The Deficiency of Law and the Responsibility of Man
In a civilized human society, the legal system serves as an important role in
promoting social justice, regulating people’s behaviors, and controlling crimes. However, the
legal system itself is not powerful enough. Crimes still happen, and an influential factor of
misconduct is people’s biological instincts – driven by their innate behavior and certain
biological imperatives. The conflict between the biological instincts and the social requirement
for law and morality is highlighted in the story of the 2001 massacre in Dayukou, China. In the
story, Hu Wenhai, who committed the crime of shooting fourteen people, was a good citizen
who had consistently adhered to law. In a country where private gun ownership is strictly
forbidden, Hu should have been severely blamed by the public. However, because Hu acted as
a vigilante against a corrupt mining company, the public tried to justify his actions, and “some
even hailed him as a folk hero” (Sun, 2013, p.132). This shows the complexity of humans’
motivation and thoughts for justice. By viewing this case through biological lenses, Hu’s crime
and the public’s defense of it is understandable. However, Hu’s crime is unjust because he was
also driven by personal attributes and cultural influences, and it is the law that takes the true
measure of justice, which regulates, rather than is regulated by, biological instinct.
In the case of Hu, his crime ostensibly subverts his image of a law-abiding citizen, yet
there is a clear biological reasoning. Fehr & Gachter’s study (2002) of altruistic
punishment clarifies his actions, suggesting that Hu’s conduct can be attributed to his
biological instinct. The study addresses the problem of why people are willing to bear the cost
of punishing the free riders in the cooperation even though they would get no benefits from it.
The result of the ‘public goods’ experiment shows that the higher contributor would be more
willing to punish the free riders (Fehr & Gachter, 2002). In Hu’s case, he was the highest
contributor among the villagers who formed a group to report the mining company’s tax
evasion to the authorities as he paid a lot of efforts to persuade the villagers to sign their names
on the petition and “shuffled up and down the bureaucratic ladder,” (Sun, 2013, p.123).
Therefore, his negative emotion would be most intense when the petition turned out to no avail,
and his willingness to take revenge was driven by this negative emotion. Additionally, the study
shows that the more the free rider deviates, the more cost the punisher would pay to punish the
free rider (Fecher & Gachter, 2002). This explains what motivated Hu to take the revenge even
though he knew that he would be executed with the death penalty. The mining company that
Hu was against evaded $170,000 in taxes in three years, which is a considerable deviation from
others who pay the true tax liability according to the law, such as Hu. So, Hu was willing to
spend so much time and effort to report the corruption to the government and sacrifice his own
life to punish the mining company. Thus, Hu’s crime is understandable and is, to some extent,
justified because he was motivated by his biological instinct to punish the defector of the
society.
Not only are Hu’s actions explainable through altruistic punishment, but the community
acted out other biological conventions as well when they reacted to Hu’s misconduct. In 2017,
Mendes et al. (2017) did a study proving that both chimpanzees and preschool children prefer
watching the antisocial being punished to the prosocial being punished. In the experiment, both
the chimpanzees and the children were willing to incur costs (physical efforts and monetary
expenditures) to continue to watch the antisocial being punished. However, when the prosocial
were punished, the proportion of the subjects paying efforts to watch the punishment decreased
significantly. To the community, the mining company’s tax evasion was antisocial behavior
because it offended the law and did not get the punishment it deserved. Because of the
connivance of the government, such illegal actions would be committed more, and harm the
welfare of the whole society. So the “public sentiment was fueled, in part, by anger against the
rampant corruption of government officials,” (Sun, 2013, p.132). On the contrary, Hu was
prosocial because he devoted himself to punishing the mining company for the greater good of
the community. “He had rid the community of several rogue officials, bullies, and criminals…
Because of this, Hu’s case evoked a great deal of public sympathy; some even hailed him as a
folk hero,” (Sun, 2013, p.132). This demonstrates why most people were on Hu’s side and tried
to defend Hu from the death penalty. They did not want to see a prosocial being punished
because they had empathy on him and viewed the deaths of the fourteen people as the
punishment of the antisocial. In addition, Brosnan and de Waal’s 2003 study of fairness
provides further reasoning for the public’s unexpected reaction towards the crime. The
experiment shows that the monkey being rewarded a cucumber (a less preferable reward) will
show the strongest refusal when seeing another monkey being rewarded a grape (a better
reward) without any effort (Brosnan & de Waal, 2003). There is no difference for the villagers.
They worked hard but only earned annual salaries of around 10,000-20,000 yuan (Sun, 2013),
or $1,200-2,400 USD. However, the mining company got 1.25million yuan, or $170,000 USD,
through tax evasion without any effort. The villagers saw this as unfair, and thus were enraged
by it. This led to their defense of Hu because Hu’s crime not only displayed his own refusal to
the unfairness but also the villagers’. Hence, the public’s reactions are also justified
biologically, making Hu’s crime seem even righteous.
However, while both Hu and the public’s actions can be understood with biology,
biology itself is not enough to entirely encompass Hu’s motivation. Another important aspect
of his crime is the personal and sociological incentive. Hu sacrificing himself to take revenge
and punish the mining company can be seen as selfless, but he was motivated by his selfishness
combined with cultural norms. In the case, Sun (2013) states that “Hu’s credibility as a folk
leader, his reputation among villagers, and his personal vengeance were all on the line with the
petition,” (p.124). This implies that the failure of the petition will significantly violate his
credibility as the leader and his reputation among the villagers. So, his crime was for sustaining
his own credibility and reputation rather than upholding justice for the whole society. Hu’s
personal vengeance was also a strong driving force. Believing Hu leaked their illegal tax
evasion, the mining company sent people to attack Hu and seriously injured him. “He was
ambushed and assaulted with shovels by his neighbors… Despite the viciousness of the
unexpected attack, he was lucky to escape… mortal injury” (Sun, 2013, pg.122). So, Hu killing
fourteen people that were related to the mining company was his self-protection, or he might
be killed by the mining company. This action was also his revenge for both the attack and the
failure of the petition. Sun (2013) presented that “Ancient Chinese society was run mostly by
moral conventions” such as “revenge at all costs is the only mission and ultimate duty” and
“blood revenge was taken as a duty to restore the honor,” (p.125-126). Under this cultural
background, Hu sacrificing himself for revenge displayed the “legendary kung-fu masters’
spirit”(p.125), which would be respected and honored by others. Hu’s killing of the innocent
child implies that he strongly believed in the traditional Chinese convention of blood revenge.
Hu was afraid that if he did not kill that child, the child would take revenge for his father in the
future. In order to prevent his own son being killed, Hu killed that innocent child. Both Hu’s
fear of losing credibility and his actions of protecting his own interest reveal that his revenge
is mostly driven by selfish factors, which can attest to Hu’s crime being immoral.
Despite the failure of biology to entirely justify Hu’s actions, it plays a crucial role to
explain the importance of the law. The law sustains social stability, and biology acts as a guide
for creating laws and systems of punishment that motivate people to overcome some
detrimental biological instincts and keep within the confines of civilized society. The ‘public
goods’ experiment in Fehr & Gatcher’s (2002) study shows that the average investment in the
punishment condition was higher in each session and in each period than the average
investment in the non-punishment condition. This implies that people would cooperate more
when they know that there is punishment. Law, thus, is a useful system to sustain long-term
cooperation among society because it regulates people’s behavior and sets the rules of
punishment for misconduct. This suppresses people’s incentive to cheat and commit antisocial
behaviors because they already know the consequence of conducting illegal actions. Moreover,
the experiment also shows that the punishment imposed on the defectors by the cooperators
was harsh: their punishment significantly reduced the income of the defectors (Fehr & Gatcher,
2022). This reveals that people’s biological instinct would motivate them to punish the ones
who violate the cooperation severely. Hu’s case makes the importance of the law more notable.
Even with the law and knowing that he would be executed with the death penalty (Sun, 2013),
Hu took the extreme actions, shooting fourteen people, to punish the corrupted mining
company. Without the law, extreme crimes like this may happen more frequently, which would
create chaos. Hu’s case also shows that although law sets the standard of behavior and the strict
system of punishment which measures true justice, law itself is inadequate to completely
subdue people’s biological instinct. Thus, people, themselves, should take the initiative to
overcome the powerful biological influences to obey the law.
In conclusion, part of Hu’s motivation and the public’s attitude could be attributed to
biological instinct, which would make Hu’s crime seem justified. However, Hu’s motivation
driven by his personal and sociological imperatives reflects a pollution of that justification,
showing that his crime is not morally impenetrable. Additionally, the ultimate death penalty of
Hu reveals that in a civilized human society, people should conduct their behavior according
to the law, but not their biological instinct. Some biologically justified actions would still be
immoral and create negative effects for society. Therefore, it is crucial for people to overcome
the inclination towards biology to obey the law even when the law is not entirely satisfactory.
Vigilantism, as shown in the case of Hu, is not an acceptable response to an inequitable legal
system, even when it is biologically motivated. What is important for people is to control those
biological imperatives and find the delicate balance between accommodating biological
instincts while upholding the values of the legal system.