Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Moral Quandry for Real

Unlike trolleyology, wherein credentialed philosophers present moral quandry scenarios which, though not impossible, are improbable, Karen DeCoster, in a post titled Can You Shoot a 12-Year-Old?, presents a moral quandry based in reality.

The reality took place in Detroit, and was blogged about at Time’s The Detroit Blog in a post titled How Do You Shoot A 12-Year-Old?  Karen condenses the moral quandry, based on this news story, as follows.

The author of this interesting Time piece muses on the thought of killing a “child” who threatens to kill you by showing that he, at 5′ 10″ (hardly childlike), is carrying a gun and means business. Two kids – maybe eleven, maybe twelve, who knows – decided to carjack a woman and her mother in their driveway at the point of a gun, in Harper Woods, Michigan, a suburb of Wayne County that borders Detroit. The author notes that a friend of his remarked, in response, “The first thing I thought is, I would’ve shot ‘em.”

I, also, thought to myself I would’ve shot ‘em, regardless of their “little boy” appearances, which is how the perps were described within the news story, and blog post referencing the story.

This is not to say that I would not have felt some compunction over taking a life, especially such a young life, but the fact of the matter is that only individuals living in a fantasy world can consider 12 year olds as “little boys,” or little girls for that matter, with no grasp of consequences for their actions.

Though thirty-eight years have passed by since I was 12 years old, at that age I was not considered a “little boy” by my parents, nor did I consider myself a little boy at the age of 12.  Though I lacked the maturity at the age of 12 that I now have, at the age of 12 I, like most 12 year olds, had a mind of my own and I used it, sometimes to my detriment.

Society, with the full encouragement of the State, may consider 12 year olds as little, but they are not.  12 year olds are simply immature, young adults who in many cases are lacking real world lessons in consequences for their actions in result of excessive coddling.

UPDATE:  I see that Billy Beck beat me to Karen’s post.  Go and read Billy’s thoughts.  His post is titled No Problem.

Posted by John Venlet on 10/13 at 12:14 PM
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