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Was Jack the Ripper Evil?

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Was Jack the Ripper Evil?

ciceronianus
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Posted 04/22/09 - 02:50 PM: Subject: Was Jack the Ripper Evil?	#1
After all, as serial killers go, he was relatively restrained. Although his method of killing and mutilating the bodies of his victims seems especially viscious, there are other serial killers who killed far more than he did (Ted Bundy, for example). If he was evil, would we not have to say that Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Charles Manson, for example, were evil as well? If Patricia Cromwell was right, the painter Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper. He is a highly regarded painter; his works are much admired. Surely, his contributions to the world of art would mitigate his savage murders. But that is speculative. We must try to be as factual as possible. Jack the Ripper killed known prostitutes. In doing so, he no doubt spared many from venereal disease. He also spared those women he killed from lives which would in all likelihood have been nasty, brutish, and short. They were all heavy drinkers, it is said, in addition to being prostitues. His humiliation of Scotland Yard, which could never find him, necessarily made that police force more effective, and lead to advances in criminology. Who is to say that it was not his intention to achieve these laudable goals? If such was his intent, how could we call him evil?
"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."--C.S. Peirce "There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it."--Marcus Tullius Cicero "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."--John Dewey

Michael T
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Posted 04/22/09 - 03:31 PM:	#2
After reading your comments in the thread about Hitler I suspect that perhaps your thread is rather tongue-in-cheek 'ciceronianus' Perhaps a more pertinent question would be...'Was Jack the Ripper more evil than Hitler?' given the hands on nature of his crimes. If Jack the Ripper was committing his crimes today and was caught and tried, would a plea of insanity due to the nature of his crimes mean he was not accountable, and thus not evil, just mad. In other words, would it be the act that was evil, not the man?

Incision
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Posted 04/22/09 - 05:40 PM:	#3
I would not want to live in a society were I could be murdered by anyone as long as they were an artist. And though my death would spare the world many bad jokes, a world with no people and no bad jokes is not an improvement. Moreover, some would say the prostitutes had a right not to be murdered. Well, I don't have a punchline, but I suggest that similar reasoning be applied in similar cases.

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Posted 04/23/09 - 01:47 AM:	#4
ciceronianus wrote: Who is to say that it was not his intention to achieve these laudable goals? If such was his intent, how could we call him evil? So, you want to know whether a vigilante justice is ethical. From a utilitarian standpoint, it can be. But consider this: do you actually want the same person to be your judge, your jury, and your executioner? Isn't that an absolute power? To me the ethics lies in the fact the victims, or the vigilantes victims, have at least a moment to speak in their defense. Wouldn't you at least allow them the time to reflect why they deserve to die?

ciceronianus
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Posted 04/23/09 - 06:43 AM:	#5
Michael T wrote: After reading your comments in the thread about Hitler I suspect that perhaps your thread is rather tongue-in-cheek 'ciceronianus' Perhaps a more pertinent question would be...'Was Jack the Ripper more evil than Hitler?' given the hands on nature of his crimes. If Jack the Ripper was committing his crimes today and was caught and tried, would a plea of insanity due to the nature of his crimes mean he was not accountable, and thus not evil, just mad. In other words, would it be the act that was evil, not the man? Yes, I'm afraid you're right. But, I don't think we should draw too great a distinction between "evil acts" and "evil people." That distinction is, I think, primarily a legal one; and there are varieties and degrees of madness. A person who truly does not know he is eviscerating someone is less culpable than one who does so because he enjoys it due to some ill-treatment he received has a child, for example. If a person always engages in "evil acts" due to some form of insanity is it appropriate to say he is not evil? Would it not be more appropriate to say he is insane, or is evil because he is insane?
"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."--C.S. Peirce "There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it."--Marcus Tullius Cicero "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."--John Dewey

TheThoughtfulOne
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Posted 05/05/09 - 11:52 AM:	#6
He killed innocent people that harmed no one. As for your argument with sparing people from VD, its not like those women want to give and receive diseases. Also, no one forced anyone to visit those "working girls". Jack the Ripper was a crazy person, probably with a warped religious and moral cause for his crimes.
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Kamerynn
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Posted 05/05/09 - 12:03 PM:	#7
ciceronianus wrote: If a person always engages in "evil acts" due to some form of insanity is it appropriate to say he is not evil? Would it not be more appropriate to say he is insane, or is evil because he is insane? I'd go further and say that all people who participate in such evil are insane, and evil because they're insane, and simply identify different forms of insanity. One who does not know that he is eviscerating someone has extreme mental problems that are quite different from the extreme mental problems of someone who knows what he's doing and enjoys it. While these people need different kinds of help, they all need to be both helped and removed from society. Is there any reason for one to be treated more harshly than another?
When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. -- R. Buckminster Fuller

ciceronianus
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Posted 05/05/09 - 02:24 PM:	#8
Kamerynn wrote: I'd go further and say that all people who participate in such evil are insane, and evil because they're insane, and simply identify different forms of insanity. One who does not know that he is eviscerating someone has extreme mental problems that are quite different from the extreme mental problems of someone who knows what he's doing and enjoys it. While these people need different kinds of help, they all need to be both helped and removed from society. Is there any reason for one to be treated more harshly than another? An interesting question. I think there is a difference between someone who eviscerates a person without knowing it, and one who does so, knowing it, and enjoying it. One who causes pain simply because he enjoys it is, I think, more culpable than one who causes pain without knowing what he is doing. The former has made a choice to harm someone, merely because it gives him pleasure to do so. That is an act which I would say is deserving of punishment. The latter acts in such a fashion unknowingly. We do not punish in those circumstances--unless isolation and treatment can be said to be punishment. So I would maintain that an element of punishment would not be improper in the one case, although I have no problem with the one who kills/injures for pleasure receiving some kind of "help" as well. [I hope we can agree, at least for purposes of this discussion, that one should not harm another merely because one finds it enjoyable.]
"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."--C.S. Peirce "There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it."--Marcus Tullius Cicero "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."--John Dewey

Kamerynn
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Posted 05/07/09 - 08:30 AM:	#9
ciceronianus wrote: An interesting question. I think there is a difference between someone who eviscerates a person without knowing it, and one who does so, knowing it, and enjoying it. One who causes pain simply because he enjoys it is, I think, more culpable than one who causes pain without knowing what he is doing. The former has made a choice to harm someone, merely because it gives him pleasure to do so. That is an act which I would say is deserving of punishment. The latter acts in such a fashion unknowingly. We do not punish in those circumstances--unless isolation and treatment can be said to be punishment. Just to play the devil's advocate for a bit: I agree that knowledge entails culpability (in such circumstances). However, if we are to agree that both are insane, it is because the former person (referred to as "person 1" or "#1" herein) is missing information as well. He likely does not empathize with his victims or truly grasp what 20 years in jail means. Perhaps even 20 years in jail does not actually mean what it should to him. While the latter person, "person 2," is missing knowledge of what it is to eviscerate someone, #1 is missing knowledge on why that is wrong; an inability to empathize (sociopathy, to some degree) has prevented him from gaining this insight, at least on a profound enough level. ciceronianus wrote: So I would maintain that an element of punishment would not be improper in the one case... That depends on the purpose of punishment, I suppose. If negative conditioning is going to have a positive effect - preventing a re-occurrence or making it less likely - then perhaps there is no problem with some punishment. However, that line of reasoning works just as well for both #1 and #2. Is the preference of punishing #1 and not #2 based on an idea of justice as vengeance? ciceronianus wrote: ...I have no problem with the one who kills/injures for pleasure receiving some kind of "help" as well. Well, at least that doesn't stand in the way of trying to convince you that both are insane and need only help (for the mental gymnastics, really; I'm just having fun, here). ciceronianus wrote: [I hope we can agree, at least for purposes of this discussion, that one should not harm another merely because one finds it enjoyable.] Absolutely! Edited by Kamerynn on 05/07/09 - 02:04 PM
When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. -- R. Buckminster Fuller

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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/07/09 - 09:35 AM:	#10
Aren't conversations such as these (evil vs. insane) hung up on the old question of whether a person who knows the good is incapable of acting in a manner contrary to the good? That is to say, if we accept that knowledge of the good is a sufficient condition to act in line with the good, that a person who is acting poorly is either a) ignorant or b) crazy. It seems that if we accept that a person is an egoist and that self interest is always inline with the good, that we are left unable to evaluate anyone as evil. If we always look to why someone did something for justification, it seems as if the worst we can say about them is that they are misguided and wrong, but certainly not evil. (The path to hell is paved with good intentions.) Although you throw in a utilitarian twist for amusement, the fundamental question is never really fully addressed: are humans capable of volitionally being evil? I am of the opinion that to know what is good is to have the power both to promote it or destroy it. As to an individual, acting to destroy value/meaning is evil whereas acting to create value/meaning is good. I do believe that people can believe something to be wrong and do it anyway. Evil exists. As to any particular individual, you can never know their minds. Perhaps we are relegated to being able to judge an action as good or bad, but never able to judge the individual because we cannot know whether they intended to do something they believed to be wrong. I think a pragmatic use of the word "evil" is, therefore, in order. I recommend that we call anyone "evil" that volitionally acts in a way contrary to public conceptions of good or order. One of the definitions of insanity involves a person having an irresistible urge to do something criminal, thereby not being considered volitional. Another definition involves a person who does not understand the nature of his conduct, and so the acts/consequences themselves are not volitional. In other words, where we find compelling reason to doubt volition, we prefer insanity to evil. Where a person appears to be volitional, we should dispense with the niceties of diagnosis and pretending as if man is machine so that evil does not exist, rather we should call them "evil" and be done with it. If our concern is with unfairly damning people to hell, then the creator of heaven, hell, and man will figure out whether a man was "evil" for purposes of ultimate judgment. We need not trouble ourselves with guilt over the decision. (An aside. Why are secularists always so concerned with moral judgments? We don't have the admonition "judge not less ye be judged thyself," so who cares if we call someone "evil" when they are really just misguided?)
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