Say you’re caught standing over a dead body, blood dripping from your sleeves, a blood-stained knife in your hand and as you’re lead away, you’re screaming “I’m glad I killed the bastard!”. And then you’re acquitted because the prosecution could not prove you guilty. The question is – did you do it?
Now, the reason I’m asking is because I had a most interesting and fierce debate this evening. It all started with crossing the road at red light. Since noone saw me break the law – did I actually break it? Can you break the law as such (Das Gesetz an sich, to put in Kantian terms) or do you break the law only if and when you’re found to have broken it?
Or – as the old logical riddle goes – if a tree falls down in deep woods and noone hears it, did it actually fall down?
I may seem to be asking high-school trick questions, but it occured to me that answers to these and similar questions are the essence of one’s moral, political and social outlook. Not that one is inherently better than any other, but – if you’ll allow a slight generalisation – on one hand we have the conception of One Truth, where things either exist (happen, are said, etc…) or not. On the other hand, however, we have the Relativistic Conception, where things only exist if we and others perceive them as existing (happening, being said, etc…).
Ergo, if I’m convinced that reality is one and incontestible, I’ve broken the law. If, however, I’m convinced that reality is only what we perceive (in this case, what a court of law perceives), then I haven’t broken the law.
What do you think? Did the tree fall even if noone heard it fall?
Tommorrow: how the two conceptions create a cultural and political rift in Slovenia
And since he says that he always wanted to be an apostle, the video below is quite appropriate, methinks 😉