the Ambiguity of Conscience and the Need for Preventive Justice

From almost the day a person is born, s/he goes through a relentless regimen of moral education that that gives her/him a set of guidelines on what is supposed to be the correct behaviors of a person that is integrated into the mainstream society as a law-abiding citizen.  While some of the teaching do lead to a certain degree of rebelliousness where indoctrination actually lead to unintended contradictory effects, the vast majority of people do seem to accept the most obvious of the guidelines (such as that murdering or theft are criminal and rightly punishable) without hesitance.

Yet, even as something as basic as opposition to theft and murder becomes part of our collective conscience that set the fundamental basis of what we call societal stability and peace, those what-we-call "normative institutions" still ought to be periodically revisited, reexamined, and revised to see if they can stand up to every possible situation, so that, ultimately, they can be deemed as permanently justifiable yet flexible enough to uphold their moral and social authorities regardless of what are the contexts in which they protect and punish.

The author has always had his doubts and the doubts are comprehensible from certain situations that are so extraordinary that uses of the norm in question no longer lies within the imagination of normal people living normal lives.  In another of his recently expanding series of movie reviews, the author wishes to examine just when our sympathies with individual characters collide with our blind acceptance of societal norms.  Today's subject is "Captain Philips," a story of a merchant marine captain's confrontation of Somali pirates determined to get his ransom for survival.

The story line itself seems all too typical.  Pirates in little boats climb on-board a massive container ship off the coast of Somalia after failed attempts by the ship crew to outmaneuver.  Pirates search for hostage, fails, holds the captain in hostage, and make a dash for the coast.  US Navy ship shows up, rescues the captain and kills/captures the pirates.  But despite the seemingly straightforward story pitting the "bad guys" (Somali pirates) vs the "good guys" (the Americans on the merchant ship and the navy), there was a clear nuance to the contrary.

Instead of appearing as caring protectors, the navy instead appeared as unsympathetic personnel simply carrying out a mission.  While feigning negotiation, set up snipers that ultimately picks off the pirates with clean head shots.  On the other hand, the audience gets clear backgrounds of the Somalis.  They are portrayed as forced into the profession after their traditional means of livelihood, fishing, was made impossible after over-fishing by modern foreign trawlers.  Even as they are surrounded by the US navy, they felt that they had to continue, as they were no other way to survive.

The economics behind the emergence of Somali piracy should send a strong message to the audience to re-examine whether the criminals in appearance, in this case, the Somali pirates, are really the criminals.  After all, if foreigners had not taken advantage of the collapse of Somali government and the resulting lack of patrols in Somali territorial waters to over-fish the waters, would the abundance of piracy be a problem to begin with?  Would, then, the US military need to come after four men in a dinghy, spending millions just to free one citizen?

The fact that we are all too short-sighted in our application of the very principle of justice (i.e. he who committed the crime shall be punished) serves not to resolve the fundamental underlying reason for the crime but to exacerbate it.  The US navy is simply executing a band-aid solution to the problem.  Killing Somali pirates, no matter how quickly or efficiently, will not stop piracy.  Instead, alternative means of survival for the young men that make up the pirate forces must be found so that they can no longer be vulnerable enough to be compelled to put themselves in front of navy guns.

Out sense of right, then, needs to be a bit more farsighted.  What is right is not to punish those who has done something wrong, but to help create an environment where they will not have the incentive to go do something wrong.  The Somali pirates, and most criminals in the world who commit crimes, understand, as well as each of us indoctrinated with those norms, that we they are doing are wrong.  Yet, if society cannot help them live lives of right with concrete resources, then they have no choice but to ignore their own conscience and risk their own lives.