Jury duty slavery

 

I think maybe I'm getting this figured out; I think I will ignore the G+ business and stay here. Abortion is a major moral question but not of course the only one, and the first thing before deciding such questions is the category question, how do we make moral decisions. In my experience most people, even when they say otherwise, are guided by their feelings, with often a dollop of utilitarianism thrown in. They may say they are guided by authority (the Church, the Bible, the Q'uran) and sometimes quote passages, but these are not rule books and contain no rational law and only some vague guidance (Do unto others, etc.). No, the main source of guidance is what feels right. We often call how we feel our "conscience." More than likely we have an instinctive ability to form a conscience, but the details are "filled in" during early life from our peers and our culture in general. This is why different people from different cultures feel this or that is right or wrong (look for example at the evolution of attitudes about slavery in our own culture). Conscience then is a fairly good guide, but not an infallible one. Slavery is wrong in and of itself, so is carrying out raids on the neighboring tribe's hen-house, or torture, or being dishonest to foreigners, even though many in history have not seen such things as against their particular conscience. I think nowadays this is generally understood, so people try to find a rational basis for their moral standards, and most opt for a fairly simple utilitarianism, even though (and I don't intend to get into them now) there are many objections to this approach. It does work better most of the time than either dogmatic authoritarian religion based rules or from our culturally received conscience. In short, assuming one is not a sociopath and therefore does want to do what is right, one has to realize that in many borderline situations there is no easy answer and one is better off sitting back and thinking about it, perhaps in the context of the various ethical systems that have been proposed, rather than just going with what feels right.

There is a long tradition in moral philosophy that would recognize much of what you're saying.

The observation that people often think they are reasoning to moral conclusions when they are actually starting from intuitions is associated with thinkers as different as David Hume and, in modern times, Jonathan Haidt. Haidt in particular argues that moral judgments are frequently intuitive first and rationalized afterward. Even people who sincerely appeal to scripture, law, or philosophy are often selecting and interpreting those sources through lenses they already possess.

I would make one modification, though. When people say they follow authority, they are not always merely disguising feelings. Often they are outsourcing moral judgment to a trusted tradition because they have concluded that their own intuitions are unreliable. A devout Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, or Jew may genuinely believe that personal moral feelings are too easily corrupted and that centuries of accumulated wisdom deserve deference. Whether that is correct is another question, but it is a different psychological stance from simply doing what feels right.

Your point about conscience being partly innate and partly culturally formed is also well supported by observation. Most societies condemn some things—unprovoked murder, betrayal within the group, theft from one's own community—but differ greatly on who counts as deserving moral concern. Slavery is an excellent example. Many slaveholders appear to have had functioning consciences; they simply drew the circle of moral concern differently than we do. That is one reason moral certainty can be dangerous. A person can feel entirely righteous and still be terribly mistaken.

Where I would push back a bit is on the statement that "slavery is wrong in and of itself." I happen to agree with the conclusion, but the phrase "in and of itself" already assumes some moral framework. A utilitarian would say slavery is wrong because of its consequences for suffering and flourishing. A Kantian would say it is wrong because it treats persons merely as means rather than ends. A natural-law theorist would give yet another explanation. The remarkable thing is that very different ethical theories often converge on condemning slavery, even though they arrive there by different routes.

Your final point may be the most important. Ethical systems are often criticized because none seems capable of solving every hard case. But perhaps their greatest value is not that they produce answers; it is that they slow us down. Instead of asking only, "What do I feel?" we ask, "What are the consequences?" "Am I being fair?" "What if everyone acted this way?" "What duties do I owe?" "What kind of person would this make me?" Those questions do not eliminate disagreement, but they can keep us from mistaking a strong feeling for a settled moral truth.

In that sense, moral philosophy may be less like a calculator and more like a set of corrective lenses. It rarely removes ambiguity, but it can help us see the ambiguity that was already there.

I think you've put your finger on the distinction that makes most people comfortable with jury duty while remaining opposed to slavery.

If I understand you correctly, the reasoning is no longer merely "the law says so." It becomes: a functioning justice system is a genuine social good; juries are part of that system; therefore citizens have a moral obligation to participate when called.

That is not very different from why many people think they have duties to pay taxes, testify truthfully in court, serve as witnesses to accidents, help maintain public institutions, or in extreme circumstances even accept military service. The obligation arises not from ownership by the state but from participation in a community whose existence depends on certain burdens being shared.

What's interesting is how this connects to your earlier comments about moral reasoning. You began by discussing conscience and moral intuition, but here you've offered something more like an argument from necessity and reciprocity.

Society needs courts.

Courts need juries.

Therefore, if one benefits from living under the protection of the law, one bears some responsibility to support the institution.

That is a rational argument, not merely an appeal to feeling.

Of course, a critic could still ask why the burden must be imposed rather than voluntary. But once enough people free-ride, the institution may fail. At that point coercion enters the picture—not because coercion is intrinsically good, but because the social function is judged important enough that society cannot safely leave it to chance.

In a way, this circles back to your original concern about moral certainty. You started by wondering whether we can do better than conscience. Here you seem to have done exactly that. You did not conclude that jury duty is acceptable because it feels acceptable. You followed a chain of reasoning about what is required for a just society.

The conclusion might still be wrong; any moral argument might be. But it is an example of moral reasoning trying to correct or supplement intuition rather than simply obeying it.

And perhaps that is one of the strongest answers to your earlier question. No, you do not sound as though you have surrendered the search for right and wrong. You sound like someone who thinks conscience is the starting point of moral inquiry, not its final authority.

No who serves on the jury has to at least initially be random, which means no option to opt out. Of course whole professions and anyone over seventy can opt out, but that still keeps it functioning.

Yes, and I think that's an important point.

If jury service were purely voluntary, you would not get a jury that is representative of the community. You would get a jury composed of people who have the time, inclination, temperament, or ideological motivation to volunteer. The pool would become systematically biased.

The random selection is not an administrative convenience; it is part of the moral logic of the institution. The defendant is entitled to judgment by a cross-section of the community, not by a self-selected corps of enthusiasts.

That means some degree of compulsion is built into the very idea of a jury system. If everyone could simply decline, the institution would become something different.

I also think your mention of exemptions is revealing. Most societies do not insist on absolute participation. They recognize that there are competing obligations and limitations. The elderly, some professionals, caregivers, people with disabilities, and others may be excused. The goal is not to force every individual to serve regardless of circumstance but to maintain a sufficiently broad and representative pool.

What strikes me is that your reasoning here is not utilitarian in the crude sense of "maximize happiness." It is more institutional. A fair society requires certain structures. Those structures require participation. Therefore participation acquires a moral claim on citizens.

That's a line of thought one finds in thinkers such as Aristotle and Alexis de Tocqueville, who saw citizenship not merely as possessing rights but as sharing responsibilities necessary for the community's flourishing.

And it illustrates something you said earlier about slavery. You were looking for a case where compelled service might be morally tolerable. Jury duty seems to be one such case. Not because the coercion disappears—it doesn't—but because the coercion serves a public function that cannot easily be achieved without it, and because the burden is distributed broadly rather than imposed on a permanent subordinate class.

In fact, your example suggests a useful refinement: the moral problem with slavery may not be compulsion alone. Human societies seem unable to function without some compulsory obligations. The deeper moral problem may be the creation of a class of people whose labor is owed to others as a matter of status, while they lack equal standing and reciprocal rights.

A juror remains a citizen among citizens. A slave, in the historical sense, is not. That difference may carry much of the moral weight.

I'm reminded of Deadeye-dick in Pinafore reminding his fellow sailors that they aren't as free as they imagine.

A very Gilbertian observation.

In H.M.S. Pinafore, Deadeye is the character who keeps puncturing the cheerful illusions of everyone around him. While the sailors are singing about being free and happy British tars, Deadeye keeps pointing out that naval discipline is not exactly liberty. Sailors obey orders, live under strict regulations, and can be punished for disobedience. Their freedom is far more constrained than the romantic picture suggests.

Gilbert often had a talent for exposing the assumptions hidden inside comfortable slogans. "Freedom" is one of those words that sounds simple until you start examining it closely.

Your jury-duty example does something similar. People often say, "We are free citizens." Then along comes a jury summons, a tax bill, a draft notice in wartime, or a subpoena, and suddenly it becomes clear that citizenship consists of obligations as well as rights.

Deadeye's point, as I hear it, is not that freedom is an illusion. Rather, it is that freedom in a functioning society is always bounded. We are not free to do absolutely anything we wish. We accept a web of constraints in exchange for the benefits of living with other people.

What makes Gilbert interesting is that he doesn't necessarily tell you whether that arrangement is good or bad. He merely forces you to notice it.

That seems rather close to the thread you've been pursuing. You began by questioning whether conscience alone is enough to guide morality. Now you've arrived at the realization that even something as apparently straightforward as "freedom" contains tensions. We value liberty, yet we accept jury duty. We oppose slavery, yet we tolerate some compulsory service. We celebrate independence, yet depend on institutions that require participation.

Deadeye would probably nod grimly and say that the world is less tidy than the songs make it sound. And then everyone else would ignore him and continue singing. Gilbert usually gave the cynic the sharper observations, even when he denied him the last word.

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