Question:
On 7 January 2015 Corrine Rey, a cartoonist at Charlie Hebdo, returned from picking up her daughter from kindergarten. She was confronted by two Jihadist gunmen, who threatened to shoot her daughter unless she keyed in the entry code at the door for the magazine. She did; and the gunmen entered to murder twelve people, including two policemen, as well as shooting eleven others. Can a mother be blamed for only thinking of protecting her child?
The actions taken by those in dire situations concerning loved ones can often lead to at least a shred of controversy. In the case of Corrine Ray, however, a number of factors played into her decision to spare her daughters life in return for opening the door to two Jihadist gunmen being a morally right one. The first condition is that she should not have had to make that decision. Though the Charlie Hebdo headquarters were protected by the police, they were not efficiently so; resulting entrance of the gunmen, the death of ten workers and two policemen and the injury of eleven other civilians. Due to this lack of protection, even if Corrine had opted to be responsible for the death of her daughter and herself, the gunmen would have undoubtedly found another way to carry out their ‘mission,’ be it by finding another way in or by waiting for the workers to leave the building. Secondly, Corrine’s identity as a mother and the basic overwhelming human instinct to protect her child ultimately validate and justify her actions. One could substitute Corrine Ray with any other mother and the same decision would be made. That being said, it goes against Immanuel Kant’s idea of morality quite dramatically. Kant claims that to be moral is to make decisions entirely based off of rationality; to suppress emotions and desires. Had Corrine been suppressing her desire and feelings in the moment she had to make her decision, she would have weighed the option of two lives against any given number out of those in the building and maybe come to the decision of letting her innocent daughter be sacrificed for several of her colleagues. Kant’s principle of morality being an applicable universal law also suggests she made the wrong choice; if every mother was faced with the decision of being indirectly responsible for the death of twelve for the life of her child, the only people left on earth would be mothers and children. However, I truly believe it is a decision which all mentally and emotionally stable mothers would make, which points out prominent flaws in Kant’s moral philosophy. But, as a relativist, even Kant would have to realize, if not admit, that Corrine’s experience as a mother would factor in to her decision and ultimately justify it.
