Yankah’s, “Good Guys and Bad Guys”
Type 2: Comparative Insight
In Yakah’s, “Good Guys and Bad Guys,” he starts off by sharing a story to the readers about an incident that had occurred to him. When he was in law school a car hit his bumper while driving. Yankah and his friend were two black men while the man who had caused the accident was a foreign Arab man. The difference between Yakah and the man was that Yakah was able to speak to the police officers in a professional, educated way, as well as share his friends’ status of working at law firm. In contrast, the other man had a heavy accent and was not able to communicate with the officer as well as Yakah did. The officers very easily placed all of the blame on the foreign man without giving him a moment to explain what happened. I believe that was a great way to begin the article because it shows that the officers already saw the foreign man as being a “bad” person, while viewing Yakah and his friend as “good.”
This heavily helps the argument Yakah presents of how often individuals are punished based on their character, simply by whether the person is seen as a “good” or “bad” person. Yakah argues that it is unjust to punish individuals based on being seen as bad. He continues, “By holding on to the heroes and villands, the law justifies punishment and suppresses the common humanity of criminal offenders.” (1022) This increases the probability of criminal offenders to be convicted of a crime more often, since they are already seen as bad individuals. Yakah proceeds by giving an example of a situation of where a man puts sugar into another’s coffee cup, thinking that it is arsenic. This man had the intent to kill the man drinking the coffee, however, there is no evidence of his criminal intention. Yakah believes that evidence is needed to prosecute, not just based on individual morals. (1027) While reading this, it reminded me of quite a contrasting view on intent. In Immanuel Kant’s, “Groundwork for Metaphysics of Morals,” Kant lays down the moral laws to distinguish good from bad. Unlike Yakah, Kant believes we should judge individuals on their moral beings, and that all of our actions have maxims. Simply put, maxims are an individuals intentions and motives to act on an action. Kant believes that these intentions are fundamental in judging individuals. In the example of the man putting sugar into the coffee, it is interesting to think about what Kant would say. From understanding maxims, Kant would believe that the man should be judged on putting sugar in the cup. This is because the man had the intent of murdering, therefore, the maxim is morally wrong, which would make the man a “bad” person.
Yakah, however, believes that there are implications to punishing the character of an individual. Once an individual is judged on character, these assumptions become fixed, meaning they are permanently seen as either good or bad. (1027) Therefore his solution is to use the act theory, which is focusing on what a person actually does, instead of focusing on who a person is. This is interesting because when reading about Kant, I was convinced on his idea of maxims, however, I agree with yakah that we should not punish based on morality, because often, it leads to stereotypes and targets minorities. Although Yakah gave the story of where he was seen as a “good” guy, black individuals are seen as “bad” based on their character. I have seen this first hand as being a Latina and how officers have looked as myself and my family, and seen how they act differently once my father speaks in broken English. Conclusions about characters should not lead to fixed judgments on groups of people.
Kant, I., Gregor, M. J., & Kant, I. (1998). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.
Yankah, E., & Cardozo, B. (2017). Good Guys and Bad Guys: Punishing Character, Equality and the Irrelevance of Moral Character to Criminal Punishment.
