The greatest disability?

An MP is in the news – it seems that there was a scuffle in a bar in the House of Commons involving several MPs, people were pushed, someone was head-butted, punches were thrown and one MP, Eric Joyce, has been arrested and charged with assault. He has been suspended from the parliamentary party and there has been discussion on the radio at least about what happens if he gets jailed, under what circumstances he would lose his seat and an election be called, who'd win the election (which is rather getting ahead of things) and so on. Members of Parliament are not supposed to be involved in scuffles, although there is in fact a history. The then Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, famously punched someone who had thrown eggs at him when campaigning. Anyway, the general atmosphere is misbehaviour and punishment. That's what we do with criminals and suchlike, isn't it?

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus (55-135 CE) had a different view. I'm only just beginning to read his work, but already I have encountered this alternative several times. For example, in Book 1 of The Discourses, chapter 18 discusses his observation that we should not be angry with those who fall into error. Briefly, his argument goes like this: no-one deliberately does something he knows to be wrong, to his disadvantage. So if they do something wrong, this is due to some error on their part, because at the time they thought it was right. There is something the matter with their faculty for making judgements. Thus, thieves and robbers, for example, have gone astray in matters of good and evil, their critical faculty has led them down the wrong path.

So, asks Epictetus, should such criminals be put to death? (Punishments were on a different scale to those we currently consider appropriate in the days of the Roman Emperors, and Epictetus lived under Nero.) By no means, says Epictetus, and instead wants to rephrase the question. Look at it this way, he says. This man errs in things of great importance, right and wrong. It is not that he is blinded, or defective in sight, and cannot tell white from black. It's similar, but much worse. If you look at it that way you see at once how inhuman the suggestion of capital punishment is. The greatest harm a man can suffer is to be blinded in matters of good and evil. Just like any other disabled person what someone in that position needs is help, support and therapy.

If the reports are to be believed, someone who had been a successful MP for years “lost it” as we say, when our emotions run away with us and we do or say something totally non-rational. Seneca, writing on anger, describes an angry person as someone taken over by something other than his rational self. So Epectetus' view is that he should be helped to find it, rather than punished for his serious misfortune.

It's a point of view worth considering.