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Part 3 of 4
So if we can't possibly know the consequences of ending a life, we can't ever know what it is that we're doing to somebody when we end their life. If we are sending the person to heaven, or off to begin a new life, or even if we're simply moving them along to some subsequent stage of some plan by a divine being, it's very likely that there's nothing wrong with our decision to execute murderers. We are, as many protestants and muslims would argue, simply carrying out God's will. This would be a very rational thing to do, once we postulated the existence of God (and frankly, denying God's existence isn't any more rational than assuming it). On the other hand, as a Catholic, I would never be able to support that thinking. I would refuse to have anything to do with Capital punishment.
So essentially, there are many unknowns that we have to choose a position to believe in in order to be able to begin to make reasonable decisions. Nobody knows for sure if there are ever circumstances when it is reasonable to end a life, and so we must all guess. For all of us, this is a matter of faith at some level or another. So my position is that it is just as likely that a rational leader would be willing to take a life for the good of his people, as that such a leader would only make a decision like that in a panic. Both are valid scenarios.
As to your reading of Jung, your description of his argument is very different from what I'm familiar with. My reasoning on Jung is based on his last book, Man and His Symbols, which I recommend highly. There is an illustrated edition, and also a regular paperback that also has a number of pictures, but not as many as the other.
What I got out of Jung is that the psyche contains a sort of censor, which I really think is part of the conscious. I can't imagine how it could do it's job within the conscious mind, and I don't think that Jung ever argued that it did. The purpose of the unconscious is to maintain balance in the psyche, and since there are experiences we have that can really blow our circuits, we've got a censor who's capable of seeing that coming and throwing the circuits so we don't hurt ourselves trying to deal with that. This isn't such a strange claim; we have a physicological mechanism that does the very same thing. If I get in a car accident and my leg is cut off, my body goes into a state of shock. I may go numb or pass out. This is a trauma that is too big to handle all at once, and my body makes sure I don't have to.
Continued: Part 4 of 4
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Language pair: English; All
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