Continuation Part Six: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[Mary_H]

Rudy Guede's *actions* as he escalated from mere house robbery to the savage butchery and rape of Meredith Kercher as she lay dying were indisputably evil. Further, his scheming, apparently aided and abetted by Mignini, to implicate two innocent persons in a crime he alone committed is repugnant and evil. Full stop.
(....)
To clarify, any parsing of Rudy Guede's mere actions is relativistic flimflam and exists as an insult to the very fiber of civilization. It is fundamentally offensive nonsense to in any way mitigate or shade the actions that this free citizen Guede freely took. If, aside from for the sake of internet discussion, we cannot agree on this, we are lost.

I have a strong tendency to engage in relativistic flimflam, by trying to observe "evil" acts simply as phenomena. I do this to maintain perspective, in an attempt to understand how human beings operate.

Sometimes I like to look at human choices and behaviors from a theological point of view that goes like this: If God is all-loving, all-understanding and all-forgiving (and how can God NOT be all-loving, all-understanding and all-forgiving?), then that means that all human choices and behaviors can be understood, forgiven and loved. I myself don't have the wisdom or love to understand or forgive "evil" acts, but I take comfort in believing that every human action is ultimately understandable and forgivable, that is, it is based on some cause that is not necessarily within the actor's control.

In this sense, I will go along with moodstream when he writes, "Was Hitler evil? I don't think so. I think Hitler was a man with a mental disorder." On the other hand, to be consistent, I can't go along with him when he writes, "What I find evil is that a nation as sophisticated and able as Germany could endorse a man with a mental disorder like Hitler's to run their country."

I have never found "evil" to be that useful a concept. It is not a quality that is found in nature; rather, it is a human construct, part of the construct of ethics, which work in service to human survival and emotional well being. Still, I can understand why you want to apply it to this discussion.

I tend to measure bad intentions according to how much power the "actor" or "doer" has, that is, how privileged his life has been, and how responsible he should be for his behavior based on his knowledge, training and education. For example, I am always going to adjudge a Catholic priest who abuses a child as having committed a greater evil than an economically disenfranchised, previously abused guy who lives in a trailer and commits the same act (all the while I remain aware I could be completely wrong about that).

One way the concept of evil gets sticky is that in both cases, the victims suffer equally -- the harm to them may be called "evil" regardless of the intentions of the offender. So we separate the evil intentions and acts from the evil nature of the harm. It gets complicated.

I don't think the thread should divert too far from the case, and I do respect your views. I realized I was not going to make it as a philosopher when in college, asked to read from a book by Sartre, I began on p 50, read for 3 hours, and ended on page 35.

As a result, I don't know what relativistic flimflam is. I will say to you as I said to Samson, I hope how you feel makes you feel good, because it has no other value. It did not stop Guede. It isn't stopping the crimes going on right now all around you. Even though the vast majority of the world feels the way you do, it did not and does not make one iota of difference.

How do you know if you're being moral or being vain? Oh, you're not like Guede, that evil man, you're good, and you're worthy. For whose benefit are you speaking? The mirror? Wait till you're starving. Wait until you're one of 7 in the lifeboat that sinks under the weight of six. When it's you or the other fellow for that last drop of water in the desert. Come back and tell me your choices then.
(.....)
It's a full moon tonight. If it makes you feel better, go outside and howl out your anger towards Guede, and Stalin, and whoever else is on your 'bad' list. Just don't expect the world to be a better place when you're done.

I like your post, moodstream, but I disagree. It is always helpful to reflect on ethics and/or on evil acts, because it advances humanity to learn from the mistakes of the past and to use that knowledge to avoid them as we move forward.

 

[katy_did]

I am not saying Guede is a good person. I am saying his behavior is strongly effected by his childhood. It seems he is a child born of a one night stand, or perhaps even a paid arrangement. At any rate, there was no love for him from mother or father from conception forward, and my guess is there are underlying biological factors as well. Others have triumphed in situations even worse than his, and he had more than his share of breaks. Still, the psychological damage was there, it was caused by factors he could not control, he was the victim of the irresponsibility of his parents and he did not have the ability to transcend it.

I think we all are perhaps inevitably irresponsible to greater and lesser degrees, no one is perfect, the context of our irresponsibility is to some extent thrust upon us from the context of our lives, if it is not biological. Moralty is the process of coming to terms with this, and leaving the planet a better place than we found it.

Within this broader context of the nature of humanity, Guede is just another person. He is acting as a human animal within the boundaries of the human condition. He is a statistical fact of Darwinian evolution in a meaningless world of biological and chemical interaction. He is not taking on the moral challenge to transcend the randomness of his place in the universe.

The zen question for me is, when I blame him for the murder of Ms Kercher, which I do, am I saying something about Guede, like - he's the bad one, or am I trying to abrogate my own responsibility for making the world a place where murders like this don't happen? Are we completely responsible for our own actions, or, does responsibility also lie in the community?

I agree with your posts on this one. Of course, Guede should be held responsible for what he did, but that doesn't mean there weren't factors outside his control which contributed to making him the person that he is and which, had they been different, might have prevented the murder happening at all. It's hard not to be shocked when you read about his childhood. And sure, there are some abused children who grow up to be wonderful people, but there are many others who don't, and for whom that abuse shapes the entire course of their lives. Abuse doesn't generally make people "nice". While it might make us feel better to dismiss Guede as simply evil - and perhaps more importantly, allows us to really emphasize Amanda and Raffaele's innocence - it's not particularly constructive, and it's not going to prevent the same set of circumstances happening again. I think that's another problem with innocent people being convicted here: it makes it so tempting to look at this very simplistically - good and evil - but in a way which achieves nothing.

I must have missed the course on relativistic flimflam aswell (in the sense of knowing what it is, though I'm sure some would see the above as a good example of said flimflam).

 

[Strozzi]

I agree with your posts on this one. Of course, Guede should be held responsible for what he did, but that doesn't mean there weren't factors outside his control which contributed to making him the person that he is and which, had they been different, might have prevented the murder happening at all. It's hard not to be shocked when you read about his childhood. And sure, there are some abused children who grow up to be wonderful people, but there are many others who don't, and for whom that abuse shapes the entire course of their lives. Abuse doesn't generally make people "nice". While it might make us feel better to dismiss Guede as simply evil - and perhaps more importantly, allows us to really emphasize Amanda and Raffaele's innocence - it's not particularly constructive, and it's not going to prevent the same set of circumstances happening again. I think that's another problem with innocent people being convicted here: it makes it so tempting to look at this very simplistically - good and evil - but in a way which achieves nothing.

I must have missed the course on relativistic flimflam aswell (in the sense of knowing what it is, though I'm sure some would see the above as a good example of said flimflam).

Mary H and katy-did, it is most interesting to read your posts. Rudy had a very tough upbringing although I am glad to see that a number of good people in Perugia came forward and tried to help him - teachers, basketball coach, and the wealthy family who took him in.

I would like to ask and encourage you to please share your thoughts on Mignini, Stefanoni, Comodi, Judge Massei. Also, the police who conducted the interrogation of Amanda and Raffaele and withhold what reaally occurred that night. Also, what do you think of the individuals who deliberately failed to record the interrogation or destroyed the recording?

 

[Strozzi]

Guede - release from prison

And so soon Perugia will release a murderer back onto its streets.

Machiavelli, some posters here conclude that Guede will soon be eligible for limited work release and eventually full release from prison. Would you please explain how this works in Italy? What do you think of the chances that Guede will be approved for limited work release in the next few years?

If Guede is released in a limited work release program, what will happen if he is contacted by journalists who want to talk with him? Is he free to talk?

He owes extremely large financial damages to the victim's family and his attorney. I am sure they have a legal claim to any payment Guede might be offered for his story. Do they have to file any documents with a court to claim any money Guede earns in the future?

 

[Dan O.]

I have never found "evil" to be that useful a concept. It is not a quality that is found in nature; rather, it is a human construct, part of the construct of ethics, which work in service to human survival and emotional well being. Still, I can understand why you want to apply it to this discussion.

Good and evil really only exist in comparison to what is deemed normal. In that context, the difference between good and evil is a couple of standard deviations.

 

[toto]

dietrology

Could someone be kind enough to explain what this word means? I can't find it on any online dictionary and Wikipedia redirects to "conspiracy theory" without any further reference or explanation. I would be interested if any website can be linked to which discusses uses of the word. Thanks!

 

[Machiavelli]

Machiavelli, some posters here conclude that Guede will soon be eligible for limited work release and eventually full release from prison. Would you please explain how this works in Italy? What do you think of the chances that Guede will be approved for limited work release in the next few years?

If Guede is released in a limited work release program, what will happen if he is contacted by journalists who want to talk with him? Is he free to talk?

He owes extremely large financial damages to the victim's family and his attorney. I am sure they have a legal claim to any payment Guede might be offered for his story. Do they have to file any documents with a court to claim any money Guede earns in the future?

It's possible that he is going to enjoy limited time release within the next few years.
A preemptive calculation about the total time that he will spent in jail and other privilege timings is actually impossible, because the system is complicated.
I roughtly calculate that he will spend a time of continuous permanence in jail between 8 and 10 years. Then he will spend another couple of years in a condition of semi-freedom.

Inmates anjoy different kind of "discounts". The application of those discounts is decided by judges (there are specific kind of judges whose work is keep a permanent control on how inmates do, they assess their requests for privileges etc.)
The first kind of discount is called "liberazione anticipata", which diminishes the total prison time sentencing by about 1/4 when applied. It means the total sentencing is cut off by 40 days every 6 months of good behaviour.
This, when decided by the judge, modifies the whole sentencing time, which affects further calculations.

On the remaining calculation, further privileges can be applied as by the law. Limited working permits (as for the kind of crime committed by Guede, he could be aligible to them after serving half the time). Then, the half-freedom regime (which a lot of inmats enjoy). The last privilege will be conditional freedom (probably after a total of 10-12 years).

 

[Dan O.]

A -ology is "the scientific study of" such as biology is the study of biological organisms. Dietrology would therefore be something like the scientific study of diatribes.

ETA: In the context here, the definition given by Alisdare Spark is probably relavent though perhaps using "behind" as a noun.

 

[Bill Williams]

Perhaps the solution to all this, Machiavelli, is if you highlight in yellow the things you say, which you will deny you said at a later date. You may wish to use a differing colour for those things you will nuance out of existence if challenged.

See, "nuance" IS a verb!

In any event, giving us a heads-up on the things you say, which you'll stick with, will be helpful and cut down on the number of posts in the forum.

Bill, this has been a long running theme of yours and I'm not sure it's fair. I hesitate to get involved, but if it is to continue I would hope that the posts you make on this subject in the future include the original quotes that you are basing the claim on.

Perhaps this is fair. What I'm tempted to do is try to recreate a response to you based on Machiavelli's own method of dietrology where I go on and on about how I didn't exactly, specifically, or literally or numinisically say what you say I am saying....

Have you ever engaged M. in a debate on whether or not the ISC ruled that the "confessions" were inadmissible because they weren't taped or that Knox was denied a lawyer? He agrgues that one as if the very law Mignini himself said he quoted to Ficarra at 1:45 am on the night of the interrogations isn't exactly the law which nuministically or semantically fits the later complaint that confirmation biased innocenters rhetorically and/or epistemologically understand.....

Try it sometime.

I'm not going to dig it out, but there was one long post where M. went on about the implications of Knox having a drug dealer's phone number in her call list on her phone. Aside from the fact that HE did not procide a cite for that...

... it ended up with him saying something akin to saying, "This is compatible with there being a trade of sex for drugs between Knox and Guede."

AFAIR, there was another poster who said, "Are you saying that Guede was Knox's pimp?" with the problem being, really, that at that point M. neither confirmed or denied it, just went on a long diatribe about the nature of Perugia and students and drugs etc.

What I'd invite you to do, which wouldn't exactly get you "involved" is to revist some of M.'s more dietrlogical posts where he goes into endless metaphyiscal, linguistic and semantic detail on the most minute of expressions based on one of these things...

How many times he says, "It is compatible with....." or

"It is probable that....." and then when someone "bottles the egg" to draw some conclusion as to what he's going on about, he falls back on the, "I only said it was compatible with....." fall back argument, and then accuses one of being a liar, or being unable to draw the proper logical inferences from the hermeneutics of detail.... for drawing what is a reasonable inference, for the subject being brought up to begin with.

I mean, why bring up the "sex for drugs" "compatibility" with the evidenceless notion that Knox had, "drug dealers numbers in her cellphone"? Why do this to begin with unless one wants to suggest that tawdry stuff, all the while being able to claim they weren't wanting anyone to draw the obvious conclusion because their sentences are filled with all sorts of rhetorical escape routes?

Davefoc - your observations are fair. But look at some of M.'s past posts... they are easy searchable.

 

[Machiavelli]

No, actually it is 3 things:
The October 8, 2008 preliminary hearing transcript addressing the negative controls being deposited twice in two days (your post #5372)

I still don't have it (I might have it soon) but I have a transcript of Sep. 2011 hearing where quoting from it were read in court.

The index of the case file documents showing "the chancellery of the Preliminary Judge to have the negative controls that were deposited or to see what documents are actually there".

An total index doesn't exist, but the chancellery depositation documents of negative controls from 2008 were addrssed as being in the file and cited by Alessandro Crini on Nov. 25-26.

Also the transcript or some other documentation showing negative controls were deposited also on October 4th (your post#5522)

I think I have the Oct. 4. 2008 hearing transcript. I think I quoted it to show Vecchiotti was lying on several things, like for example when she claims Stefanoni never talked about laboratory cleaning procedures, about using alcohol etc. In the Oct. 4. Stefanoni's testimony flatly contradicts Vecchiotti's claim that she never heard of this kind of information.

 

[Machiavelli]

... it ended up with him saying something akin to saying, "This is compatible with there being a trade of sex for drugs between Knox and Guede."

Actually I have spoken about sexual encounter between Knox and Guede.
The concept of "trade of sex for drugs" is reported by the police as the activity that the drug dealer was used to do with female students.
This is reported. But it is totally secondary and irrelevant to the scenario. I was actually not interested in the reason why Knox and Guede had a sexual meeting.
You instead picked up the mention of "sex for drugs" deal and you reported it as if it was the core of my reasoning. While instead it is absolutely irrelevant, it is there just because it belongs to the record about this particular drug dealer that used to have contacts with Knox.
It is reasonable to infer that his contacts with Knox had to do with sex (because this is what the police found out), or with drug exchange, or with both. But actually, this is alos irrelevant, because the only thing that logically matters is that there is evidence that Knox had repeated phone contacts with people of the very same environment to which also Rudy Guede belongs.

AFAIR, there was another poster who said, "Are you saying that Guede was Knox's pimp?" with the problem being, really, that at that point M. neither confirmed or denied it (...)

No no, that's false, the truth is I vehemently denied it. I denied it actually even implicitly, before you attempted to make such interpretation; because even in the most extreme scenario, that is the biggest implication that you could draw out from a "sex trade in exchange of drugs" scenario is that Guede at best could have been Knox's client.
But a client cannot be the pimp.

But you just swept away what I actually said, and you jumped head down into your attribution of "pimp" scenario.
Which is just obviously incompatible with what I had just said.
You did that not just with me but also with Massei, when you claimed that he found "no psychopathlogy" or "no motive" or "no mixed blood".
You twist other's statement systematically.

I also vehemently specified that Knox was not a prostitute, because she did that for fun and not for money or utility; so it would be unlikely and improper to even think tha Guede was a client. He was likely just a sexual partner like Daniel, Juve, Federico, Sollecito.

 

[andreajo]

I also vehemently specified that Knox was not a prostitute, because she did that for fun and not for money or utility; so it would be unlikely and improper to even think tha Guede was a client. He was likely just a sexual partner like Daniel, Juve, Federico, Sollecito.

Likely? Why likely? What evidence do you have that Rudy Guede was a sexual partner of Amanda Knox?

 

[Dan O.]

Likely? Why likely? What evidence do you have that Rudy Guede was a sexual partner of Amanda Knox?

Because Amanda was tricked into making a detailed list of all her sexual partners while in prison and well, Rudy isn't on that list but it was reported that she called him several times before and after Meredith's murder and that is proven by the phone records which well, don't show Rudy's phone but... She looks evil, yea that's why.

..

 

[JREF2010]

Likely? Why likely? What evidence do you have that Rudy Guede was a sexual partner of Amanda Knox?

geeez.. another fictional scenario. Just when you thought you heard them all too.

 

[toto]

A -ology is "the scientific study of" such as biology is the study of biological organisms. Dietrology would therefore be something like the scientific study of diatribes.

ETA: In the context here, the definition given by Alisdare Spark is probably relavent though perhaps using "behind" as a noun.

Diatribes! Ok thanks

 

[Grinder]

I think somebody earlier in this thread made the insightful point that the arguments about how Guede wouldn't have picked this window to force entry through could be turned and used to argue at least as well that AK and RS wouldn't have picked this window to stage a break-in. Who was that guy making that insightful point?

Your argument supports that guy's point pretty well, whoever he is.

 

[MichaelB]

Actually I have spoken about sexual encounter between Knox and Guede.
The concept of "trade of sex for drugs" is reported by the police as the activity that the drug dealer was used to do with female students.
This is reported. But it is totally secondary and irrelevant to the scenario. I was actually not interested in the reason why Knox and Guede had a sexual meeting.
You instead picked up the mention of "sex for drugs" deal and you reported it as if it was the core of my reasoning. While instead it is absolutely irrelevant, it is there just because it belongs to the record about this particular drug dealer that used to have contacts with Knox.
It is reasonable to infer that his contacts with Knox had to do with sex (because this is what the police found out), or with drug exchange, or with both. But actually, this is alos irrelevant, because the only thing that logically matters is that there is evidence that Knox had repeated phone contacts with people of the very same environment to which also Rudy Guede belongs.



No no, that's false, the truth is I vehemently denied it. I denied it actually even implicitly, before you attempted to make such interpretation; because even in the most extreme scenario, that is the biggest implication that you could draw out from a "sex trade in exchange of drugs" scenario is that Guede at best could have been Knox's client.
But a client cannot be the pimp.

But you just swept away what I actually said, and you jumped head down into your attribution of "pimp" scenario.
Which is just obviously incompatible with what I had just said.
You did that not just with me but also with Massei, when you claimed that he found "no psychopathlogy" or "no motive" or "no mixed blood".
You twist other's statement systematically.

I also vehemently specified that Knox was not a prostitute, because she did that for fun and not for money or utility; so it would be unlikely and improper to even think tha Guede was a client. He was likely just a sexual partner like Daniel, Juve, Federico, Sollecito.

You told me on IA the cottage was a brothel, Amanda a prostitute and Guede was a client that night who paid for sex with drugs.

 

[Grinder]

Hitler certainly wasn't an example of civilization making some choice for evil or however it was put. He and his gang were thugs that never received a majority vote before using force and the threat of force to become the dictator and suspend democracy.

 

[Bill Williams]

I also vehemently specified that Knox was not a prostitute, because she did that for fun and not for money or utility; so it would be unlikely and improper to even think tha Guede was a client. He was likely just a sexual partner like Daniel, Juve, Federico, Sollecito.

Likely? Why likely? What evidence do you have that Rudy Guede was a sexual partner of Amanda Knox?

Fortunately Machiavelli comes to the rescue by providing an example of his dietrology.

For those trying to find a definition of the word, Machiavelli is providing it....

 

[Samson]

I agree with your posts on this one. Of course, Guede should be held responsible for what he did, but that doesn't mean there weren't factors outside his control which contributed to making him the person that he is and which, had they been different, might have prevented the murder happening at all. It's hard not to be shocked when you read about his childhood. And sure, there are some abused children who grow up to be wonderful people, but there are many others who don't, and for whom that abuse shapes the entire course of their lives. Abuse doesn't generally make people "nice". While it might make us feel better to dismiss Guede as simply evil - and perhaps more importantly, allows us to really emphasize Amanda and Raffaele's innocence - it's not particularly constructive, and it's not going to prevent the same set of circumstances happening again. I think that's another problem with innocent people being convicted here: it makes it so tempting to look at this very simplistically - good and evil - but in a way which achieves nothing.

I must have missed the course on relativistic flimflam aswell (in the sense of knowing what it is, though I'm sure some would see the above as a good example of said flimflam).

He can't undo the non premeditated murder, but he can undo the aftermath. His failure to do so, thus destroying so many people is the narrow aspect to which the notion of evil can be applied. This failure is abetted by Mignini and various lawyers and prosecutors of course.
Machiavelli revels in the form of Italian law that allows this silence, this inability to ever put him on the stand, after explicitly placing two other people at the scene of his killing. I find it incomprehensible.