The Oslo mass murderer can call himself a “conservative” because some people (very unwisely) have accepted such people as William James and David Hume as “conservative” philosophers.

“The right is just the expedient in our way of thinking”.

If there is no objective truth then if the Oslo mass murderer believes he was engaged in “war” (not in shooting unarmed civilians) that is up to him – there is no objective yardstick to judge the matter by.

And if there is no objective right and wrong – then the judgement of the Oslo mass murderer (that his actions were good) can not be questioned from any objective standpoint.

Nor is it just William James and the Pramatists.

David Hume (supposedly one the great philsophers of all time) said the following.

“Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions”.

The Oslo mass murderer had a passion to murder a large number of people – so he used his reason to work out the best way to do so.

According to David Hume (who, I repeat, is considered one of the great philosphers of all time) there can be no question of real choice here – as reason is the “slave” of the passions.

And this is as it should be – as reason “OUGHT” to be the slave of the passions. In short even if did have a choice (which, according the David Hume, he did not) the Oslo mass murderer should have acted exactly as he did.

Because reason is (supposedly) the “slave of the passions” and it aslo “ought to be” the slave of the passions.

Ought from an is – I thought Hume did not approve of that (well perhaps he just did not approve of other people doing it).

Anyway are we to say that William James and David Hume are “insane”?

Consider that if he is charged with the crimes committed, he will have to be tried. Even if there are provisions for in camera trials and the sequestration of all the proceedings in Norway; there is no way to guarantee that any pleas and justifications that Breivik would offer would not eventually become public knowledge.

As Mr. de Havilland notes:

He sees himself as a soldier fighting in a war… and whilst he is correct there is a culture war going on and he is even correct as to much of its character, it is not the kind of war that his kind of mass murder really fits into because it is a figurative war, not a literal war… but then that is how I see it. The ways he sees it is mistaken but it is hardly insane.

The possibility that the culture war and its character may resonate with any significant portion of the populace if the trial proceedings get out has got to terrify the Norwegian equivalent of the Nomenklatura. From their point of view, subverting the rule of law to protect themselves is a feature and not a bug.

Oh, and Dave …. I was under the impression that Washington state west of, say, Cle Elum was politically a People’s Republic. So civil commitment fits [smile] .

Subotai Bahadur

The insanity defense is there for those who are “crazy-crazy” – voices in the head, etc. Nobody argues that the top Nazis or Serbs or Hutus or whatever belong in a padded room, even though their crimes were of such as a scope as to be “insane” to us, and the same should apply to Behring – he’s evil-crazy, not crazy-crazy.

Then along comes a Brevik, who is obviously, grandiosely, floridly insane and a real and enormous danger to the public.

Real and enormous danger to the public… clearly. Insane? Well no. He sees himself as a soldier fighting in a war… and whilst he is correct there is a culture war going on and he is even correct as to much of its character, it is not the kind of war that his kind of mass murder really fits into because it is a figurative war, not a literal war… but then that is how I see it. The ways he sees it is mistaken but it is hardly insane. It is extreme, not crazy.

I do not agree with many aspects of of his collectivist world view but he understand what he did and has a perfectly logical and coherent set of reasoning behind it all. Just as a suicide bomber is not ‘insane’ when he blows himself up on a bus and slaughters many civilians, this guy is similarly not ‘insane’. Call him mistaken, call him ruthless, call him evil, call him anything except… insane… cos he ain’t, at least not in the sense that should ever be argued as such in a court of law. He most certainly did and still does have the requisite ‘mens rea’ to be held fully culpable for his actions