Aristotle's Philosophy Applied to John W. Hickley Jr.

The purpose of this research is to examine how Aristotle might have demonstrated that John W. Hinckley Jr. was not responsible for his attempt to kill President Ronald Reagan. The plan of the research will be to set forth a demonstration in general terms with reference to the overarching structure of The Nicomachean Ethics, and then to explore Hinckley's action in the context of Aristotle's discussion of the conditions under which individuals can be held responsible for actions.

The problem of demonstrating in Aristotelian terms an absence of responsibility for an action that, on the surface, seems to so great an extent a consequence of planning and foresight turns out to be extremely complex if one cannot take refuge in the (seemingly straightforward) given of Hinckley's insanity as explaining his involuntary action. Accordingly, it is necessary to establish a background for Aristotelian demonstration of Hinckley's lack of responsibility.

A deceptively obvious aspect of this background is Aristotle's very conception of ethics as purposeful and scientific, aiming at the good. For Aristotle, the science of the good is political, which can be seen as a structure encasing the vicissitudes of human interaction and evaluation of whether that interaction is good. "It makes no difference," Aristotle says, "whether the activities themselves are the ends of the action, or something beyond the activities" (Aristotle, 1980, p. 1). An individual's purpose, while not irrelevant, is subs

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ess Hinckley's highly publicized reason for killing Reagan--to impress the actress Jodie Foster--is called forth to explain his actions in terms of psychological compulsion from the outside. The Jodie Foster factor seems to have stronger connection to what is irrational, "resisting and opposing" the rational principle and perhaps causing the soul to "move astray" more or less as the physical body does from time to time (Aristotle, 1980, p. 26). It has already been suggested that Hinckley's action can be interpreted as involuntary owing to ignorance, based on the evidence that his insanity is a symptom of a void of knowledge of virtuous behavior. It can be conjectured, following Aristotle's criteria for having such knowledge, that if Hinckley ever had been able to form a clear picture of the consequences (objects) of his action, he had fallen out of the habit by the time he shot Reagan. Now according to Aristotle, only if one is ignorant of "who he is, what or whom he is acting on, and sometimes also what . . . he is doing it with, and to what end . . . and how he is doing it" (Aristotle, 1980, p. 51) is one mad. To the degree Hinckley knew his target (Reagan) and the "end" of his action (impressing Jodie Foster), then he does not

Category: Philosophy - A