In a recent case less than a month ago, 19-year-old Olga Moskalyova and her stepfather were killed and eaten alive by wild bears in rural east Siberia. The disturbing part of the story was that Olga had phoned her mother, Tatiana, and was giving her a live commentary as she was being attacked and eaten. Tatiana called for help as soon as she got wind of the situation, but the officials were unable to pinpoint the pair's location. Igor was first killed by a mother bear, after which Olga tried to escape, but was caught and mauled as well, which is when she placed the first call to her mother. After this, the bear left, but soon returned with three cubs. Olga called her mother a second time, telling her that the bears were now eating her. In her third and final call, Olga gave her final words, "Mum, it's not hurting anymore. I don't feel the pain. Forgive me for everything, I love you so much." Igor and Olga's bodies were found shortly after, still being devoured by the mother bear. The emergency control sent six hunters to dispatch the four bears responsible for the attack. Some, especially those who are sympathetic towards the family for this horrific tragedy, agree the bears should be "made responsible" for this to prevent similar events from happening. Others are more in the environmentalist state of mind and argue that the bears were only doing what bears do, and it is unfair to punish them by our own societal standards.
Here, we have two Ways of Knowing, Reason and Emotion, in conflict. Emotion places ourselves in the shoes of any of the victims; what horror must the daughter have felt? What terror, and grief, must her mother deal with for the rest of her life? Reason comes to the bears' defense in light of nature. Nature is wild and can be harsh, different from our societal rules and moral values. Wild bears are predators, and to them we are either rival predators or prey. Either way, the attack was not unjustified if we use reason from an environmentalist's point of view.
Emotion is the empathy that those who hear this story feel for this family. Emotion tells us no fellow human being should have to experience this horror, and to prevent anything like it from happening, it is right to hunt down the bears responsible. If we act with Emotion, we are acting on gut instinct and sometimes without reasonable motives. However, if we act without Emotion, we instead become heartless and unsympathetic, which our inherent human nature protests against. Of course Olga and her stepfather could have taken precautions to prevent the tragedy from occurring, but the outcome was in no way justified, either.
Reason, on the other hand, understands that bears are aggressive and dangerous predators. Olga and her stepfather were in the rural, likely encroaching on their territory, and a violent response was nothing out of the ordinary for a wild animal. It could be that the bears were low on food supply, and as we know, a loss of habitation and food sources is the result of human urban sprawl. Reason says that the bears did the only logical thing for a bear to do. The attack on Olga and her stepfather is horrific to us, but happens every day in nature. Reason says we are trying to view the event from our own human standards, which condemns the bear with labels like 'heartless', 'murderous', 'vicious'.
There are often cases where animals are responsible for behavior towards humans that would be condemned or prosecuted by our standards. Zoos, which promise entertainment and safe environment, are not always so. No matter how tame-seeming, animals who naturally belonged in the wild still have their instincts. There are cases of people getting cocky, stepping over the railing, and being attacked by a lion or wolf. People who try to bring up half-wolves or even full wolves as pets sometimes experience a shock when their beloved pet tries to take a snap at them. Though at times it is easy to blame the person for lack of common sense and safety precautions, we must also place ourselves into their shoes, the victims of one-in-a-million chance circumstances. Whenever Reason and Emotion are involved in a controversial issue, it becomes almost a question of solid facts that threaten to override your sense of human compassion. This is why we try not to prioritize one over the other - decisions made that consider both Emotion and Reason allow us to see a situation in light of a fellow human being, while also thinking it through with proper logic.
The main issue being discussed here reason versus emotion, and what balance or usage is appropriate in life. Sometimes being too emotional or too rational and distort your thinking. You went into very good details and descriptions about how the reasoning and emotional based ideas differ, and provide ample support for both sides. This issue about emotions versus reasoning can be tied to the issue of how mentally capable does a person (or animal) have to be to be punished for his or her wrongdoings. If the bear can be excused with reasoning that bears are not capable of feeling human emotions of sorrow, terror, and grief to the extent that humans can, then with the same logic, psychopaths can be excused for murders because they cannot feel these human emotions can well. A psychopath can't be blamed as he or she was born this way and he or she can't help it, just as a bear is born with the natural goals in life of eat, sleep, and reproduce. However, this is not the general consensus of the world, as people would most likely immediately label a person who murdered another person as a murderer no matter what mental state the person is in. Where should the line be drawn for condemnable and innocent? If the reasoning goes as far as to relating bears to psychopaths, then I think that reasoning could also lead to the conclusion that the bear should be held responsible for the murder and the grief caused.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with how emotion and reason are the most prominent ways of knowing that come to play in this issue. However, I think that to some extent, our decisions and attitudes towards certain subject matters are susceptible to biases because both emotion and reason are factors that influence and impact our decisions as human beings. I want to further touch upon this idea of decision-making either through the lens of emotional reasoning or through logical reasoning. I think both factors impede our abilities to look at something through different perspectives since they fabricate the individual biases that we carry out beforehand. Also, when it comes to investigations like this one, it’s difficult to come to a conclusion when there are no eyewitnesses present. I’m sure that those who sympathized with the daughter and the stepfather immediately drew to the conclusion of killing the bears because the pair was innocent and thus this course of action served to be unjust. It is difficult however, to find out exactly what happened that caused the bears to eat the pair. It is possible that the pair could have triggered the bears to perform such a task and provoked them to do so. However, these are all ideas that are seemingly hard to prove or disprove without having actual evidence present during the scene of the investigation.
ReplyDeleteThough this could go off on a completely different tangent, an example that relates to this case is 12 Angry Men, especially the characters of juror #3 and #4. Juror #3 was one who was completely caught up by his emotional feelings and neglected to consider the possibility of wrongly accusing the defendant for a crime that he may not have committed. Juror #4 lies on the other side of the spectrum and was dominated only by reason and logic. These two characters clearly portray how emotion and reason prevented them from taking into consideration the different details that all contributed to making up the entire case. In other words, because of either emotion or reason, they failed to see the collective idea of the case. The end result of the jury having switched from voting for 'guilty' to 'not guilty' emphasizes the idea that our decisions are susceptible to change and influence. As a result, one must take into account of who is able to draw the line between what is considered as guilty and what is innocent. This idea is certainly applicable to many cases that pertain to our everyday lives, certainly not excluding this bear case.