments here.

  6. See, e.g., Brecher (2007).

  7. See Kant (1996: 612): “I here prefer not to sharpen this principle to the point of saying: ‘Untruthfulness is a violation of duty to oneself.’ For this belongs to ethics, but what is under discussion here is a duty of right”.

  8. I have pursued the ethical side of Kant’s liar case in Schuessler (2013).

  9. See Haksar (2011).

  10. See Margalit (2010).

  11. I do not think that mere thought experiments make good philosophy in issues of torture, terrorism or war. Ethical reflection should be tested against real cases or close variants, however much these cases must be simplified for philosophical discussion. Brecher (2007) argues convincingly that the time constraints of interrogation almost always preclude a justification of torture in ‘ticking bomb cases’. This is different in the kidnap case which I will discuss, but see also the Vienna siege case below.

  12. The “Gäfgen case” is analyzed in Ennigkeit and Höhn (2011). Brecher (2007: 86) acknowledges that the case is different from the cases he considers as spurious. It may be unrealistic to assume that the police officer would not have been stopped if he began to torture the kidnapper (or is it?), but we can realistically imagine how we would have reacted to the news that the kidnapper had, in fact, been tortured. The case is not presented in more detail here because I am only interested in general philosophical considerations.

  13. For the siege case, see Hummelberger (1983: 25). It may be controversial whether this is a ‘ticking bomb case’ because nothing ticks here. However, I regard cases in which explosives are accumulated over some stretch of time for subsequent explosion as ‘ticking bomb cases’. Under this premise, unfortunately, the objection against ‘ticking bomb cases’ that time will, by definition, be too short to gain information about the location of the bomb through torture (see Brecher 2007: pp. 24) is not valid.

  14. See Baron (2007); Gardner (2007, 2009), Horder (2004); Hurd (1999); Moore (1997); Uniacke (2007); Westen (2006).

  15. The case would not be different even if the police officer had been tortured himself. Some of the worst slaveholders in ancient Rome were freedmen, and Stalin had been in Siberia as a prisoner himself. .

  16. For the lesser-evil defense, see Fletcher (2000: pp. 774); Westen (2006: 299).

  17. Haksar (2011: 339), therefore, argues that some violators of deontological constraints should be pardoned, rather than excused. However, we will see in section “Character” that the hitherto listed standard reasons for an excuse do not exhaust the arsenal of excusing reasons.

  18. See Austin (1979); Baron (2007: 21); Hart (2008), (2004: 8); Westen (2006: 289).

  19. See Fletcher (2000: 799); Horder (2004: 118); Moore (1997); Sher (2006: 11).

  20. For Kant on character, see, e.g., Baxley (2010).

  21. For instance, he allows for deception through simulation (making believe through ambiguous language or signs) in order to avoid serious harm, see Kant (1997: 426).

  22. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_Is_Not_an_Option, accessed November 2, 2013.

  23. For a largely exegetical analysis with respect to Kant’s prohibition of lying, see Schuessler (2013).

  24. See Gardner (2009: 315); Horder (2004: 89); Uniacke (2007).

  25. Note that Kant is here classified as a deontologist to contrast him with consequentialism but not with teleological ethics. Whether Kant’s ethics are teleological is a different question and requires a different understanding of deontology, see Bambauer (2011).

  26. See Kant (1997: 358); Kant (1998: 179).

  27. See Horder (2004: 17).

  28. This reason for clear rules is emphasized in Goldman (2001 pp. 33).

  29. See Schuessler (2003) on the management of moral uncertainty and moral risk-aversion in medieval and early-modern Christian moral theology. For Kant’s requirement of moral risk-aversion, see Kant (1997: 358), (1998: 179).

  30. Note that agent-centeredness does not entail agent-relativity. Agent-relativity is defined via reasons that are only reasons for a particular person. The description of deontological ethics as agent-relative is questionable or even outright wrong (see, Alexander and Moore 2007; Mack 1998).

  31. On forgiveness, see for instance, Griswold (2007); Murphy (2003); Walker (2006); on mercy, Fletcher (2000: 808); on both Murphy/Hampton (1998).

  32. This implication was emphasized by a reviewer.

  33. At this point, an option for a peculiar form of threshold deontology (see Fn 2) arises. .

References

  • Alexander, Larry and Moore, Michael. “Deontological Ethics,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007), E. N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/.

  • Austin, John L. “A plea for excuses,” in J.O. Urmson and G.J. Warnock (eds.), Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 175-204.

  • Bambauer, Christoph. Deontologie und Teleologie in der kantischen Ethik (Freiburg: Alber, 2011).

    Google Scholar 

  • Baron, Marcia. “Excuses, excuses,” Criminal Law and Philosophy 1 (2007), 21-39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baxley, Anne. Kant’s Theory of Virtue. The Value of Autocracy (Cambridge: CUP, 2010).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Brecher, Bob. Torture and the Ticking Bomb (Oxford: OUP, 2007).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ennigkeit, Ortwin and Höhn, Barbara. Um Leben und Tod—wie weit darf man gehen, um das Leben eines Kindes zu retten? (München: Heyne, 2011).

  • Fletcher, George. Rethinking Criminal Law (Oxford: OUP, 2000).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gardner, John. “The Gist of Excuses,” in J. Gardner, Offences and Defences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 121-139.

  • Gardner, John. “The Logic of Excuses and the Rationality of Emotions,”Journal of Value Inquiry 43 (2009), 315-338.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaus, Gerald. “What is Deontology,” Journal of Value Inquiry 35 (2001), 27-42, 179-194.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, Alan. Practical Rules. When We Need Them and When We Don’t (Cambridge: CUP, 2001).

  • Griswold, Charles. Forgiveness. A Philosophical Exploration (Cambridge: CUP, 2007).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Haksar, Vinit. “Necessary Evil: Justification, Excuse, or Pardon?,” Criminal Law and Philosophy 5 (2011), 333-347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hart, H.L.A. “Legal Responsibility and Excuses,” in H.L.A. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility (Oxford: OUP, 2008), 28-53.

  • Horder, Jeremy. Excusing Crime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hummelberger, Walter. Wiens erste Belagerung durch die Türken 1529, Militärhistorische Schriftenreihe, Heft 33 (Wien: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1983).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurd, Heidi. “Justification and Excuse, Wrongdoing and Culpability,” Notre Dame Law Review 74 (1999), 1551-1561.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, Immanuel. “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy,” in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, ed. M. Gregor (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), 611-615.

  • Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Ethics, ed. P. Heath/J. Schneewind (Cambridge: CUP, 1997).

  • Kant, Immanuel. Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, ed. A. Wood/P. Di Giovanni (Cambridge: CUP, 1998).

  • Mack, Eric. “Deontological Restrictions are Not Agent-Relative Restrictions,”Social Philosophy and Policy (1998), 61-83.

  • Margalit, Avishai. On Compromise and Rotten Compromises (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore, Michael. “Choice, Character, and Excuse,” in M. Moore, Placing Blame (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 548-591.

  • Murphy, Jeffrie. Getting Even. Forgiveness and Its Limits (Oxford: OUP, 2003).

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, Jeffrie and Hampton, Jean (eds.). Forgiveness and Mercy (Cambridge: CUP, 1998).

  • Schuessler, Rudolf. Moral im Zweifel, Bd. 1 (Paderborn: mentis, 2003).

  • Schuessler, Rudolf. “Kants ethisches Lügenverbot—der Sonderfall der Lüge aus Furcht,”Philosophisches Jahrbuch 120 (2013), 82-100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sher, George. In Praise of Blame (Oxford: OUP, 2006).

    Google Scholar 

  • Uniacke, Suzanne. “Emotional Excuses,” Law and Philosophy 26 (2007), 95-117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, Margaret. Moral Repair. Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing (Cambridge: CUP, 2006).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Westen, Peter. “An Attitudinal Theory of Excuse,” Law and Philosophy 25 (2006), 289-375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

    Rudolf Schuessler

Authors
  1. Rudolf Schuessler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rudolf Schuessler.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Schuessler, R. Violating Strict Deontological Constraints: Excuse or Pardon?. Criminal Law, Philosophy 9, 587–601 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-013-9278-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-013-9278-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation