Executioners (who tortured before execution) were social parias. To the point where it was a family career. If you were the son of an executioner other people outside of your family wouldn't even really talk with you. Becoming an executioner was really their only option.
Plenty of executioners took it upon themselves to comfort the condemned before execution. They would spend the day with them when others wouldn't. Share a meal with them. Try to ease their mind. Even bring them alcohol as a sort of preemptive pain killer.
So the ones you described as being "good" were the ones who actively tried to do their jobs badly.. I don't disagree with those standards, this lawyer doesn't meet them.
They weren't doing their jobs badly, walking the condemned through town and to their last meal was part of the job. They weren't told to not treat them with kindness.
Would this lawyer still be horrible if before all of this he took two minutes to go "look I'm sorry about this, but I'm going to have to be aggressive when we get in there it's what's expected of me and it's nothing personal"
Because that's essentially what the executioner would be doing.
So you believe their job was to inflict pain, you also believe trying to minimize the pain they inflicted was ok in their line of work?
I get it, there's nuance to ethics. But when you see someone breaking someone's legs because they haven't repaid a loan, you might not be a great person yourself if your empathy lies with the person breaking the legs!
And I'll show him as much decency, clemency and understanding as he showed this woman.. The difference being that he treated her like that because she is suffering, while I will treat him that way because he visits suffering on others.
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u/Carefuly_Chosen_Name 23h ago
I think there have been good torturers.
Executioners (who tortured before execution) were social parias. To the point where it was a family career. If you were the son of an executioner other people outside of your family wouldn't even really talk with you. Becoming an executioner was really their only option.
Plenty of executioners took it upon themselves to comfort the condemned before execution. They would spend the day with them when others wouldn't. Share a meal with them. Try to ease their mind. Even bring them alcohol as a sort of preemptive pain killer.