Evil and moral insanity
Monday 9 June 2008 at 10:27 BST
The philosopher AC Grayling is never one to shy away from difficult issues. But I’m not sure what to make of his use of the term “moral insanity” to describe the actions of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who imprisoned and sexually enslaved his daughter for 24 years.
Moral insanity is defined by Grayling as the refusal to act according to important moral dictates that the agent fully understands.
Grayling writes that he is not referring to insanity in the sense of “psychosis or mania”. Fritzl is no madman who can escape the consequences of his actions with a defence based on insanity.
So what does it mean to be “mad”? Grayling refers to psychosis and mania. When we look at people who commit acts of violence in a calculated manner, we tend to describe them as “psychopathic”. It is a broad definition, and one that indicates a high degree of self-control and choice in a psychopathic individual’s actions.
To me it seems that abstract labels such as “moral insanity” are little more than a convenient means of avoiding the culturally-loaded term “evil”. They are a way of side-stepping what we regard as an intractable issue, and do not advance our understanding of people such as Fritzl. Detailed psychiatric reports will hopefully tell us more about this man and what motivated him.
Grayling regards the word evil as insufficient to give us a grip on where a person like Fritzl belongs on the moral scale. It is, he says, a distraction that all too often ends the debate instead of opening it up for further exploration. Indeed it does, but has Grayling done any better with his definition of moral insanity? I’m not convinced that it presents a significant advance.
Stumble it!
Monday 9 June 2008 at 14:02 BST
Dear Francis - I was, as you rightly spot, groping for a way of describing the moral status of Josef Fritzl’s character: a fully functioning ‘otherwise normal’ (indeed an obviously intelligent and calculatingly rational) individual who committed an atrocious, systematic, planned, long-standing act of depravity which it is hard to describe in normal terms. My choice of the term ‘moral insanity’ (where ’sanity’ has the etymological sense of health and cleanliness) was meant to reflect the fact that he is not mad, and certainly does not deserve being let off harsh punishment by pleading insanity, but that his moral sense - respect and concern for others, refusal to treat them merely instrumentally, recognition of their claims, rights and interests - has been deliberately denied and deliberately subverted: this has to be choice, not inability, and to grasp this one has to see it as (as we sometimes say) a ’sick’ moral choice - but a choice notwithstanding - a voluntary thing - sustained by logical endeavour and accompanied by a perfectly good understanding that it is wrong. ‘Moral insanity’ is the old fashioned, once-used term for ‘otherwise normal’ people who refused to observe the prevailing morality (e.g. girls who fell pregnant out of wedlock) - so it was far from a happy term then either. I’d be pleased to see a better term proposed. Thanks for your comments & good wishes - Anthony Grayling
Monday 9 June 2008 at 14:36 BST
Anthony – thanks for responding to this hastily-written reaction to your New Scientist column. I’m pleased that you are now a regular contributor to the magazine.
Your comment here helps me to better understand your choice of language, but still I wonder how useful it is. You refer to the old usage of “moral insanity”, but surely this illustrates how culturally loaded the term is. I don’t share your aversion to the term “evil”, even though like you I’m an atheist, and the word carries so much religious baggage.
In my time I’ve met a few individuals who would fit your definition of the morally insane, and evil is the best word I can find to describe them. Yes, it is an emotional reaction, but this need not end rational discussion of what makes such people tick.
I don’t have a better suggestion to make, so I happily defer to you in your attempt to take this debate forward.
Tuesday 10 June 2008 at 00:29 BST
Blimey, Francis! What hallowed grounds your blog has become!
AC, if I can call you that, if I read you correctly, you were saying that we should shy away from calling Josef Fritzl “evil” because this has become over-used, in which smells can be described as such or the perpetrator of some pointless street brawl. Personally, as someone who does believe in the moral matrix thing which inspired this, I have no problem in using it.
Your response to Francis does go a long way to clarifying matters in my mind as well. However, moral insanity is as open to misinterpretation as evil may be re the religious baggage which you and Francis may see in it. Furthermore, the actions of JF and unmarried mothers of 100 years ago cannot be placed in the same universe.
I can’t offer another term to describe JF, just a comparison. Stalin. For the occasional stories of his visiting the cinema with his daughter, we know of others in which she was terrorized by the web-toed demon, and cannot escape from the hint of the true darkness which gripped his heart.
(Last night I watched the 2001 film The Bunker which dealt also with evil in human form, and who could be redeemed.)
Tuesday 10 June 2008 at 19:17 BST
In related news, Kerstin has regained consciousness.