#i am quite literally reading academic papers about the moral arguments for and against duress as a legal defense for murder rn

[lgbtlunaverse]

I'm chewing on this and my thoughts aren't fully formulated yet but i have been having Thinking about and jgy and his definitions of harm and his moral framework and generally he seems to very much come down on the side of consequentialism- what with him considering himself as having "murdered" qin su when her death was unambiguously a suicide. But she killed herself because of things he did, so even if he never wanted her to die or took actions toward that, he considers himself as having killed her.

And yet every single time he is confronted about his actions, he is incredibly quick to emphasize that he had no choice, he didn't really want to, there was just no other way out. It's a complete 180 from the motive not mattering at all to it mattering a LOT.

And that has led me to me believe that when he's talking about his lack of choices he's- the uncharitable might call it lying for sympathy, but that's not it, jin guangyao does sincerely believe he had no other choice (except, as nmj so nicely put it, sacrificing himself) but he's also not defending himself with full sincerity. It's more that his motive doesn't really matter much to him as a matter of morality, but he knows it matters to other people. He is not genuinely defending himself and arguing he doesn't deserve blame, he is arguing he shouldn't be punished. There seems to be a very strict barrier in his mind between accountability in the moral sense (what does he hold blame for) and in accountability in the practical sense (What punishment should he get.)

Which makes perfect sense for a guy who is well aware that the justice system will never actually be just for him. That any punishment levied toards him within the legal and politcal system he lives in will primarily be because of who he is and who his mother was and not because of what he actually did. Yes he thinks what he did was wrong yes he thinks that is morally repugnant no he shouldn't get punished for it.

And well. I don't agree that people should just get away with mass murder because the judicial system sucks but... is he wrong? I mean, what did him in at the end? Payment for his actual crimes? No. It was a lie that was believed just because he was the one being accused.