Sunday, March 22, 2009

A Touch of Evil

In “To Kill a Mocking Bird”, Atticus Finch tells his children that before you can judge someone you need to walk in that person’s shoes. The book explores this simple idea throughout and provides a great life lesson in the process.

However, when faced with the horrors perpetrated by Josef Fritzl, Atticus’s aphorism feels redundant. In a recent interview, Fritzl’s psychiatrist, Hedi Kastner, touches upon this issue. Kastner believes that although Fritzl is a desperately evil man he should not be de-humanised (after all evil is a uniquely human characteristic), labelling him a monster is dangerous and that a small part of her feels sorry for him - she thinks that he did not choose to have an abusive upbringing and to suffer such a massive disturbance. Despite all this, Kastner makes it clear that by choosing to react to his personal circumstances in the way that he did means that Fritzl must be judged guilty. Though, interestingly and perhaps controversially , she adds “…. but what he is inside, he didn’t choose.”

This last comment implicitly questions the very possibility of free will and the whole notion of criminal responsibility - are any of us able to exhibit any real control over our own psychology and the way we react to any situation? In reality, none of us can help what we are or the choices we make (for good or for bad). Perhaps Atticus Finch misunderstood the issue - that, in any event, the very idea of a moral judgement is non-sensical, however carefully it is constructed.

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