When Vengeance and Compassion Collide

Dying from prostate cancer is not a bad way to die compared to being killed by a terrible explosion in an airliner. It is not a question of whether or not his death or imprisonment would bring back the victims or comfort the families whose lives have been forever changed, it is a question of whether or not justice has been served by his release for humanitarian reasons. I personally do not believe that this was appropriate action.

Thank you for a reasoned and feeling post. I am only sorry that so many Americans are stuck in an endless cycle of violence that only begets more violence. Perhaps the day will come when we will be able to learn from Scotland's and Kenny MacAskill's act of mercy.

I applaud the release of the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds. Watching him rot in jail and suffering a very painful death would not have brought his victims back. Just as the continuation in the United States of the death penalty will not bring back the victims of other horrible murders. Parenthetically, I seriously doubt that executions serve as a deterrent to future crimes. This is certainly true of crimes of passion and political extremism.

Man is a rather irrational animal but I do not believe that the need for vengeance is built into our genome. I am not sure the relatives and friends of the victims want revenge as much as they want attention paid to the pain and suffering they have endured. Our common humanity demands our compassion, not only for the murderer, but for those left behind because of his dastardly act.

My sense is that the release of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi while merited could have been handled with much more sensitivity to the feelings of all concerned. That the release might have been a play for Libyan oil on the part of the UK must make the entire affair even more painful to the victims' families.

The ethic of reciprocity tells us to treat our neighbors as we would wish to be treated. Hillel, the great Jewish scholar is supposed to have said, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn”.
Corrections

As a Secular Humanist I do not need to be told by a higher power to strive for compassion. Nor do I believe that those followers of traditional religions need to be told. I like to believe that unlike vengeance the drive toward the ethic of reciprocity is buried deep within all of us.

I applaud the release of the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds. Watching him rot in jail and suffering a very painful death would not have brought his victims back. Just as the continuation in the United States of the barbaric use of the death penalty will not bring back the victims the victims of other horrible murders. Parenthetically, I seriously doubt that executions serve as a deterrent to future crimes. This is certainly true of crimes of passion and political extremism.

Man is a rather irrational animal but I do not believe that the need for vengence is built into our genome.I am not sure the relatives and friends of the victims want revenge as much as they want attention paid to the pain and suffering they have endured. Our common humanity demands our compassion, not only for the murderer, but for those left behind because of his dastardly act.

My sense is that the release of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi while merited could have been handled with much more sensitivity to the feelings of all concerned. That the release might have been a play for Libyan oil on the part of the UK must make the entire affair even more painful to the victims' families.

The ethic of reciprocity tells us to treat our neighbors as we would wish to be treated. Hillel, the great Jewish scholar is supposed to have said, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn”.

As a Secular Humanist I do not need to be told by a higher power to strive for compassion. Nor do I believe that those followers of traditional religions need to be told. I like to believe that unlike vengance the drive toward the ethic of reciprocity is buried deep within all of us.

The fact is, prostate cancer is not such a bad way for a terrorist to die, all things considered - and in the comfort of your own home.....a lot of us guys (both famous and obscure) suffer the same fate.... without all the fireworks and the herioc welcome home.

Whether all the flag-waving was for taking the fall for Gaddafi and company, or whether our terminal terrorist was a crucial part of this murderous plot will apparently remain forever unknown. He will always remain the lone symbol for this particularly cowardly act of murder.

Nevertheless, Gadaffi's government turned this sole perpetrator over to Scotland for trial, knowing they didn't have the death penalty. And there's no absolute guarantee that he would have been executed had he stood trial in the USA - he would not have been granted an early release, that much is for certain.

And I guarantee you Ted Kennedy would not have advocated the early release of this convicted mass murderer for 'compassionate reasons'. Frankly, he was far to politically astute to even suggest such a thing.

The USA has a lot to answer for on the world stage regarding it's own acts of unjustified wars on sovereign nations.

Nevertheless, I must disagree with Herb on this one - this sent the wrong message to terrorists in general. While the world is probably already leary of Libya (even though they paid out billions in victim reparations to the Lockerbie family survivors) terrorists themselves are already quite comfortable dealing with Libya, and will not take this as a warning - but may instead be encouraged by what they will no doubt perceive as an act of total pacifism rather than mercy.

There's a time and place for mercy - but this was not one of them. As Susan Jacoby pointed out, he had already been spared the death penalty - and that was quite a gift in itself.

Silverman's post proves that, once again, the atheist is willing to go against the grain to stand up for what is right.

I wonder if the families of the victims would really be so distressed at this man's release if the media weren't telling them that they must be.

Thank God (irony intended) that there are principled people like Herb Silverman -- people who have the guts to say what needs saying and the skills to do it eloquently. (A recently deceased senator from Massachusetts comes to mind as another example.)

I hope with every fiber of my being that the U.S. will soon join with the civilized societies of the world which have rejected capital punishment as an egregious human error.

Thank you, Prof. Silverman, for your depth and humanity.

As usual, Herb speaks clearly with reason and ethics strongly grounded in humanistic principles. In today's climate of angry discource, he may run the risk of being thought 'crazy' because he is so sane and consistent. Thanks for being a clear and cool voice among all the heat and static.

Without a doubt, this terrorist should have expired behind bars. Mercy for the dieing does not include freeing a mass murderer with a terminal illness - and who showed no mercy for the hundreds of innocents that he (and unidentified others) sent to their fear-filled deaths as the result of a terrorist act.

This was an incredible travesty of justice for all the obvious reasons, as recounted in Susan's essay.

One wonders if Scotland would have freed the recent mass murderer of Dublane under similar circumstances, the psychopath that killed 16 school children and a teacher, before killing himself. Perhaps that would have been a wee bit close to home, for such a profound demonstration of the same mercy to pass muster in Edinborough.

I'm ambivilant as regards capital punishment, but observe that the potential for executing the innocent is a monumental complication. Convicted serial killers and mass murderers, for example, are not worthy of an extended life span.

When unrepentent murderers live long lives behind bars, I'm not sure that justice is served.....on the other hand, I'm not moving to Texas anytime soon.

Still, mass murderers do not deserve mercy - they have forfeited that right among the living. The innocent may believe that this is their responsibility for the good of their individual souls and society - but I must disagree.

We all die, but murderers should never die in comfort. It's very hard not to take wanton murder personally - it's simple human nature, and a quality of empathy that most murderers lack.

Thank you for highlighting the fact that over half of the countries in the world prohibit capital punishment. The United States should not be considered a civilized nation as long as we have lethal injection and the electric chair. How can we, as a nation, make the moral claim that killing is wrong when we practice it at home?

The difference in reaction to the release of the Lockerbie bomber was starkly different on different sides of the Atlantic. The reaction in Scotland -- even in Lockerbie, where several townspeople died -- was much more accepting and compassionate. In this country, of course, there were howls of outrage and plenty of meat for demagogues. Even our president got in on the act.

I think it says something regrettable about our national character that we are so unwilling to show mercy, even to a terminally ill man. As Dr. Silverman points out, we are also the only industrial democracy that practices capital punishment. And we are the most religious society among Western democracies. Could that be a coincidence?

Herb Silverman is the only panelist here who finds the release of the Lockerbie bomber to be acceptable. Fellow atheist Susan Jacoby approves of mercy for dying prisoners, but says not being executed was mercy enough. (This position confuses me, since Jacoby is adamently against capital punishment. From her standpoint it would be the prisoner's good fortune, not mercy from his fellow humans, to be convicted in a country that agrees with her.) Only Anglican Bishop Nicholas T. Wright stands out among the religious bloggers by not condemning the release, and only because he hasn't yet decided his position.

Personally I am very ambivalent about Scotland's decision; I probably lean toward the idea that mercy could have been accomplished without release, by providing hospice-like care and allowing more family visits as the end drew near. At the same time I find it interesting that the vast majority of the religious bloggers here settle the conflict between justice and mercy on the side of justice. It reminds me of a recent Pew Forum survey evidencing that religious people are more likely than secular individuals to approve of torture. I don't mean to imply that imprisonment and torture are equivalent moral questions, but it's hard to avoid the conclusion that religion's emphasis on punishment is stronger than its proscription for compassion.

Society generally views religion as the ultimate agent of benevolence and kindness, not primarily a vehicle of judgment and punishment. Atheists view religion in many ways but, for us, in the end it all boils down to the lack of evidence for a supernatural realm, not "niceness," the ability to forgive, or moral views. Whoever did bomb the Lockerbie jet (and there does seem to be question on that score) ... what if they had acted on evidence instead of dogma? Would killing have made any sense at all?

I completely agree with Professor Silverman's view on this issue. To those who believe in capital punishment I would ask "Are you willing to be the person to flip the switch on the electric chair or inject the lethal drug?" It is sometimes easy in the abstract to argue that a ruthless killer be put to death, but this simple thought experiment is sufficient to show that we become murderers ourselves when our society chooses to kill.