The Case of Peanut: Justice or Just Law?

How an inconsequential squirrel reawakened an age-old ethical discussion.

Courtesy of Associated Press, captured by Mark Longo

It is only in moments like these, where the death of a certain squirrel seems to have mystified a nation, that a return to a childlike wonder feels inevitable. A wonder of the portraits of justice once painted by our favorite superheroes, and how faded those images seem now. Internet sensation Peanut the Squirrel was seized from his home last week by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and controversially euthanized. Peanut’s owner, Mark Longo, claims the raid that lost him his beloved pet lasted about five hours and was prompted by multiple anonymous reports. According to CBS,  New York State wildlife officials defended that the ownership of Peanut was illegal, given that he was a wild animal, doing little to quiet the public’s disapproval. Intrinsically, the DEC had the right to take the squirrel. It was under the guidance of state law, the right thing to do; So why has outrage run rife? 

Peanut’s death exemplifies the paradox of the tendency to equate morality with legality. This conflation is jejune to some, and sacred for others. Those with a voracity for obeying legislation tread a fine line of ethical righteousness. Some obey viscerally, obey deeply, shaped by societal conditioning that compliance is inherently moral, (or perhaps their meek desire for social harmony). Conversely, there exist the so-called ‘free thinkers’ for whom the autonomy to speculate takes the utmost precedence. This intellectual push-and-pull finds its genealogy in centuries of discussion surrounding the principles of ‘right’ and ‘wrong”.

German idealist Georg Hegel–whose remarks are as infamous for their intellectual depth as for the patience they demand from readers–welcomed a daring union between morality and the law, uniquely reconciling the two. He acknowledges that injustice, in a technical sense, is not stripped of its status of legal validity. This allows us to judge laws based on moral principles. Hegel maintains “what is legal [gesetzmāßig] is … the source of cognition of what is right [Recht], or more precisely, of what is lawful [Rechtens]” (PR §216). Hegel looks outwards to the law to regulate inward ethical principles. This judgment ensures that legal structure is a means of embodying a society’s collective ethical standards, not just an austere set of rules. In short, the understanding of what is right should be derived from an analysis of the law itself. Rather than treating law and morality as separate realms, his perspective integrates morality into legal structure. 

Rationalists such as Hegel have a veridical perspective on this matter. They understand the delicacy of the human psyche, and that our carnal nature requires subversive nuance to navigate the ethical & legal field; thus, the law must aim to epitomize moral freedom. Yet, the moral tug of Peanut’s story illuminates a problem in Hegel’s ideal. The perceived moral deficiency t prompted a fervent public reaction, not a lack of technical justice vis-à-vis the law. For the public, this case exemplifies the tension between the validity of the law and the penetrating, often unarticulated expectations of compassion that citizens aspire the law will uphold. 

The concept of civil disobedience directly confronts Hegelian orthodoxy on this matter.  Henry David Thoreau, an ardent naturalist, condemns blind submission to the law, instead valorizing rebellion, and seeking to create an ethical sensibility that transcends bureaucratic dictates. He famously asserted that law “never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.” By this measure, citizens who openly defy the actions of the state or law, exercise moral duty in challenging perceived injustices.. As such, this approach provokes moral reform in response to the vicissitudes of unjust laws. For Thoreau, respect for one’s conscience supersedes the authority of the law. Should we live in a culture of collective commitment to moral integrity, in which attentiveness to personal convictions is valued, Thoreau’s ideals might flourish. A culture in which civic education fosters critical thinking, and where justice is viewed as a dynamic pursuit infused by the breaths of our synergetic ethics. Regrettably, the patriotism he espoused has become increasingly rare in a modern America that does not benefit from the same shared tapestry of values.

I leave it to you, reader, to wonder if we are to find solace in the structure provided by the law, or if we are to follow the quiet voice of conscience despite what may be at stake. At the risk of sounding milquetoast, I, myself am not sure which way the wind blows–or if, as Bob Dylan so aptly put it, ‘The answer is blowin’ in the wind.’

Thoreau and Hegel certainly only scratch the surface of divergent approaches to the interplay between morality and the law. Countless thinkers have blessed their respective decades with novel outlooks on the two, and I reckon that each would have gotten swept into an undercurrent of thought over Peanut’s case. This dialogue is the bloodline of a truly liberal society, built upon the pursuit of justice and ideals of freedom whilst shielding our laws from ossifying into mere instruments of control. It is, as proven, civilization’s modus operandi to debate the law’s impersonal authority, a discussion that will eternally reinvent itself.