Is Killing Wrong?: A Study in Pure Sociology

1. The Morality of Homicide

“Thou shalt not kill.” no moral principle is more basic, widely understood , or universally accepted. Everybody knows from a young age that human life is sacred, and to take it willfully is the most wicked thing a human being can do. The principle is articulated in homes, schools, churches, and courtrooms, repeated by spiritual and temporal leaders, and reinforced by the dramas of good and evil, factual as well as fictional, that entertain and enthrall us. not every culture phrases the prohibition as we do, and not every culture may make it their number one taboo, but the proscription of killing appears to be universal across human groups (see, e.g., Linton 1952; Hoebel 1954: 286; D. Brown 1991). Without it, how would societies survive? True, there are exceptions, such as killing in self-defense and during wartime. But precisely because self-defense and war are special cases, they do not undermine the general principle. killing within a society (the focus of the present book) is wrong, pure and simple, and any deviations have to be sternly justified (see, e.g., Devine 1978; McMahan 2002: chap. 3). and because it is wrong, homicide must be punished consistently and evenly.1 The rich are not to be favored over the poor, the more educated over the less educated, the native born over the newly arrived . Those who take human life are to be sanctioned, one and all, even-handedly. This high-minded principle has only one enemy: reality. MORAL REALITY Look not at what people say or think, but at what they do—adopt a sociological rather than a philosophical perspective—and the most striking feature of human killing is the sheer variability of responses it evokes. While one homicide triggers the utmost severity, a second 1 THE MORALITY OF HOMICIDE 2 Is Killing Wrong? elicits no sanctions at all. Whatever the moral principles or legal rules state, the penalties and punishments actually inflicted upon those who kill differ widely in severity and type across time and place. Indeed, so variable is the handling of homicide that, far from being evil, certain killings are treated as the epitome of virtue, their perpetrators enjoying not just public approval but social acclaim (see kooistra 1989). one such person was James Grant, accused of murdering rives Pollard, a newspaper editor, in richmond, Virginia, in 1868. PrAISIng the KIller The Saturday, november 21, number of Pollard’s paper, the Southern Journal, contained a scandalous report of the flight of a young woman, her secret engagement, and her possible marriage. The story did not name the woman but provided enough detail that readers could identify her as Mary Grant, daughter of one of the richest men in richmond, William H. Grant. The article brought into question Mary’s virtue and the ability of the men of her family to protect her. Many read it as a slur on the Grant family ’s honor, and wondered how the family would seek satisfaction. Three days later, Pollard was shot and fatally wounded as he alighted from a carriage outside his office. Police officers quickly determined that he had been killed by buckshot fired from the upper windows of the building opposite. Searching the building, the police broke open a third-floor door and found a man armed with four guns, including a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot. one of the barrels had recently been fired. The window facing the street on which Pollard had been killed was propped open with a hairbrush and the sill was blackened. The man was James Grant, William Grant’s eldest son, Mary’s brother. The police took him into custody. as he was led out onto the street, cries of “Three cheers for Grant” could be heard from the assembled crowd. Within three hours of the shooting, a coroner’s jury had convened , examined the body, and heard police and civilian testimony . The verdict was announced in less than an hour: Pollard had died from gunshot fired “by some person unknown to the jury.” the Morality of homicide 3 nevertheless, some three months later, Grant was indicted for Pollard’s murder. The trial was delayed because the court could not find sufficient jurors who were not convinced of Grant’s innocence : out of a jury pool of over 380 people, only two were deemed fit to serve. The others were dismissed for remarks such as “I would sooner hang...