This post was prompted by a quote from "Real Genius" that appeared on Facebook:
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said... "I drank what?"
Nowadays, there is a school of thought that says that execution is basically state-sanctioned murder. Socrates is said to have died by drinking a solution containing hemlock, and that he did this as punishment for the crime of "corrupting the minds of the youth" of his day.
My question is this: if execution is essentially murder, and Socrates by all accounts willingly committed suicide, did the state execute Socrates?
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4 comments:
That's an interesting question. But I don't see Socrates' death as a suicide. There's a crucial difference, I think, between accepting your fate with a Stoic (or Socratic, since the Stoics obviously weren't around yet!) resolve and choosing to end your life the way a suicidal person does. Even if the outward act appears to be the same, the mindset behind the behavior is different and that, I think, is what counts.
So I guess to answer your question, yes, the state executed Socrates even though he was the one who physically picked up the poison and drank it.
I agree with Vaitandika. The same thing happened in Joseon (and probably earlier). Members of the lower class were executed in a messier fashion, but members of the upper class and royal family were often executed by the administration of poison. This poison was willingly consumed by the victim, as in Socrates' case.
Witness also feudal Japan, where warriors were commanded by the emperor to take their own lives. I think it boils down to a mindset, and the mindset of the individuals in question (Socrates, Joseon nobles, Japanese warriors) was one that revered the authority of the State over the authority of the individual.
It is important to point out, though, that the dilemma is not, as it may seem, do I uphold the existing order and kill myself or do I rebel against the order and save my life? Refusing to commit suicide would only disgrace the individual, and since their death was ordered, it was going to happen anyway--if not by suicide, then by messier, more violent means. So the choice, really, was to die with honor and status or to die without honor and status.
To look at it from the State's point of view, there needs to be some difference between the rulers (or at least the nobility/aristocracy) and the ruled, so ordering a condemned individual to commit suicide is both showing them a small measure of mercy and allowing them, in their final act of obedience, to uphold the State.
At any rate, State-ordered suicide is a special type of execution, a privilege reserved for those who earn by virtue of status or deeds. Socrates may have taken the hemlock willingly, but he was most definitely executed by the State.
Perhaps I'm nitpicking, but I'd call execution "killing" rather than "murder."
Richardson,
I don't think it's nitpicking at all. That's actually what so much of the debate is about: the term "murder" adds an emotional element to the discussion that either should or shouldn't be there, depending on which you side of the debate you fall on.
The people who prefer the more neutral term "killing" believe that execution is simply a proper function of the state, whereas the people who see execution as "murder" are trying to say that execution, being as horrible as any other murder, isn't justified under any circumstances.
So: far from picking nits, you've gone right to the heart of the issue.
We should also note, though, that whether the word "murder" is emotionally charged depends on your definition of it. If murder is simply the act of intentionally killing another human being, then there should be no problem using the term in the context of executions. If, however, murder is the unjustified killing of another human being, then we can see how there might be an emotional issue. From a pacifistic perspective, murder is always unjustified. From a pragmatic perspective, it's not.
Kevin
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