Global Issues: Gaddafi, al-Awlaki and Bin Laden: These executions have set us back to medieval ways

Here is one for prospective PPE candidates - an article by renowned philosopher and now Master of the New College for Humanities Prof AC Grayling from this Sunday’s Independent entitled These executions have set us back to medieval ways The article is well worth reading and discussing further as it asks some telling ethical questions of a few recent political ‘killings’ both in terms of their efficacy, utility and long term effects. He starts:If inquiry shows that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his son Mutassim were summarily executed last Thursday, theirs will be the latest in a series of high-profile killings this year, beginning with Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and continuing with Anwar al-Awlaki and his bomb-making colleague Ibrahim al-Asiri in Yemen.

He goes on to make the telling point:In accepting the pragmatic case for shooting malefactors, just as we shoot mad dogs, we state that we do not wish to pay the high cost of living according to law and civil liberties. We champion our Western principles about the rule of law and the rights of individuals, we thus say, only until they become a burden and an inconvenience; and, when they do, we summarily shoot people in the head instead. In effect, we admit the shameful fact that these principles are mere pieties that we do not really believe in, because we ditch them when occasion demands. And in this way we are no different from the Gaddafis and Bin Ladens.

Discuss!