plot and themes
Oct. 11th, 2022 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliThe details of the plot determine the finer details of the theme.
For instance, justice, and the defensibility of vigilantism. Let a character, filled with fury over a grave crime, hunt down the wrong man to kill him, and that make a powerful argument against vigilantism even if he learns in time and then arrests the actual criminal, having learned his lesson.
But a pragmatic one.
A vigilante who hunts down only the guilty has a much stronger case, particularly if he can point to miscarriages of justice in the legal system. One would have to argue about the effect on society, the bad example for people who may not be so high-minded, the danger of excessive punishment. . . .
If one were so minded, one could argue that the state alone has authority to punish. That turns on the state having received its authority directly from God or equivalent. That is a particular metaphysics I can not accept myself and which is unpopular nowadays; even those who argue that the law is the law are not doing so from deep philosophical conviction (especially given that they generally if not always drop it like a hot potato as soon as it's a law they don't like). Where the state's authority is derivative of the society's right to protect itself from vigilantes who attack the innocent or punish excessively, there are only pragmatic arguments against vigilantism.
It's just that there are very powerful pragmatic arguments against it.
For instance, justice, and the defensibility of vigilantism. Let a character, filled with fury over a grave crime, hunt down the wrong man to kill him, and that make a powerful argument against vigilantism even if he learns in time and then arrests the actual criminal, having learned his lesson.
But a pragmatic one.
A vigilante who hunts down only the guilty has a much stronger case, particularly if he can point to miscarriages of justice in the legal system. One would have to argue about the effect on society, the bad example for people who may not be so high-minded, the danger of excessive punishment. . . .
If one were so minded, one could argue that the state alone has authority to punish. That turns on the state having received its authority directly from God or equivalent. That is a particular metaphysics I can not accept myself and which is unpopular nowadays; even those who argue that the law is the law are not doing so from deep philosophical conviction (especially given that they generally if not always drop it like a hot potato as soon as it's a law they don't like). Where the state's authority is derivative of the society's right to protect itself from vigilantes who attack the innocent or punish excessively, there are only pragmatic arguments against vigilantism.
It's just that there are very powerful pragmatic arguments against it.