Scapegoats

Criminal Justice Ethics

Volumn 19, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 3-9

  Mellema, Gregory ^a  

^a Cabin College   (United States)

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EID: 78049431504     PISSN: 0731129X     EISSN: 19375948     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0731129X.2000.9992080     Document Type: Article

References (13)

1. Leviticus 16: 8-10.
2. On occasion, the Athenians would expel from the city various people, chosen from the ranks of the poor and ugly, in an effort to purify it. The word referring to these people (pharmakoi) is usually rendered into English as scapegoats or offscourings. As to the origins of the English term scapegoat, according to Jacob Bronowski, it is an invention of Tindale's Bible. It is not clear that the Old Testament word that it purports to translate is anything but a name (Bronowski, The Scapegoat King, in THE SCAPEGOAT: RITUAL AND LITERATURE 36 [ed. J. Vickery & J. Sellery, 1972]). The modern notion of scapegoating implies that it is at least prima facie wrong to make scapegoats of others, but from this it does not follow that doing so is never morally justified.
3. R. GIRARD, THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD 46 (1987).
4. The notion of taint is admittedly somewhat obscure. For a clarification of what it means to be tainted by another
5. see my COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY 71-82 (1997),
6. and my Collective Guilt in 1 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF APPLIED ETHICS 543-49 (ed. R. Chadwick, 1998). Here I follow philosophers such as L. MAY, SHARING RESPONSIBILITY ch. 8 (1992) in regarding shame as a weaker concept than guilt. Feelings of shame are appropriate whenever feelings of guilt are appropriate, but the reverse is not true. A minor wrongdoing might not merit feelings of guilt, but feelings of shame may nevertheless be appropriate.
7. R. GIRARD, supra note 3, at 133.
8. James, The Day of Atonement, in THE SCAPEGOAT, supra note 1, at 33.
9. R. GIRARD, THE SCAPEGOAT 4 (1986).
10. Paula Caplan writes: In most situations in which power is unequally distributed, the people with the most power use scapegoating as a technique for maintaining their unfair share. Scapegoating serves this function in the following way: when anyone has a complaint that might threaten the current power balance, those at the top blame the trouble on the scapegoated group, who expose (but do not create) the problem. Throughout most societies, women are a primary target of such blame. Scapegoating thereby serves the dual purpose of keeping in power the mostly white, mostly male group that now sits at the top of most academic institutions and of keeping members of other groups out of power (LIFTING A TON OF FEATHERS 73 [1994]).
11. For more on the symbolic value of actions and its relationship to scapegoating,
12. see my Symbolic Value, Virtue Ethics, and the Morality of Groups, 43 PHIL. TODAY 302-08 (1999).
13. As reported by R. GIRARD, VIOLENCE AND THE SACRED 99 (1977).