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Here's an article by a social psychologist that brings arguments as to why it is good to celebrate the killing of Osama Binladen.
I am curious, what others think in this matter. How do they see this event and based on what arguments is 'good' or 'bad'?

The more variety in responses,the better.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/o...haidt.html?_r=0

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A  MAN is shot in the head, and joyous celebrations break out 7,000 miles away. Although Americans are in full agreement that the demise of Osama bin Laden is a good thing, many are disturbed by the revelry. We should seek justice, not vengeance, they urge. Doesn’t this lower us to “their” level? Didn’t the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. say, “I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy”? (No, he did not, but the Twitter users who popularized that misattributed quotation last week found it inspiring nonetheless.)

Why are so many Americans reluctant to join the party? As a social psychologist I believe that one major reason is that some people are thinking about this national event using the same moral intuitions they’d use for a standard criminal case. For example, they ask us to imagine whether it would be appropriate for two parents to celebrate the execution, by lethal injection, of the man who murdered their daughter.

Of course the parents would be entitled to feel relief and perhaps even private joy. But if they threw a party at the prison gates, popping Champagne corks as the syringe went in, that would be a celebration of death and vengeance, not justice. And is that not what we saw last Sunday night when young revelers, some drinking beer, converged on Times Square and the White House?

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No, it is not. You can’t just scale up your ideas about morality at the individual level and apply them to groups and nations. If you do, you’ll miss all that was good, healthy and even altruistic about last week’s celebrations.

Here’s why. For the last 50 years, many evolutionary biologists have told us that we are little different from other primates — we’re selfish creatures, able to act altruistically only when it will benefit our kin or our future selves. But in the last few years there’s been a growing recognition that humans, far more than other primates, were shaped by natural selection acting at two different levels simultaneously. There’s the lower level at which individuals compete relentlessly with other individuals within their own groups. This competition rewards selfishness.
But there’s also a higher level at which groups compete with other groups. This competition favors groups that can best come together and act as one. Only a few species have found a way to do this. Bees, ants and termites are the best examples. Their brains and bodies are specialized for working as a team to accomplish nearly miraculous feats of cooperation like hive construction and group defense.

Early humans found ways to come together as well, but for us unity is a fragile and temporary state. We have all the old selfish programming of other primates, but we also have a more recent overlay that makes us able to become, briefly, hive creatures like bees. Just think of the long lines to give blood after 9/11. Most of us wanted to do something — anything — to help.

This two-layer psychology is the key to understanding religion, warfare, team sports and last week’s celebrations. The great sociologist Émile Durkheim even went so far as to call our species Homo duplex, or “two-level man.” Durkheim was writing a century ago, as organized religion was weakening across Europe. He wanted to know how nations and civil institutions could bind people into moral communities without the aid of religion. He thought the most powerful glue came from the emotions.

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He contrasted two sets of “social sentiments,” one for each level. At the lower level, sentiments like respect and affection help individuals forge relationships with other individuals. But Durkheim was most interested in the sentiments that bind people into groups — the collective emotions. These emotions dissolve the petty, small-minded self. They make people feel that they are a part of something larger and more important than themselves.

One such emotion he called “collective effervescence”: the passion and ecstasy that is found in tribal religious rituals when communities come together to sing, dance around a fire and dissolve the boundaries that separate them from each other. The spontaneous celebrations of last week were straight out of Durkheim.

So is collective effervescence a good thing, or an ugly psychological relic from tribal times?

Some of those who were disturbed by the celebrations fear that this kind of unity is dangerous because it makes America more warlike and prejudiced against outsiders. When celebrants chanted “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” and sang “God Bless America,” were they not displaying a hateful “us versus them” mindset?

Once again, no. Many social psychologists distinguish patriotism — a love of one’s own country — from nationalism, which is the view that one’s own country is superior to other countries and should therefore be dominant. Nationalism is generally found to be correlated with racism and with hostility toward other countries, but patriotism by itself is not.

The psychologist Linda Skitka studied the psychological traits that predicted which people displayed American flags in the weeks after 9/11. She found that the urge to display the flag “reflected patriotism and a desire to show solidarity with fellow citizens, rather than a desire to express out-group hostility.”

This is why I believe that last week’s celebrations were good and healthy. America achieved its goal — bravely and decisively — after 10 painful years. People who love their country sought out one another to share collective effervescence. They stepped out of their petty and partisan selves and became, briefly, just Americans rejoicing together.

This hive-ish moment won’t last long. But in the communal joy of last week, many of us felt, for an instant, that Americans might still be capable of working together to meet threats and challenges far greater than Osama bin Laden.

Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.”

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Philippians 4:8-Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.

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Not all that glitters is gold, not all celebration is good


The killing of Osama bin Laden was a national event that brought forth reactions differing from each-other. As the article mentioned, many were celebrating the event and yet many were reluctant, considering the celebration to be an act of revenge.

The author makes the case as to why celebrating such a killing is good and healthy by mentioning the individual and group natural selection theory of the 'two-level man.' He describes how the group is bonded through powerful altruistic emotions that increase patriotic feelings, the love for country and how this process helps people be part of a cause bigger than them. The foundation the author has presented in describing the individual and the American population is in strictly bio-sociological terms, and as such, it does not take into account the ethics and morality, not only of the celebration aspect but also of the killing itself.

The first question would be: Was the killing a good thing? In posing this question and in using the adjective 'good' just like the author has used to describe such an event, one enters into a realm of ethics and morality that bypass ones primitive tendencies of natural selection. In judging if an act was good or bad, one need to explore what the standard is upon which one can make such a judgment.

This brings to the exploration of the Just War Theory. The Just War Theory deals with the justification of how and why wars are fought. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a peer reviewed academic resource, the Just War Theory considers several elements if a war is abiding by the ethical limits or not; this includes a war held between two countries or a war on terror as is the present case. What's considered honorable in one culture is not considered as such in another. Just War Theory includes the idea that even in warfare, honorable acts, ethics and morality should be preserved.

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First and foremost, Just War Theory stipulates that war needs to be only in self-defense against a physical aggression; however the killing of Osama bin Laden was not in self-defense as he was not at the moment of assassination being aggressive or threatening the US nation.

Just War Theory also stipulates that war should be the last resort. All other forms of solutions must have been attempted prior to the instigation of war. In the present case, no such considerations were taken prior to Bin Laden assassination.

Additionally, it postulates that a just war cannot be considered to be just if the reasons of national interest are of chief importance. One can have the 'right intention' but this can mask many philosophical problems. At what point does the right intention separate itself from national self-interest? If the moral worthiness is achieved by acting in favor of one's neighbor, what does that imply for moral action? Should the killing have happened at all? No it shouldn't. Should the American population been celebrating after the event? Not really. The argument of altruism as suggested by the author is a shaky one, considering that it is viewed in strictly bio-sociological terms. The theory that emotion is a powerful glue to bring masses together for a cause, as postulated by Emile Durkheim, stands only at the expense of the other party's demise, which in turn is counter intuitive to the notion of altruism.

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Just War Theory is also concerned with consequences of war. Consequences need to be considered before declaring war due to the idea of respecting the moral integrity of the other party no matter how cruel he or she is, and also due to the idea that consequences of war only encourage the enemy to retaliate in similar ways. This could lead to an escalation of its retaliating nature and cause more destabilization than necessary. Once initiated, assassination tends to become the norm of political affairs. Reasonably so, the killing of Osama bin Laden could very well lead to inspiring many others to follow his footsteps and his death could be viewed as an act of heroism or symbol of sacrifice.

In the light of moral integrity, it is worth mentioning the 5th Amendment of the Constitution of United States of America which dictates that: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” It is clear that on the basis of every man being equal, the rights-based argument demands for a fair and speedy trial and this was never applied in the case of Osama bin Laden.

Moreover, nowadays, states differ in their stand regarding Capital Punishment. Some states support total execution and some do not; therefore why does it need to be a national policy when states differ in this subject considerably.

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Philippians 4:8-Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.

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A final remark on Deterrence theory is worth mentioning. Deterrence theory stipulates that punishments are necessary to deter criminals from trying other criminal activity due to the probable consequences of their crimes. However, death penalty, longer imprisonments, mandatory sentencing and so forth have not demonstrated a reduction in crimes. On the contrary, increases in punishment may actually increase crime.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the executing and the celebrating of the killing of Osama bin Laden do not stand in the face of arguments presented above.

Written on 7/31/13

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