Terrorist or Banker?

HOW DO WE JUDGE?

On what basis can you determine if someone is acting in a 'good' or a 'bad' way? Is it through their actions, or the motivations of those actions, or the resulting consequences? In legal judgements all three get taken into account, but usually the greatest emphasis is placed on the consequences, above the other two. This is especially the case involving crimes against the person. If you hit someone and they fall over you can be charged with assault. But if the same action results in them hitting their head on a sharp object and dying, the charge becomes manslaughter. And if there were any way to prove that the motivation for the action had an underlying intent to kill then the charge would be upgraded to murder.

But, away from the strictures of the law, how do we judge someone, according to our own personal morality and ethics? Does motivation play a greater role in determining our views?

These thoughts have been prompted by the novel I'm currently reading, A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks. Set in the week preceding Xmas 2007, it follows the lives of various characters who are all loosely connected in different ways. One of these, Hassan, is a young muslim man who has been radicalised and is now involved in a plot to carry out bombings in London. Another, John, is a hedge fund manager who has become extremely wealthy by exploiting loopholes in financial regulations.

Let's be clear, neither is a likeable character, and as the reader I find myself wanting to see each of them suffer some form on downfall as the plot reveals itself. As I write this I have only read the first quarter of the book, so there are plenty of revelations still to come. But what has already surprised me is the difference in my reactions to those two characters.

For John I have nothing but contempt and distaste. He is amoral, selfish, greedy, driven by nothing except his own advancement. Ethics are things for other people, less 'successful' people, in his world. On the page he comes across as a character without a single redeeming quality, and someone who has done a lot of damage to many lives.

But for Hassan I feel a great deal of sympathy. Given that he is involved in plans which may result in the deaths of innocent people this feels like a curious inversion of morality, and I had to ask myself why I should feel this way. On the face of it you would think Hassan the less deserving of any fellow feeling, given the possible consequences of his actions.

The answer lies in motivation. Hassan is performing his actions in the belief that they will help bring about a better world. He is utterly misguided of course, but also sincere. There is a sense of a decent human being lurking within, someone who, if removed from the pernicious influence of his mentor, could be persuaded, through reason, so see his mistakes for what they are. It would take much work, for has been very effectively brainwashed, and faith in religion can be hard to overcome, but the potential is there within him.

I see no such hope for John. He is not only convinced that he is right, he wouldn't care if his wrongs were pointed out to him. If they get him what he wants then they are not wrong, not in his eyes. John is the archetype of the legacy bequeathed by Thatcherism, the 'greed is good' mantra and the reckless profiteering that crashed the economy in 2008, and with it ruined, or at least made a lot worse, the lives of so many people who played no part in bringing about the problem

Of course Faulks is a fine writer and he knows exactly what he's doing in manipulating the emotions of the reader. This is fiction, not real life. In reality we react more strongly towards physical violence than to crimes (and here I use the word outside it's strictly legal sense) which enrich the few at the expense of the many. It's part of our genetic and sociological makeup to abhor brutality. Financial crime is often too abstruse to evoke genuine anger. It's the skill of the novelist to make us go against our natural instincts, to react in ways we didn't expect and thus challenge our own beliefs. And to recognise that motivation is often the best determinant of the real worth of a person.