Juror 8 and "The Man of Conscience"
by Sr. Beatrice, O. P.,
Ethics and Culture Department Chair
A man of conscience is one who never acquires tolerance, well-being, success, public standing, and approval on the part of prevailing opinion, at the expense of truth.
-Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI)
"The expense of truth" is a phrase which I've found to be well worth a second look. At first glance, and in its original context, it's simple enough, and profound enough: the truth can't be sold for the sake of popularity, or to purchase a partial peace. But what about "the expense of truth" in a second sense? What about the sense in which truth costs us something? In our Ethics & Culture classes, students learn Aquinas's definition of truth as "the adequation of the mind to reality": the "fitting" of the mind to what actually is. At some times this is an easy fit, and at others it's difficult: as with learning calculus, perhaps, or with mastering grammar... or with informing my conscience.
The drama of 12 Angry Jurors reflects the perennial and personal drama associated with "matters of conscience." The jurors deal with a case of objective guilt or innocence: the act the defendant is on trial for is objectively evil; he is either guilty, or not. The jury will get the verdict right, or they won't. Conscience matters because a man's life is on the line; conflict happens because jurors don't agree about what's right; and gone is the illusion that each one can simply follow his conscience because every conscience is equally right.
Each juror faces the cost of staying in that claustrophobic jury chamber and of staying in a conversation about difficult truths. For some of us in the audience, staying in the physical space would be the greater strain... but for many of us, I suspect, staying in the conversation would be most difficult. But through the conversation, each juror rediscovers the dignity of the act of conscience: of applying what is objectively true to this particular case, difficult as it may be in itself, difficult as it may be given personal history and hurt.
Each and every juror is a "mixed bag" of skills and snap judgments, wounds and gifts. and for all we in the audience might say, "I'm not that one character," we're probably a mix of many of them. So it is that as we watch the jurors move through various confrontations: with each other, with the demands of justice, and with themselves, we face our own moral inventory. Am I the sort of person who has the courage to stand at the expense of truth?
