So help me out with this.
1) Correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel sure that it’s not uncommon, when a guy is murdered for a pair of shoes, or for the 23 cents in his pocket, that we tend to read commentary about how this murder is made particularly tragic and/or reprehensible by the fact that the killer gained so little.
2) The murder of schoolteacher Katie Locke is being widely condemned as particularly tragic and/or reprehensible because the killer had sex with her corpse, which was apparently his goal all along.
Do you see my problem here? How can a good outcome for the killer make a murder both better and worse?
Alright, let’s ask what the key difference is. Here’s one: Robbing a corpse (or a soon-to-be corpse) is a zero-sum game. What the robber acquires comes from the pockets of the heirs. Sex with a corpse is probably a positive-sum game; it’s unlikely to interfere with anyone else’s plans.
Unfortunately, that only makes things even more unsettling. It leads to this syllogism:
- People feel better about a murder when they learn that the killer stole $10,000 from the heirs as opposed, to, say, 23 cents. This suggests that they care more about the killer than they do about the heirs, who could be pretty much anyone.
- People feel worse about a murder when they learn that the killer got some satisfaction even if it came at nobody’s (additional) expense. This suggests that they care a negative amount about the killer.
Put all that together, and these people must be pretty much seething with hatred for the world at large.
Or to put this another way: It appears (taking the murder as given) that people want killers to achieve their goals when and only when those goals are achieved at someone else’s expense. That’s pretty much the definition of “anti-social”.
Exercise: Come up with some way to reconcile the instincts in points 1) and 2) above without being forced to conclude that the world is a cauldron of hate. You might want to consider the possibility that when people say a murder is particularly tragic or particularly reprehensible, what they really mean is that it should be particularly targeted for deterrence. (No, it’s not obvious that this helps — but it’s worth considering.)
“People feel better about a murder when they learn that the killer stole $10,000…”
This doesn’t mean what you think it means. It isn’t that the outcome is better than if he didn’t get to steal anything, or if he only managed to steal 23 cents. They feel worse about the 23 cent case because they think the desire to kill someone for 23 cents is more perverse than the desire to kill someone for $10,000. But everyone knows its bad if they get the money, and would prevent them if they could.
You could object that the desires should correspond to the outcomes; if getting the $10,000 is a worse outcome, desiring to get the $10,000 should be considered a worse desire. But the person who desires the $10,000 just desires to have it himself; he is not especially concerned with the people he is depriving. So the fact that people are being deprived, mean that the $10,000 outcome is worse; but the 23 cent desire is worse, because the killer intends less good (because in each case he just intends his own good and does not consider others.)
Can you cite whomever it is that you are criticizing? The linked article says the killer is a psychiatric case, and it appears that this is news because it was a particularly sick and scary crime. Is somebody complaining that sex with a corpse is a positive sum game?
I see no inconsistency.
I think people are particularly revolted when they cannot identify with the goal. 23 cents and sex with a corpse are both absurd goals that can never be entertained in the minds of most people, when weighed against a life.
I imagine the follow up question is: but $1million can?!?
And I think the answer is that people at least identify with the desire for $1m.
Here’s an attempt to reconcile the two.
1. The 23 cent case is more tragic (but not necessarily reprehensible) than the $10,000 case because it seems like it could easily have been prevented. If the killer *knew* he would only have got away with 23 cents, he wouldn’t have committed the murder. In this case, both the murderer and the murderee regret what happened.
2. The sex with the corpse case is more reprehensible (but not necessarily more tragic) because people perceive that sex with a corpse is more reprehensible than just theft.
As an aside, I have told people that when I die, I want my body left to necrophiliacs because I feel bad for them and want them to be able to get satisfaction legally for once. My friends aren’t really sure how to respond.
This is Phil from comment 4. I am not the same Phil as Phil who wrote comment 3.
I wonder what people would think a murder was less tragic if the murder raped the victim before murdering her, instead of having sex with the corpse after murdering her?
I think the rape case is obviously worse. But I suspect that people would react more strongly to the sex-with-corpse case because it’s weirder and they’re more disgusted by it and they’re not desensitized to murder-and-necrophilia the way they are to rape-and-murder.
Which is definitely anti-social. I don’t know if it’s “cauldron of hate,” but “cauldron of irrationality and cognitive bias-induced sociopathology” might work.
Most people believe and feel that sex with a corpse is immoral, per se [citation needed]. I think to most people this is a much more important factor than the relative gains and losses in utility considered in the post.
If Paul murders someone knowing that what he’ll gain from it is no more then 23 cents, this signals to others that all it takes to make Paul murder someone is the promise of 23 cents. This makes Paul way more dangerous than Peter, who only bothers to kill someone if he expects to gain $10,000 from it. It also signals that the value Paul places on other people’s right to life is of at most 23 cents, whereas Peter values others’ lives at at most $10,000.
Necrophilia is among society’s strongest taboos, outmatched perhaps only by the taboo among German and Japanese central bankers regarding “helicopter money”.
It’s about the value you place on a human being.
If you kill someone for 23c, that’s how much value you put on their life.
For the same reason, if you value other people, you treat a dead body with respect and dignity. By mutilating a corpse, the killer treats the dead person no different than an animal.
The less value you put on a life the worse the crime is.
Dan: I do not follow you at all. You write:
If you kill someone for 23c, that’s how much value you put on their life.
Okay. But by the same token, if you kill someone so you can have sex with (or mutilate, or dismember or anything else) the corpse, which is an activity you value at, say, $10,000, then (for all I know), you might value their lives at up to $10,000. If this is all about the value you put on the life, then this should help me feel better, no?
Seb: Same response I made to Dan: Paul murders for 23 cents, Peter murders for $10,000, so Paul is more dangerous. Mary murders to enjoy playing with the corpse, which she values at $10,000. Why do I distinguish between Peter and Mary? Each of them, as far as we know, values others’ lives at some amount that could be as high as $10,000.
(Is it because I happen to know I’ve got a body and am therefore valuable to Mary, but also happen to know I’m not carrying $10,000, and therefore have nothing to fear from Peter….? )
Phil 4, part i: Maybe this is the answer, if the killer knew what little he’d get, the victim would be alive.
A variation on this: when a killer kills to rob, and then only gets $.23, he’s way more inclined to kill again.
However, this assumes that he isn’t caught and gets the chance to repeat.
Similarly to Dan, I posit that people use the “benefit” to the murderer to estimate the murderer’s implied value of a life. The trouble, as you point out in your response to Dan, is that people use their own valuation of the “benefit” rather than attempting to imppute the value to the murderer. They value $10,000 fairly similarly (ignoring wealth effects) to the murderer, but place wildly different valuations on necrophilia. Using their valuation of necrophilia, they find a shockingly low implied value of life, whereas using the killer’s valuation of necrophilia would likely yield a much higher valuation of life.
Though, gven how people tend to react to those who value things differently than they do, I doubt that correcting this mistake would be lead people to drastically change their moral accounting.
Pete: $10,000 doesn’t go as far as it used to! Although, I guess it might have saved 43,477 other murders at 23 cents each.
1) It’s obvious an implicit value placed on a life by all involved. That someone is so callous as to place the value of a life at 23 cents or a pair of shoes is obviously more anti-social than one who places the value at $10,000.
2) This type of disgusting act maybe merely psychological repulsion, but I’m quite certain there is something for more malignant, i.e., damaging to society, in a person that kills to have sex with a dead corpse and someone who kills for money. I can only think you’re confused about this because you oddly think sex is only about physical pleasure. And only for one person.
Lastly, there’s nothing wrong with concluding that the world is seething with hate. In fact, I think it’s fairly obvious that the world is seething with hate. Why do you think Sanders enjoys so much support? It’s obvious that tens of millions of Americans, some the most peaceful people in all of human history, hate others for being more economically successful. Similarly, it is obvoius that humans hate, even you, a lot of other humans, with the only reason that violence isn’t higher is because most are smart enough to konw that what comes around goes around. Also, only in recent human history has it been possible to amass enormous amounts of wealth without being a violent thug.
People are horrified when they learn of people who are willing to murder for very little gain because the news increases their estimate of their odds of being murdered.
When people learn about murderous necrophiliacs that they didn’t previously factor into their estimates, they’re horrified that a new reason for murder increases their estimate of their odds of being murdered.
People already expect murders when the murderer has much to gain.
Also, we have lots of ways to prevent murderers from benefiting from our death. Banks, passwords, contracts that can be enforced after our death. Murderers know this and are deterred.
There is not much you can do ahead of time to deter someone who just wants a freshly dead orifice.
Steve:
As I said in my other comment, people are judging by how bad they think the person’s desires are. Desiring to have sex with a corpse is seen as a bad desire in itself, and therefore much worse than the desire for $10,000 or even $0.23. So the higher the value the murderer places on sex with a corpse, the more perverted the desire, and the worse the crime (since sex with a corpse should have a negative value.)
So going by people’s ordinary opinions, you would have this set of outcomes:
1. Worst outcome: murderer gets away with $10,000.
2. Second worst outcome: murderer has sex with a corpse.
3. Least bad outcome: murderer gets away with $0.23.
But you have this contrasting set of desires:
1. Worst desire: desire for sex with a corpse.
2. Second worst desire: desire for $0.23.
3. Least bad desire: desire for $10,000.
People rank the crimes by the perversity of the desires, so they use the second set of rankings rather than the first. This has consistent results and explains people’s evaluations.
I think of the 23 cents murder as tragic because if both the victim and the murderer knew the outcome in advance, the victim could give the 23 cents to the murderer and keep his life. Coase would be pleased.
entirelyuseless:
Desiring to have sex with a corpse is seen as a bad desire in itself
It would depress me if this were true. Desires, like races and nationalities, are accidents of birth and circumstance. I’d hate to think that we’d want to put less weight on someone’s happiness just because of such accidents.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that if someone has a desire to eat babies then we should allow him to eat babies — but it does mean that if there were a way for this person to eat babies at no cost to anyone else, then we’d all (I hope) be in favor of it.
@ entirelyuseless # 29
I suggest that a measure of reprehensibility is how inclined a person is to break society’s most serious rules. And given the consequence of murder, murder seems to be our society’s more serious rule.
So maybe related to murder, you measure reprehensibility by the amount that a person would pay/require to commit murder.
A person who would potentially pay $ 500 (or more) for the pleasure of committing murder is more reprehensible than a person who would require 23 cents to commit murder. A person who would require $1000 is less reprehensible than both.
It is tragic when someone is killed for twenty three cents because the victim would have paid much more to save his life, and both the victim and the would-be killer would have been better off if this bargain had ben allowed to happen. Similarly, if the would-be killer wants sex, a living victim would have been willing to have sex to save her life or to pay the killer to forego both, but killing first and having sex after precludes that bargain. Both are tragic because they pre-empt Pareto-improving outcomes.
You’re right that this provides a contradiction. However maybe this will help elucidate things. I think if you separate it into what a killer kills for, and what a killer gets you come up with more reasonable conclusions. For example, a killer that kills for 23 cents is seen as especially heinous for the reasons that people gave above. However, I think people would feel better if a killer intended to get a much larger sum of money but in actuality receives 23 cents. I think they would also feel worse if the killer intended to kill for 23 cents but actually received $10,000. If we’re interested in deterrence (as we clearly are as a society) than what a killer actually gets is a relevant consideration as a factor. So suppose that society believes that necrophiliacs value sex with a corpse at a very high rate, then the fact that the killer is able to carry out this act is bad for deterence for other people that would kill for similar reasons.
My scenario, requires no hate on the part of people to hold these positions.
Steve, with respect to your response to #20, I think that it is probably true although perhaps you shouldn’t be too depressed. People’s innate feelings with regard to other’s desires are themselves often the result of birth and circumstance and are so themselves accidents as you put it. Hence people can’t easily change whether they feel something is more tragic or more despicable.
Whether a reasonable justice system can look at things more objectively is a separate matter although the fact that the system is heavily influenced by people’s innate feelings, rather than logic, is not cause for optimism.
Neil:
Similarly, if the would-be killer wants sex, a living victim would have been willing to have sex to save her life or to pay the killer to forego both, but killing first and having sex after precludes that bargain
But in this case, it appears the killer was not seeking sex per se. He was seeking, in particular, sex with a corpse. So I don’t think we can point to a missed opportunity for a Pareto improvement here (unless, of course, the victim could have offered sufficient cash to the killer — but then the same is true in cases where the killer takes a lot of money).
Building off first point of Phil from Comment 4…
The perception of both cases centers around preventability and evolutionary adaptations which direct our (vicarious) emotional energy to those setbacks which are most preventable and most severe. Risk that have both high severity and high preventability should have highest evolutionary priority.
The first case is motivating because it is both severe and highly preventable.
The second case represents a public display of defeat and symbolizes the ultimate loss of power. Failed power struggles fall into the preventable category and the severe category (especially if publicly displayed).
This interpretation might incorrectly predict that the first case be perceived as more reprehensible than the second (it is of equal evolutionary severity but seems more preventable), but it might correctly predict that the second is more painful when broadcast on the news.
Prof. Landsburg:
I don’t know what to think of myself, but I don’t agree with comment 20. If, for some reason, my son was to die as a baby, I’d perversely bury him in the ground or cremate him rather than let someone eat him. Putting him in the ground would not only deprive this person, who, for some reason, I can’t help but think of as a monster, but it would also cost many resources when eating him would cost almost none. I can’t quickly think of a rational reason for the way I feel about this, but I’d make this decision off of how I feel.
Furthermore, this all reminds me of something from the news from long ago:
When I was in fourth grade, WOKR reported that a man dug up another man in the cemetery and “slept with him.” Something jogged my memory of this a couple years ago and only then did I realized what they meant by “sleep.”
Are people monsters when they are upset by this situation? He didn’t even kill the man that he dug up. Had the man been reburied before anyone else ever knew? If so, is his only real crime getting caught? (That reminds me of your blog post on that Arizona photon tort)
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, morality demands respect for the dead person’s body therefore in case #2 you have not stated an obvious unseen factor. The evaluation should be on the second crime (crime/sin or peoples’ beliefs), not the first, murder. Social norms, the perceived glue that holds things together, are crumbling more quickly as more core beliefs are threatened.
As an aside, this seems to be the basis of Trump’s support: Take back America. Accept or reject it, from an economics perspective this is how preferences are revealed.
I am prepared to accept a failing grade for not addressing the problem as stated, but I want to take a step back and understand who it is we are discussing here. If it is reporters, I’m not sure what to say, as they seem out of touch with most of the rest of us. If it is people in general, I suspect a majority, or at least a large faction, would respond along the following lines: “What are you talking about? The fact that they killed someone is the cardinal sin here. I don’t care if they got 23c or $10,000 or a post-homicidal fantasy kick.” Sure, maybe if you asked people specifically to rate these, you would get some contradictory answers, but thinking of the slaying as overshadowing whatever came after should be the norm.
I agree with David R Henderson about the 23 cents.
As for the corpse, many people feel such an act is immoral in itself. It is then seen as an exacerbation of the murder.
In both of these interpretations it is pity for the victims which is actuated: the easily averted murder, the further depravation suffered.
I see no inconsistency here.
Steve:
My second point was strictly about comparing stealing for 23 cents and stealing for $10,000.
This was mainly in response to this bit:
“People feel better about a murder when they learn that the killer stole $10,000 from the heirs as opposed, to, say, 23 cents. This suggests that they care more about the killer than they do about the heirs, who could be pretty much anyone.”
In your account, the relevant factors in people’s minds are the respective (dis)utilities of the murder to the killer and to the heirs.
In my account, the relevant factor is the killer’s expected future behaviour. (And his expected future disutility to others.)
I agree that this has no bearing on how someone who murders for sex is to be judged. $10,000-Paul and Murder-Sex-Mary appear equally dangerous. (Although Mary appears weirder and therefore less predictable, I suppose.)
I meant to address the sex thing only in the first of the two points I made, which was that most people think sex with a corpse is immoral per se. So again this is a factor unrelated to anyone’s utility which is not present in your blog post’s account. And I am fairly confident that it looms much larger in most people’s minds than any of your utility considerations. If you disagree, I’d like to know why.
I don’t mean to say anything about whether people’s moral judgments are correct here. I’m just speculating about what factors influence most people’s judgments.