It’s not yet clear what particular beef he had with the American health care system, but clearly discontent with it is widespread enough in America that some Americans – not many but some – are hailing Luigi Mangione as a hero rather than a villain. Why? Presumably because they’re hoping his actions have put private health care executives on notice.
Of course the forces of law and order are feigning outrage at such celebratory behaviour because, well, they pretty much have to. But for those of us north of the 49th, and so with less skin in this particular game, this episode in vigilantism, even if it turns out that’s not what it is, raises a very interesting question. Is the man – or woman, though it’s usually a man – who, at the cost of his own life or liberty, strikes a blow against what he, and many others, regard as injustice, rightly regarded as a hero? Not, we’re inclined to say, if there are peaceful means by which to address that injustice. But as often as not those means are unavailable. Or if available unreliable. Or if reliable not timely enough to be of any use.
Off hand, I can’t think of any cause worth sacrificing my own life or liberty for. Not because I’m a coward – though I am – but because I have only one life to live, and I shudder at the thought of having squandered it on what might prove to have been a simple metaphysical mistake. That is, what if, as a pro-Lifer, I go down in a hail of bullets while assaulting an abortion clinic, only to be disabused of my conviction that the foetus is ensouled at conception by no less an authority at the Pearly Gates than God Himself. But for people who, not being philosophers, do have the courage of their convictions, I have nothing but respect. So if Mangione genuinely thought he was doing the right thing, then all I can say is, “Good on him!”
But hang on. Torquemada, and millions of zealots like him, genuinely thought they were doing the right thing. “Good on them!” too? So no, the content of the conviction has got to matter. In fact it’s just a duh to say one can’t be a moral agent without a commitment to moral content. So we’re back to whether Mangione did or did not have a legitimate but otherwise irremediable complaint.
Are there such complaints? That is, that are both legitimate and otherwise irremediable? Clearly there are. And just as clearly we each have to decide which they are, such that even if we’e disinclined to act on them ourselves, we ought to honour those who take it upon to do so on our behalf. Mangione’s cause, whatever it may be, would probably leave me indifferent. But I’m guessing that that of Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš would not.
Categories: Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Social and Political Philosophy
Paulosophical Vimplications 
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