Love, Errors, Faults and Mercy

We do not appreciate mercy greatly. In front of the transgressor and the criminal, the devise «An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth» is much more pleasant to us than pardon. In practice, our justice doesn’t combine too much with love.

And that, even in court. The impartiality of judges may be higher than that of our daily love, but they can’t open their hearts too much. It would be too disturbing.

A judge can’t speculate as Sponville does, concerning the offender’s faults:

How we know we wouldn’t have turned out like him, had we been brought up as he was in fear and violence? And if, having been brought up like him, we did not turn out like him, then isn’t it because, despite the similarities, we are different from him? Did he choose to be the way he is? And did we choose not to be that way?

The courts’ purpose isn’t to apply justice according to love duties to mankind. That would lead too often to mercy, which would be too damaging to social order.

What determines the harshness of many punishments is not so much the degree of offence, but the necessity of order and of discouraging crime. In the words of George Savile:

Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.

In the name of our social order, courts have to punish. The official justice can’t be based on love and forgiveness.

But that’s not the case of our everyday life. Outside courts love is fundamental, namely when we are the judges and feel tempted to act according to the principle of «An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth».

With love we forgive. Without it the errors and the sins of our adversaries become outrageous crimes – often a cause of our own faults and mad wars.