In the field of moral aphorism there is no more contradictory swarm of injunctions, observations and resolutions than those concerning what we do, should do, or should not do to others. Prince Harry's cap is an entrant to this debate, and it is severely at odds with Christianity as regards what to do to bad people; for, familiarly, the latter says we should offer them the other cheek (though I suppose there is an interpretation of Harry's cap that would agree, provided the cheek is below the belt).
A perennial debate surrounds the "do unto others" cliché: is it "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or "do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you"? George Bernard Shaw advised against the former, on the grounds that others may not like having done to them what you would like them to do to you—thus claiming the latter to be superior. Think about it, though; might it too not fall under Shaw's stricture that you cannot know what others would like?
In both cases, the "unto others" injunction misses a point: that the most enlightened and generous moral attitudes are premised on the possibility that others can be very different from oneself, making one's own likes and dislikes little more than a self-regarding basis for thinking about others' needs and desires, and of how to adjust one's behaviour towards them accordingly.
This is why literature and the arts are so important, in (among other things) educating our moral insights and sympathies, so that we can recognise and respect differences from ourselves, and act appropriately. Human diversity is great, and failure to grasp the true texture of that diversity is the cause of much narrow-mindedness, self-centredness, and unkindness.
But to be over-tolerant is just as harmful. Bad people do bad things for lots of different reasons, some meriting concern, some meriting a robust kicking. In war, the folk on the other side are this latter kind of bad by definition—they are trying to kill you—and what they do accordingly invites kicking first and discussion, if any, afterwards. That's the context for Harry's cap.
The cap's legend is thus an understandable exhortation to its wearer and his comrades as well as a threat to the bad. But as a general principle—well: no. Doing bad to the bad should not be a preferred first step, even if to some of the bad it ends up being a necessary last step. And there is surely no need to explain why.
Sent in by Alan Tower, Rotherfield, Sussex.
Send your philosophical queries to question@prospect-magazine.co.uk
