Serial Killers - Philosophy for Everyone E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Philosophy for Everyone
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 435

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Serial Killers - Philosophy for Everyone investigates our profound intrigue with mass-murderers. Exploring existential, ethical and political questions through an examination of real and fictional serial killers, philosophy comes alive via an exploration of grisly death. * Presents new philosophical theories about serial killing, and relates new research in cognitive science to the minds of serial killers * Includes a philosophical look at real serial killers such as Ian Brady, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and the Zodiac killer, as well as fictional serial killers such as Dexter and Hannibal Lecter * Offers a new phenomenological examination of the writings of the Zodiac Killer * Contains an account of the disappearance of one of Ted Bundy's victims submitted by the organization Families and Friends of Missing Persons and Violent Crime Victims * Integrates the insights of philosophers, academics, crime writers and police officers

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Foreword

John M. Doris

Acknowledgments

S. Waller

Introduction: Meditations on Murder, or What is so Philosophical about Serial Killers?

S. Waller and William E. Deal

PART I I THINK THEREFORE I KILL: The Philosophical Musings of Serial Killers

1 Man is the Most Dangerous Animal of All: A Philosophical Gaze into the Writings of the Zodiac Killer

Andrew M. Winters

2 A Philosophy of Serial Killing: Sade, Nietzsche, and Brady at the Gates of Janus

David Schmid

3 The Situation of the Jury: Attribution Bias in the Trials of Accused Serial Killers

Mark Alfano

PART II CAN YOU BLAME THEM? ETHICS, EVIL, AND SERIAL KILLING

4 Serial Killers as Practical Moral Skeptics:A Historical Survey with Interviews

Amanda Howard

5 Are Psychopathic Serial Killers Evil? Are They Blameworthy for What They Do?

Manuel Vargas

6 Sympathy for the Devil: Can a Serial Killer Ever Be Good?

Matthew Brophy

PART III DANGEROUS INFATUATIONS: The Public Fascination with Serial Killers

7 The Allure of the Serial Killer

Eric Dietrich and Tara Fox Hall

8 Dexter’s Dark World: The Serial Killer as Superhero

Susan Amper

PART IV A EULOGY FOR EMOTION: The Lack of Empathy and the Urge to Kill

9 Killing with Kindness: Nature, Nurture, and the Female Serial Killer

Elizabeth Schechter and Harold Schechter

10 It Puts the Lotion in the Basket:The Language of Psychopathy

Chris Keegan

11 Are Serial Killers Cold-Blooded Killers?

Andrew Terjesen

PART V CREEPY COGNITION: Talking and Thinking about Serial Killers

12 The Serial Killer was (Cognitively) Framed

William E. Deal

13 Wolves and Widows:Naming, Metaphor, and the Language of Serial Murder

Wendy M. Zirngibl

14 An Arresting Conversation: Police Philosophize about the Armed and Dangerous

S. Waller (with Diane Amarillas and Karen Kos)

PART VI PSYCHO-OLOGY: Killer Mindsets and Meditations on Murder

15 Psychopathy and Will to Power:Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader

Richard M. Gray

16 The Thread of Death, or the Compulsion to Kill

J. S. Piven

A Solemn Afterword:A Message from the Victim’s Network

Mary Miller

A Timeline of Serial Killers

Amanda Howard

Notes on Contributors

VOLUME EDITOR

S. WALLER is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at MontanaState University Bozeman. Her areas of research are philosophy of neurology, philosophy of cognitive ethology (especially dolphins,wolves, and coyotes), and philosophy of mind, specifically the parts of the mind we disavow.

SERIES EDITOR

FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the PhilosophyDepartment at Western Michigan University, as well as a SeniorResearch Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing thePhilosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co-editorfor several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007),Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe,Wiley-Blackwell, 2007).

PHILOSOPHY FOR EVERYONE

Series editor: Fritz Allhoff

Not so much a subject matter, philosophy is a way of thinking. Thinking not just about the Big Questions, but about little ones too. This series invites everyone to ponder things they care about, big or small, significant, serious … or just curious.

Running & Philosophy: A Marathon for the MindEdited by Michael W. Austin

Wine & Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and DrinkingEdited by Fritz Allhoff

Food & Philosophy: Eat, Think and Be MerryEdited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe

Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth DrinkingEdited by Steven D. Hales

Whiskey & Philosophy: A Small Batch of Spirited IdeasEdited by Fritz Allhoff and Marcus P. Adams

College Sex – Philosophy for Everyone:Philosophers With BenefitsEdited by Michael Bruceand Robert M. Stewart

Cycling – Philosophy for Everyone:A Philosophical Tour de ForceEdited by Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Michael W. Austin

Climbing – Philosophy for Everyone:Because It’s ThereEdited by Stephen E. Schmid

Hunting – Philosophy for Everyone:In Search of the Wild LifeEdited by Nathan Kowalsky

Christmas – Philosophy for Everyone:Better Than a Lump of CoalEdited by Scott C. Lowe

Cannabis – Philosophy for Everyone:What Were We Just Talking About?Edited by Dale Jacquette

Porn – Philosophy for Everyone:How to Think With KinkEdited by Dave Monroe

Serial Killers – Philosophy for Everyone:Being and KillingEdited by S. Waller

Dating – Philosophy for Everyone:Flirting With Big IdeasEdited by Kristie Miller and Marlene Clark

Gardening – Philosophy for Everyone:Cultivating WisdomEdited by Dan O’Brien

Motherhood – Philosophy for Everyone:The Birth of WisdomEdited by Sheila Lintott

Fatherhood – Philosophy for Everyone:The Dao of DaddyEdited by Lon S. Nease and Michael W. Austin

Forthcoming books in the series:

Fashion – Philosophy for Everyone

Edited by Jessica Wolfendale and Jeanette Kennett

Coffee – Philosophy for EveryoneEdited by Scott Parker and Michael W. Austin

Blues – Philosophy for EveryoneEdited by Abrol Fairweather and Jesse Steinberg

This edition first published 2010© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for editorial material and organization© 2010 S. Waller

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

Editorial Offices350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UKThe Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of S. Waller to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Serial killers – philosophy for Everyone:being and killing / edited by S. Waller.

     p. cm. — (Philosophy for everyone)

   Includes bibliographical references.

   ISBN 978-1-4051-9963-6 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Serial murderers—Psychology. 2. Psychology, Pathological. I. Waller, S. II. Title: Serial killers – philosophy for everyone.

   HV6515.S475 2010

   364.152′32—dc22

2010004731

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

JOHN M. DORIS

FOREWORD

Why a philosophy book about serial killers? For all that, why think about serial killers at all? Haven’t we got enough spiders in our heads without filling up on stuff like that?

I know I do. I’m a recovering serial killer addict. I’ve read more than I can remember – or care to – about such aberrations, both factual and fictional. But I’m older now, and possibly a little wiser; I’ve gotten clean, and shaken my infatuation with moral obscenity. Maybe this is the natural course of things; towards the end of a long and admirable life, much of it dedicated to the prevention of cruelty to children, my father watched little but comedies. When you’ve done all you can, who needs reminding about places so far beyond the reach of goodness?

In graduate school, when I first heard about Milwaukee’s Jeffrey Dahmer, I got a bit frayed. Dahmer lived in a dumpy apartment building much like mine, anonymous and unhopeful. I stared at the pictures of his front door: so far as I could tell, it was made of the same wood-like substance that fronted the entrance to my flat. What causes the man in Ann Arbor to fill his rooms with overdue seminar papers, and the man in Milwaukee to fill his with dismembered body parts?

My thoughts began to foul. In the office of the Rock-n-Roll club where I worked as a “doorperson,” I posted a signup sheet for the Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club and Recipe Exchange. I pestered any tolerably coherent customer I was able to corner: “Did you hear about that Dahmer guy?” Not entirely my fault; the workplace was not conducive to optimal psychological sanitation. Under the inevitable “Women – can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em,” scrawled on the men’s room wall, someone had written, in a careful hand, “But you can cut their bodies into little pieces and leave them in the woods.”

Why the nervous laughter? Not merely voyeurism. Even as we drown in an ocean of digitized imagery that both stretches and deadens the imagination, I’m betting the bulk of us don’t have voyeuristic interests quite that prurient. Then maybe it’s because we’re more like serial killers than we care to admit; maybe we’re somehow more producer than consumer. Do we see our own fragile countenances in Ted Bundy’s unholy smirk?

It is tempting to suspect a certain complicity. The victims of serial murder are often persons who have been repeatedly ill-treated before their final victimization: Dahmer’s victims were gay men of color, while Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, targeted prostitutes. (The tragic indifference of the Milwaukee police in the Dahmer case provides emphasis here.) And so far as I can tell, no serial killer has targeted Goldman Sachs executives or derivatives traders. White males are the bulk of serial killers, and white males may well be the bulk of serial fans, so perhaps there’s a kind of collusion.

But when one learns that white males are also the bulk of serial victims, matters seem more complex. Maybe there would be fewer serial killers in a more just society, but injustice can’t explain the peculiar fascination. There are lots of lethal injustices, and lots of complicities: industrial food, tobacco, automobiles, and criminally inadequate health insurance kill far more Americans than serial killers (who are, after all, a sort of statistical anomaly). But these more prosaic inequities don’t make for the same kind of story; names like Bundy, Gacy, and Dahmer are likely to be remembered long after we’ve forgotten which Wall Street megalomaniac spent how much on his office wastebasket.

If forced to guess, I’d say the fascination owes more to difference than similarity. Maybe serial killers are most like science fiction characters, uninvited travelers from some distant moral galaxy. One might begin to appreciate this ethical expanse with a characteristically philosophical bit of rhetorical therapy: it’s not odd to admire someone because they never raise their voice to children or animals, but it is odd to admire someone because they’ve never been a serial killer. A person might, even with the best of intentions, lose their temper with a willful child or unruly dog, but that same person will not become a serial killer, no matter how trying the plague of brat or beast descending on their home. Not even close.

I remember a friend asking, during one of my Dahmer ruminations, “What could things look like to him?” Sort of like a “how the dragonfly sees the world” picture in an elementary science book, all jagged and geometric? I can’t imagine. And there’s something legitimately philosophical here, where imagination fails. It emerges with a familiar philosophical expedient: if you want to figure out what something does, find out what happens when that something goes bad; if a tamping rod through the frontal lobes has unfortunate effects on someone’s civility, as it did for Phineas Gage, maybe the frontal lobes have something to do with civility. Likewise, one way to illuminate what is valuable about human persons is to think seriously about departures from full humanity.

This might happen in a variety of ways – if anything is fragile, humanity is. But serial killers have departed the fold in ways that seem quite distinct from more ordinary calamities. They are not dead – not literally, anyway. Nor are they incapacitated in the familiar senses associated with catastrophes like brain injury and disease. In fact, while the serial-killer-as-genius archetype exaggerates reality, it may well be that serial killers – at least those categorized as “ordered” as opposed to “disordered” – often enjoy cognitive capacities not so different from the rest of us.

Yet serial killers are different – and not just a little. The differences need contemplating, even at the risk of cerebral spiders. Consider the moral vastness that separates them from us and, most importantly, consider how those distances may be preserved. The great majority of us reading this volume are not (I expect and hope) likely to visit the outlands that are the subject of this volume. But there are kindred states of more ordinary proximity – government functionaries are much more prolifically homicidal than serial killers – and these regions also desperately need avoiding. Perhaps staring into the moral distance will help us to better do so.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am greatly indebted to many people for their help in bringing this volume together into a cohesive whole. Without them, it simply would not have happened:

Fritz Allhoff, series editor for Philosophy for Everyone, for answering an infinite number of questions with infinite patience and a good sense of humor.

Jeff Dean, Wiley-Blackwell Power that Be, for making great suggestions throughout the process.

Tiffany Mok, Wiley-Blackwell Power that Be, for remembering all the things I forgot.

Scott Lowe, for creating brilliant author guidelines, for brainstorming with me, and for being enthusiastic about popular philosophy.

Susan Coleman, for getting me hooked on Dexter, which started the whole thing, and for knowing talented police officers willing to comment on this topic, as well as for having comprehensive knowledge of the crime fiction world, for listening to me rant, and putting up with my fits and glazed eyes.

Diane Amarillas and Karen Kos, for giving me, and the readers, their exciting insights on murderers and murder investigations.

Darlene Craft, for finding fabulous research on philosophy and serial killers that I would have missed.

Elizabeth Brown, for knowing all about the true crime literature. Those nights you frightened yourself out of your mind reading about serial killers finally paid off – at least, for me.

All the contributing authors, who wrote great essays in spite of my constant demands and poor leadership, who were polite to me in spite of getting emails meant for other people; more emails that bizarrely included my flight itineraries; and even more emails with contradictory information and confusing instructions on the essay requirements. I want to thank all of you for writing such wonderful musings, and especially, for not killing me.

Wendy Zirngibl, for being my second set of eyes and catching many grammatical and content errors, typos, instances of sexist language, and all else that I missed.

Henry Fargot and the Little Known School Press, for helping me with basic formatting and such. Henry deserves the title of co-editor. If anyone reading this hasn’t seen A Nuisance of Cats and A Deluge of Dogs, please have a look at the webpage: www.littleknownschoolpress.com.

My wonderful, supportive colleagues at Case Western Reserve University and Montana State University, Bozeman.

The Cats (Maki, Dieter, Spit, and Anya) for providing day-to-day inspiration and information from practicing serial killers.

You, readers, for your love of wisdom and enthusiasm for the macabre.

Thank you!

S. WallerBozeman, MT

S. WALLER AND WILLIAM E. DEAL

INTRODUCTION

Meditations on Murder, or What is so Philosophical about Serial Killers?

The problem of crime is the problem of human existence.

Colin Wilson1

Death has pursued philosophers across history, just as they have pursued it. Socrates (469–399 BCE) reassured his followers that doing philosophy is practicing death, and so the diligent philosopher will face death easily. Heidegger (1889–1976) described us as projecting ourselves forward toward death, and gave us the chilling reminder that we all die alone; one’s death is one’s own. Existentialism is an entire school of philosophical thought motivated by the eventual death of all human beings. Questions of death haunt ethical discussions focused on medical care, human rights, and legal punishments. We are all interested in death, for it threatens all of us. But death, for philosophers, has usually been approached as something that happens to us, not as something that killers do. We reflect on the act of dying far more than we reflect on killing – and there is little philosophy that meditates on murder as an activity that might be repeated, or even practiced with care.

One prior work on the topic, The Philosophy of Murder by John Paget, is an 1851 discourse on the methods of murder. The work focuses on “progress” in the arena of killing, specifically, the increasing popularity of poisoning, as poison was difficult to detect. As poisoning became a more popular means to an end, the “more blatant modes” of killing – crowbars, butchery by knife, or “sudden blows with a ragged stick” – fell from favor, losing disciples and becoming passé. Paget also notes that there are murderers who are not ever labeled as such: