Jake gave a start. How could he know that?
‘Some might find it rather cloying, but I like it. Fact is, there was something about it that gave me a hard-on. But then I’m much more influenced by smell than other people.’
‘How did you know that: about my perfume? Have you been following me?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But we have met. Now then, what were we talking about? Ah yes, you were giving me some crap about wanting to help me.’
Jake struggled to keep her mind on the conversation. But she was still badly rattled by his claim to have met her. When?
‘Oh, but I do,’ she said.
‘Don’t fool yourself, Jake.’
‘Then at least let me try to persuade you not to murder another man. What would be the point of that?’
‘Oh, but there is a point, Jake. While we may agree about the facts, that I am killing men, and that there exists a set of criteria for deciding upon the legality of my actions, regarding the validity of what I am doing, the criteria are less generally agreed. If we were to have a discussion about what I am doing or have done, first it would have to be concerned with how to describe that. It might necessitate an examination of the concept of right and wrong and morality in general. We could talk about whether my action can be demonstrated to be sufficiently against the interests of the community as to merit punishment; or whether it can be argued that these are in fact justifiable homicides.’
‘But this is merely verbal—’
‘You disappoint me, Jake,’ he said. ‘That might be a reasonable objection if no further consequences resulted from calling what I do illegal or legal, justifiable or unjustifiable. But of course it does matter when to say “illegal homicide” also means “to undergo punitive coma”.’
‘What you have done is quite clearly illegal. Murder is wrong by the standards of any decent society.’
‘One would first require guidance as to how the words “murder” and “decent” are to be used. For instance, I can demonstrate very easily how any murderer should not be punished. Let us accept that the definition of a murderer is someone who has killed someone else, having intended to kill them, and in the full knowledge that neither society, nor indeed the victim, wished it. Thus, if Brown murders Green and serves a period of punitive coma, or imprisonment, after which he is returned to normal society, he still remains a murderer. So you see it is not always true that a murderer should be punished.’
Jake looked at the pictophone screen and nodded at Jameson Lang. ‘I’d like to introduce you to someone,’ said Jake into the mouthpiece of the telephone. ‘This is Sir Jameson Lang, Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve asked him to join in our discussion.’
‘Frankly, Jake,’ Wittgenstein said coolly, ‘I’m a little surprised that you should cheat like this. Bringing a prompt — really it’s a bit thick. But naturally I’m also flattered to be talking to the professor. I know his work well. The novels that is.’ He sniggered. ‘I can’t think of any philosophical work he’s ever done.’
‘Hello,’ said the professor, hesitantly. ‘The example you were describing just now relies on improper philosophical grammar. Specifically your use of the word “should” punish. However, quite apart from the semantic issue here, the chief inspector is quite right: there is a universal standard which applies to the character of one’s acts.’
‘My turn to get semantic, Professor. It depends on what you mean by the word “universal”. Speaking of the character of my acts, you mean only the character which they will seem to have from an ordinary point of view, under the ordinary conditions of inquiry, such as asking the ubiquitous man on the Clapham omnibus. Assuming there was still such a thing as the Clapham omnibus.
‘But you see, Professor, I might have decided not to adopt his standard. I might have decided to adopt the standard of a South American headhunter, or an existential hero from a novel by Camus, or an anarchist maybe, perhaps even a right-wing vigilante, an extreme feminist, or a modern-day Maldoror. Could be I’ve decided to adopt all their standards put together. You see, their judgments as to the character of my acts have just as much right to be considered valid as some hollow, stuffed men from the dead, cactus land of Clapham. So you would have to deny that in themselves my acts have only one character, otherwise you would be guilty of bias.’
‘But that is what society is all about,’ said Lang. ‘A bias towards a commonly held standard of what is right and wrong.’
‘That does not give us the truth about my acts. Only the appearance of truth. For thousands of years, when a man took another man’s property it was called theft. But for almost a century, in certain parts of the world this sort of thing was legitimised by the name of Marxism. Tomorrow’s political philosophy might sanction murder, just as Marxism once sanctioned theft. You talk about the standard of a decent society, Professor Lang. But what kind of society is it that regards a President of the United States who orders the use of nuclear weapons to kill thousands of people as a great man, and another man who assassinates a single President as a criminal?’
‘If you’re referring to President Harry Truman,’ said Lang, ‘he acted to end the war. To save lives. Using the bomb was the only way to stop an even greater loss of life.’
‘What I am doing is born of the same motive: to prevent an even greater loss of life.’
‘But it’s not your position to make such a choice. It sets a bad example in society.’
‘You sound like a moral conservative, Professor.’
‘Perhaps so. But naturally you must accept that in the eyes of the society you seem to say you reject, you must be caught and punished.’
‘Must?’ He laughed. ‘No, I accept only the possibility.’
‘You claim you’re acting to save human life. Therefore you must surely accept that reverence for human life is the foundation of morality.’
‘No, only worthwhile human life.’
‘And what is the criterion of that?’
‘In most cases, the subjective feeling that life continues to be worthwhile.’
‘Well don’t you think that the men you killed had the feeling that their lives continued to be worthwhile?’
‘Very probably, they did.’ His voice darkened a little as he added: ‘But of course, they could have been wrong. Suppose Einstein had received some bad news about his wife and had lost the will to live. Would one not feel a certain obligation to remind him of how worthwhile a life his was? Would his own view of the worth of his own existence be the ultimate standard?’
‘Yes, you’re right there,’ admitted Lang. ‘One would feel such an obligation as you describe.’
‘Then surely you must admit the possibility that there are some who might overestimate the worth of their own existences?’
‘Logically I have to, I suppose. But I don’t see how such a thing could easily be demonstrated.’
‘Suppose that such a person was putting the lives of others at risk by clinging tenaciously to his own. Couldn’t it be demonstrated then?’
‘It might be.’
‘Would you not feel justified in eliminating such a person?’
‘It would depend on the circumstances,’ said Lang. ‘On how clearly evident was the risk to other people. I see what you’re driving at, but I don’t accept that yours is as clear cut a case as the one you’re describing.’
‘What criteria do you think would be acceptable in arriving at such a decision?’
‘I suppose it would be an objective standard. An estimation of what the reasonable man would do in similar circumstances.’
‘A subjective estimation of an objective standard?’ Wittgenstein uttered a little chuckle. ‘That sounds interesting. Don’t you think that I might have tried to consider the case of my brother VMN-negatives objectively? And that I arrived at the conclusion that the risk to other people is demonstrable?’