Presence

In the book The Minority Report (The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Vol. 4), by science fiction legend Philip K. Dick (and the subsequent film starring Tom Cruise), future criminals are arrested before they commit a crime. In Dick's future world, new precognition technology allows law enforcement to see into the future and stop a bad guy before he commits a heinous act. The bad guys are locked up without every having committed a crime. I won't spoil the book for you, it's an excellent read, but it does bring up an interesting question: is it just to hold someone morally responsible for a crime he has yet to commit?

The instinctive response is that this is unjust. How can one be convicted of a crime without having done anything? However, in fact, we do already punish some individuals for only thinking or planning on committing a crime; conspiracy to commit murder and reckless driving are some examples where we punish even though nothing happened. In these cases, the behavior exhibited shows that the offender would have committed a greater offense, and so punishment is justified even though nothing was actually done (part of this depends on how you view the function of punishment, but that's a post for another day).

Beyond this, however, a deeper question arises: wouldn't it be possible that, although this person planned on committing a crime, that they would, at the last minute, for some inexplicable reason, decide not to? How can we punish, or hold responsible, someone who might, at the last minute, change their mind?

Of course, this gets into a broader discussion of man's free will, or perhaps his perception of his free will, which is a topic for another time. The question I would like to address here is: what is the Torah's perspective?

I was a bit surprised to find that the Torah, in fact, addresses this topic directly. In Devarim 21:18-21, the Torah states:

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, that will not hearken to the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not hearken unto them; 19 then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; 20 and they shall say unto the elders of his city: 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he doth not hearken to our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.' 21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die; so shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

The famous case of the Ben Sorer, the Rebellious Child. The Mishnah goes to great lengths to show that a case of Ben Sorer is extremely unlikely to ever occur; the parameters for qualification are so specific that the Talmud goes so far as to propose that the whole parsha is simply a thought experiment. But what is the thought?

The Mishneh in the eight chapter of Sanhedrin makes this clear:

בן סורר ומורה, יידון על שם סופו--ימות זכאי, ואל ימות חייב: שמיתתן של רשעים--הניה להם, והניה לעולם; ולצדיקים--רע להם, ורע לעולם.

The Rebellious Child is judged by his future deeds; better for him to die in merit, than to die after committing a crime. For death, for evildoers is a benefit to them, and to the world, while death for a righteous individual is bad for them, and bad for the world.

We see that the purpose of the passage of the Ben Sorer is to teach that, in certain circumstances, we are so certain of the future path of a particular individual, we take preemptive action to prevent it from occurring. If we have enough information as to his background, which will inevitable inform his future actions, the Torah tells us that we can, with certainty, take preemptive measures. In the case of the Rebellious Child, those circumstances are so many and specific to the point that they will never happen, but that's not the point; for some people, the Torah feels, their past completely determines their future actions, with no hope of their exercising free will to change it. In this case, it's better to act preemptively than to let the evil transpire.

As further proof that preemptive justice is the point of the parsha of Ben Sorer, take a look at the last two mishnayos in the eighth chapter of Sanhedrin. The penultimate mishnah uses the same language that was previously used to describe the Ben Sorer: "A tunneling burglar is judged by his future deeds." In this case, as the burglar has gone to so much trouble to break into a house, if confronted by the owner, he won't hesitate to commit murder. One is, therefore, allowed to kill a tunneling burglar without fear of reprisal [this case is interesting in that the burglar is destined to commit murder only if he is confronted; so there is a potential that he will not do anything - yet preemptive justice is still sanctioned]. And the final mishnah lists those the cases where one is allowed to kill another person to prevent them from harming another, the classic example of which is the rodef, one who is chasing another person with intent to kill. Again, the example shows the sanction, in this case, of preemptive action to prevent a crime from being committed.

As strange as it may sound, we see that preemptive justice is sanctioned in specific cases by the Torah. When an individual's past, a combination of his biology and experiences, unfold in specific ways, their future actions are certain, beyond the realm of choice. In these cases, the Torah instructs that it is better to prevent the certain future event from taking place, than to allow events to unfold on their own.