Philosophy Now Forum

"Cousins was sentenced Sept. 19 to 65 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder. During that hearing, Prosecutor Pat Harrington said Cousins, who had struggled in some classes and left Purdue at one point, envied Boldt, who was described as a top student." (Emphasis added)
http://www.twincities.com/News/Wisconsi ... -in-prison

Helmut Schoeck"s treatise on envy is a classic. I read the book many years ago. He cited a case of two college roommates, one plain, the other a classic beauty. The former secretly envied the latter. One night the plain girl got up and brutally stabbed the beauty multiple times to death as she slept. So an emotion (and vice) can serve as the proximate cause of a crime.
http://www.amazon.com/ENVY-Theory-Behav ... words=envy

I recall another crime, also in Wisconsin, where the motive was apparently an emotion. One morning I read a brief article in the newspaper. It described a crime scene, a nude man's body, where the genitals had been excessively mutilated by a knife. In the article, a detective was quoted as saying that "it was the worst case of homosexual overkill that he had ever seen." Curious, I called Detective Dick Yagoda to inquire if the crime scene was common, a type. He said yes, and that they start their investigation looking for a possible homosexual perpetrator.

Several months ago in the Twin Cities a gay guy shot multiple times and killed his former boyfriend at a gas station in broad daylight. The deceased guy was engaged to marry a different guy. The shooter was recently arrested, having eluded police for over a month.
I'm following this complex case to see what emotions were involved, if any.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-seek ... minn-exec/

Are really extreme cases a good way to understand envy, when there's such a bountiful of ordinary occurrences?

The Voice of Time wrote:Are really extreme cases a good way to understand envy, when there's such a bountiful of ordinary occurrences?

Extreme cases are a good way of learning just how powerful a vice or emotion can be. Isn't it amazing that an unchecked envy can cause a person to kill! Should not parents and teachers know about the vices and virtues when they engage in character formation of their young charges?

I think extreme cases are not very representative of a general subject. It follows from the definition of "extreme".

To avoid treating extreme cases as if they represent normality, one would have to reword the subject, because there would be a lot more significant factors in a deviance than a normality, or else you'd not be able to separate them.

The Voice of Time wrote:I think extreme cases are not very representative of a general subject. It follows from the definition of "extreme".

To avoid treating extreme cases as if they represent normality, one would have to reword the subject, because there would be a lot more significant factors in a deviance than a normality, or else you'd not be able to separate them.

I have not claimed that the extreme case represents normality.