The Moral Vacuum 🧹🌀🔌

Shelby argues that an unjust state lacks the moral authority to condemn certain crimes, especially those with roots in systemic distributive injustice, yet it must enforce laws to protect vulnerable citizens. His argument seperates condemnation against those who break the law from enforcement and damnation of those same people. His goal in this is to prevent the state from hypocritically blaming those it effectively engendered to law-breaking, while still protecting society from their law-breaking activities. 

Yet, Shelby's moral argument has an unintended consequence--something akin to a "moral vacuum." The state is still imposing punishment, but not claiming the moral high-ground for condemnation, creating a vacuum of what is "right" and "wrong." This vacuum, I think, is filled by informal networks of community justice that do pass moral judgments that are enforced through extralegal pathways. Because Shelby's unjust state can not rightly blame offenders, its punishments come without condemnation. This inability to condemn, I argue, allows alternative forms of moral authority to emerge--simply, gangs. 

To illustrate, view ghettos which, because of distributive injustice which causes their residents to view state condemnation as unjust because of their unfair socioeconomic position, currently exist beyond the state's condemnation authority. Residents of ghettos deal with frequent violence, extortion, and theft from others in the community. The state still enforces laws by arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating law breakers, yet fails to pass condemnation, rather saying (in a broad sense), "we'll punish you to protect others, but we do not have the authority to blame you for the actions you took in a complete sense." Residents, suffering from frequent crime, will look for an entity which claims moral authority to say (in a broad sense) "this is wrong! We won't stand for this." Now, the alternative moral authorities emerge, claiming the moral voice absent from the state. These gangs become the de-facto moral arbiter, passing condemnation on law-breakers. Without a single moral authority, the moral vacuum allows for a struggle of condemnation between two groups both claiming to be the rightful authority. This leads, I think, to a Lockean state-of-nature style retribution cycle.

More concretely, this leads to retaliatory attacks. A resident of a ghetto breaks the law, using a firearm to rob another resident. He is arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for five years. Yet, because the state is unable to pass a moral judgement against this disadvantaged person, the moral vacuum allows for gang retaliation. On release, or when he is still incarcerated, the gang to which the victim or her family was member seeks retaliation by killing or maiming the offender. This, crucially, is not just violence, but condemnation. The gang has, in lieu of state authority, passed a moral judgement on the offender. They have sent a moral message to the community that the offender is dishonorable, traitorous, or culpable. They have said (in a broad sense), "this transgression is intolerable, and damnation through jailtime is not enough." Now, the gang to which to the offender was member, a rival moral authority, seeks retaliation by killing or maiming a member of the rival gang. This cycle continues absent an absolute moral authority, and leads to magnitudes more suffering for the oppressed than would have been if the state was in the position to pass moral condemnation on the criminals it processes.

The point of this blog post is not to say that Shelby is wrong in his assessment of state moral authority. I agree strongly that the state is in no position to pass moral judgements on oppressed peoples which it is partially responsible for pushing into criminal acts. Rather, it attempts to highlight a consequence of the state failing to hold moral censure status. 

Some notes:

Gangs still do pass moral judgements even when the state does claim the moral ability for condemnations. This is because the state's claim of moral high ground does not give the state moral high ground. Oppressed peoples rightly recognize, whether the state claims it or not, that condemnation passed by an unjust state is false.

Shelby does recognize the possibility for positive alternative moral authorities, like community based leadership, moral and empathetic churches, and grassroots nonprofits. Yet, I believe the outcome of gang-violence is more likely because of their armed, extensive networks of coerced actors. As opposed to the former, which rely on voluntary participation and limited resources.