I have just finished reading the book "Justice" by Michael Sandel.
It is an interesting book on justice and the bottom line is that justice is not something straightforward and different people can have different notions about it, about the right thing to do in a given situation, as in the following contested issues:
- Price gouging after a hurricane
- Wall Sreet bailout and the bonuses given to CEOs of failed companies
- The national military service
- Same-sex marriage
- Torture
- Selling human organs
- Assited suicide
- Pregnancy outsourcing
- Abortion
- Selling college admission
It is a journey of reflection on the ideas of the great philosophers such as Aristotle, Socrates, Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. One of the most striking example of justice that affected me the most was the Afgan Goatherds, a true story showing a moral dilemma that ended with the death of 19 soldiers:
- In June 2005, a special forces team made up of 4 U.S. Navy SEALs set out on a secret reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan in search of a Taliban leader, a close associate of Osama bin Laden. Two Afghan farmers with about a hundred bleating goats happened upon them. With them was a boy about 14 years old. The four soldiers had only two options at that point of time: to let them go or kill them. The first option would run the risk that they would inform the Taliban of the presence of the US soldiers. After a vote, the soldiers released them. About an hour and half after they released the goatherds, the four soldiers found themselves surrounded by 80 to a 100 Taliban fighters armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. In the fierce firefight that followed, 3 Navy SEALs were killed. The Taliban fighters also shot down a US helipcopter that sought to rescue the SEAL unit, killing all 16 soldiers on board. One of the SEAL unit soldier managed to survive by falling down the mountainside and crawling 7 miles to a Pashtun village, whose residents protected him from the Taliban until he was rescued. -
So the question is, should the Navy SEAL unit have killed the goatherd in the first place?
What should have you done if it was your decision?
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