Beldaran wrote:[enter godwin]In Nazi germany, it was illegal to help a Jewish person avoid extermination, yet many people did. They ignored the laws of another country because they were unethical. If you feel that all nations' law should be respected to the letter, regardless of their ethical consequences, then you are the moral equivalent of someone who turns Jews over to the Nazi's.
See there's a problem with this analogy and I'm too lazy to go look up the specific term for the problem. You could have avoided the invocation of Godwin's Law by using an analogy to the Underground Railroad, where people illegally helped slaves escape the South, so you may want to keep that in mind if you ever need the analogy again.
In your analogy, people break the law to help save a race of people from percecution and death. Let's analyze this by the same methods I analyzed the bounty hunter's:
Utilitarians and consequentialists would agree that the net result of breaking the "kill jews" law produced more good than bad. Countless lives were saved, and if there were some unit of happiness (my teacher loved using the term "hedons"😉 it would be argued that the net result of the action is positive. Based on this, it could be ruled that the law is unethical, not the action.
Kantian analysis would agree as well. The first categorical imperative would ask if the universal rule "It is always right to save a person from persecution." seems to present no problems as a universal maxim. One would be hard-pressed to find a counter-example. The second categorical imperative considers whether any party of the action is being used as a means to an end, but in this case all parties are working for a mutual cause (on the technicality that the Nazis wanted the Jews out of Germany and these people were furthering that cause without violence).
So I feel that in this case (and similarly, the underground railroad in the United States) the law is unethical and the action of saving the individual is morally correct.
I originally pointed out that a utilitarian analysis of Dog's behavior would hold him ethically correct. However I prefer a Kantian analysis because there it is possible to derive feasible instances where utilitarianism supports acts of evil (and I can provide these instances upon request but have omitted them for brevity in an otherwise essay-length post). Dog's actions fail the first categorical imperative because one cannot logically agree that it is always right to break the law. Kantianism does not consider the results of an action but the intentions of the agent and the rules that support the action.
Once again I will state that what Dog did had good results, but he knowingly and willingly broke the law to do so. I think it is a shame that a noble act can result in criminal punishment, but I believe there is no way to logically support the stance that Mexico has no right to prosecute him.
To address the inappropriate analogy on the same terms, I believe that people who helped Jews escape Nazi extermination were acting correctly. However, I do not believe the moral consequences of the act place the German government in a position where they cannot enforce their own laws.
Understand that ethics and morality are not the same. Morality is whether something is right or wrong, ethics is the study of why it is right or wrong. The fact is that in Germany during WWII the law in question was considered morally right, and the ethical motivations behind it were the arguments put forth by the Nazi party. The only reason we believe these views are wrong are our beliefs in individual rights. To date, I'm unaware of a single moral compass that is acknowledged by all cultures, so it is impossible to take a stance other than cultural relativism when we consider the actions of another culture.
Cases like these are why I find the study of ethics to be nonsense, but nonetheless I have been forced to study ethics a good bit recently. Most theories of ethics polarize issues (Kantianism is particularly vulnerable to this argument) and cases such as these provide difficult analysis.
To shift gears I'll discuss why I think Mexico has the right to prosecute, aside from my analysis of the ethics of their action. Obviously, both Mexico and the United States agree that for a citizen to be authorized to enforce the law, the citizen must have some certification. This certification exists so that citizens cannot practice vigilante justice, which can often endanger the public or interrupt police actions by spooking the suspect away. Dog was not certified to act in this role outside of the United States, but he did it anyway. He broke the law in Mexico. He is being charged with breaking the law in Mexico. Whether he brought the criminal to justice or not is irrelevant because he practiced vigilante justice.
I do think it is a shame that he's going to jail, but the law is the law. Perhaps there should be some kind of bounty hunter certification for all North American countries considering the high number of people who flee to Mexico. There is likely a process to either become deputized in Mexico or extradite a known criminal who is fleeing prosecution, instead Dog decided to ignore the law and in so doing made himself a criminal. (Note he fled to the United States in an attempt to avoid prosecution.
Ideally, I feel what should be done is the United States should vouch for Dog's actions and either insist on a reduced punishment or the stipulation that Dog serves time in an American prison. Some form of punishment is due, but after this controversy I'm pretty sure the punishment will be disproportionate to the crime.
These bullet points are all I'm trying to say:
- What Dog did brought a dangerous criminal to justice, a good act.
- What Dog did broke the law.
- People who break the law are criminals.
- Criminals deserve to be punished according to their crimes.
- Dog Deserves to be punished for his good act.
I am fairly certain there is no way to refute these arguments and their conclusion. I am also certain that the conclusion should be considered absurd to most people. This is why we study ethics and morality; sometimes it is difficult to tell whether something is good or bad and sometimes good actions are punished.
Also I put forth this as fact:
- I feel really stupid referring to a man as "Dog".
There's probably a page more I can write but I'm going to bed now. Perhaps I'll remember the stuff I'm thinking tomorrow.
Actually I wish I had seen this sooner:
Anyway, Mexico probably wants him just because they hate Americans and want to make an example out of some cowboy bad ass personality type.
Because it's pretty much true, though you have spun it to fit your case. Mexico wants to show that if you do not follow their legal process you will be prosecuted, and what better example than a man who broke the law?