Imagine two murders. Both are legally unjustified, both premeditated and in cold blood.
- In the first one, the defendant is delusional. He believes that an angel has ordered him to kill the victim, and it’s the right thing to do.
- In the second one, the defendant knows that what he is doing is wrong. He knows that he is making the world a worse place. He killed the victim because he felt like it.
Who are you more mad at? The second guy, right? The law agrees with you—the first guy may be not guilty by reason of insanity (his behavior is excused), but the second guy is going away.
Make those the two ends of a slider. As you move from “entirely delusional” to “entirely clearheaded” is there a point where there’s a qualitative change, or is it a continuum where a killer is more or less wrong? I think it’s the latter. A few points on the continuum might be:
An angel ordered it—the CIA ordered it—nobody ordered it but he’s a danger—he’s not a danger but it’ll make the world a much better place—it’ll make the world a little better place—it won’t make the world any worse—it’ll make the world a worse place but I’m going to do it anyway.
My sense is that the less wrong the defendant, the more worthy of condemnation his behavior, and it’s a continuum.
The urge for retribution is about the feeling that, if we were that person, we would not have done the same thing. Intellectually, it’s fallacious—if we were that person, we would be that person, would have the same genes and same upbringing as him, and we can’t say that we would have done differently.
But the idea that the farther someone transgressed from what we should expect of someone in that position, the greater the punishment should be is not a terrible guide to calibrating retribution. Sometimes retribution is described as “getting even with” the wrongdoer, and there’s no getting even with someone if he just did what an angel ordered him to.
So if—as I believe—the retributive urge is strongest when people deviate farthest from what we expect of someone in their position, then for the same killing the retributive urge should be strongest against the people at the “it’ll make the world a worse place but I’m going to do it anyway” end of the spectrum, and weakest against those at the “an Angel ordered it” end.
My gut tells me that this is how people actually work.
People don’t ultimately choose to be delusional. They become delusional because they are somehow broken, or because someone forces the delusion on them. We might feel frustrated and frightened and sad toward people because they have delusions, but we don’t get mad at them for having delusions (and if we think we do, that anger is probably just frustration and fear and sadness).
Which brings us to Tyler Robinson, and the killing of Charlie Kirk. I have no special information that Tyler did it, but to avoid repeatedly saying “allegedly,” let’s say arguendo that he did.
Nobody ordered Robinson to kill Kirk, but he thought it would make the world a better place. “I had enough of his hatred,'” Robinson reportedly said. “‘Some hate can’t be negotiated out.” Robinson killed Kirk because he thought it would make the world a better place.
I don’t think killing Kirk made the world a better place. It made the world a worse place for Robinson and his family and loved ones, and for Kirk’s family and loved ones. It didn’t silence but amplified the voice of a man whose premise—regardless of his ideas—was “let’s talk about it.”
Even if you think it’ll make the world a better place, that doesn’t justify killing. The law—a thousand years of Western norms—is pretty clear about this. But even if it could justify killing, it was delusional for Robinson to have thought that he was going to make the world a better place.
How do you feel about someone who is so mistaken not only about what effect he expects his actions to have, but also about whether those expected effect justify the actions?
This is not the guy who the angel told to kill. But it also is not the guy who, knowing he was making the world worse, pulled the trigger for the thrill.
Robinson didn’t choose his delusional beliefs. Someone gave him those ideas. I pity him.