Sartre argues that there are no accidents in life. That if one is
not against the war, then one is for the war. You deserve the consequences of
your situation because you could always remove yourself from that situation by
means of suicide if you wished to get out of it. However, I believe this is
only the case when you are aware of your own situation. Sartre argues that a
lack of knowledge does not exempt you from responsibility either, that one is
responsible for that which is unknown as well. The situation in which you
find yourself is always yours because it is the "image of [your] free
choice of [yourself]." Sartre states that there are no innocent victims in
war. This is where I highly disagree with Sartre. Particularly when it comes to drone strikes
that involve the unintended deaths of children. The planned location and
details of an individual drone strike are always kept secret within the U.S.
government. There is no way for these children to know that they are in the
wrong place at the wrong time. They do not make an active choice to be aware or
unaware of their impending death.
These drone strikes have occurred in the countries of Somalia,
Yemen, and Pakistan.
So does Sartre expect every civilian to migrate out of their
country in order to avoid the possibility of their deaths, only to be followed
by those who are the intended targets of the attacks and who will likely be attacked
in their new location eventually?
What if there were no drone strikes prior to the strike which
killed a child? This would remove the option of exiting a dangerous country,
because it was never dangerous before this. Is this first child victim not
innocent? There were no warning signs to respond to. I only find fault in the
U.S. government’s attack. I do not see fault in the child’s existence in that
place at that time.
As of August of 2012, U.S. drone strikes
have killed 178 children unintentionally in Yemen and Pakistan. (You can watch
a video and read about it on this webpage: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald/us-drone-strikes-are-caus_b_2224627.html)
Do you believe as Sartre does that these
children really are responsible for their deaths? Is it true that there are no
accidents in life, and that they deserved the consequences of their situation?
If it is true that they are responsible, then should we even feel bad for them?
If this was not a horrid accident, if there truly are no accidents, and if no
one is even really “innocent,” then how should we respond to these deaths?
Just like you, I disagree completely with Sartre's claim that there are no accidents in life. Let's take an example outside of the U.S. drone strikes. If I were to wreck my car in a situation outside of my piloting control, for example black ice, would that make me solely and directly responsible for any injuries that I may cause to myself or other passengers in my car? Furthermore, could we go so far as to say that the injuries resulting from such a horrible accident are deserved? This would be a completely inhumane view of the world. There are such things as innocent people. Good people suffer from bad things everyday.
ReplyDelete- Jessica Ealy
I understand the want to not agree with the responsibility of Sartre's Ethics. It is actually what makes his philosophy so profound and radical. However, I sympathize with his idea, and while in the end this may come down to intuition or opinion, you should be careful not to misrepresent Sartre's ethics.
ReplyDeleteHe believes we are all responsible for everything, as Blair said, but to say that certain events, actions, situations, etc. are deserved is to take a very pessimistic -- if not erroneous -- view of Sartre. He is not claiming that the victims of drone strikes deserve their situation because it is not a judgement on the individuals; no one deserves to have tragedy befall them according to Sartre -- they are simply responsible for when it does. In this light, drone strike victims are not deserving but they are responsible. They are responsible for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for not leaving the country, for not shooting down the drone, for being alive.
Similarly, Jessica, you are responsible as far as you placed yourself in the car and where there when your car slid on the ice and crashed.
Sartre's view isn't inhuman. It is quite the opposite. It makes us responsible for all other people and what befalls them. I am responsible for Jessica's car wreck because I did not tell her not to go out in the ice. Similarly, I am responsible for the drone strikes and those killed as a result because I have not spoken out against these attacks. I must live with the weight of this responsibility thrust upon me and know that I am responsible for the lives and deaths of every other person just as they are for mine. I must care or I must announce that I do not care but I must make this choice. It is not ignorance that saves me because I could learn and become proactive about a particular cause just as easily as I could choose not to and comment on my friends' Facebook photos.
The view is not pleasant but I hardly think it is inhuman.
I too find Sartre's claims that we are all responsible for anything that happens to us very hard to believe. Just as you demonstrated there are cases that are completely out of our control and for us to blame - in this case innocent, unaware children - for their untimely deaths is completely unfair. However, Sartre says no one is innocent or a victim in war and in life, because you didn't choose to stop the wrong. Sartre would say the children didn't set a project for themselves to change the situation; however, how can you set a project if you don't even know there is an issue to fight? It doesn't seem logical to me. Also, I don't think children should be held to this level of responsibility that Sartre its on all people.
ReplyDelete