The ends do not justify the mobs

Mobs are born of passion, which is at odds with reason and deliberative democracy. In our system, the rule of law creates norms and procedures, which are preconditions to the most necessary ingredient to democracy: trust. Trust collapses when lawmaking or judicial opinions are accompanied by images of nooses and coat-hangers. Mobs by nature cannot control themselves, due to the vortex of human nature they let loose. Chaos can quickly envelop them. Few participating in mob-like behavior intend to do violence. They end up doing so because disorder invites malevolence.

Mobs are not peaceful protests, which we ought to welcome. Our Constitution gives ample space for the freedom to assemble and to petition for a redress of grievances. It is a blessing of liberty that our Constitution etches such freedoms into our laws. We can all look back upon history to the many peaceful and necessary protests that pricked our nation’s conscience. Such protests are an antidote to deranged behavior of mobs.

As an ethicist, I teach against “consequentialism”—the mode of moral reasoning which suggests that the ends or goals justify the means of any action necessary to accomplish them. It is a school of thought which can license all form of moral anarchy, such as torture or indiscriminate killing. Mobs embody this mode of thinking: insofar as the cause is righteous, do whatever is necessary to get the result you want. That might sound alright, but it creates disorder. The ends do not justify the mobs. It simply guts democracy of the reasoned sobriety necessary for sound judgment.