Middle-Aged Man Trial

The section titled The Commonsense Picture, gives a scenario where a middle-aged man is awakened by a loud banging on his front door. Before hand, a young African American woman, had crashed her car, walked out, and wandered for hours in a state of shock and confusion. She ended up at this middle-aged man’s door, most likely looking for help. However, this middle-aged man thought his house was being attacked. He proceeded to take his shot gun, opened the door, and fired, which resulted in this young girls death. On trial, he explained his action by saying that he had been afraid for his life and had shot in what he thought was self-defense. This reading states, that in any case, even if the fear someone felt was reasonable, the reasonable response would have been not open the door but to lock the door and call the police. Therefore, the middle-aged man was found guilty of second-degree murder.

We will never know exactly why he acted the way he did and what was going on in his mind during the event. Though, say we accept his reasoning: he felt under attack and wanted to defend himself. I guarantee most of us would agree with the prosecution and the jury that he did not have good enough reasons to truly believe he was in serious danger. So, in this case, some reasons may seem good enough to explain but not good enough to justify. Thus, we can accept an explanation and, at the same time, be critical of the reasons it invokes. In other words, it is enough that the reasons should have seemed adequate to the person we are trying to understand (the person trying to explain). But, to judge that what the person thinks or does is justified, the same reasons must see, adequate to