Does The Universe Need Me?. Raphael Dorsainvil
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At times Bathory’s bedroom floor was carpeted with blood from torturing these young women; cinders were emplaced to hide the blood. Even while she was sick, Bathory retained her fervor for torture. She bit the cheek and breast of a peasant girl, and bit off the flesh from her shoulder, after she was forced to the bedside of the frail Bathory.
Bathory became notorious for throwing body parts out of her carriage window. The bodies of young women began to stack up around castle Cachtice, including five bodies kept under a bed inside the castle. Lime was often thrown on dead bodies to maintain an odor of normality that ensured the voice of death would not be heard through the malodor of decaying flesh. The situation in the castle grew into a smelly historic battle of the olfactory versus rotting human tissue, and to stop this battle, the bodies had to be dumped into the rhubarb and potato garden behind the castle. Although Bathory invested much effort in assuring a proper Christian burial for the young girls she tortured, her effort would be short lived. Following the death of Anna Darvulia, Bathory aged rapidly, and another female witch Erzsi Majorova advised Bathory to select virgins from the noble class.
These virgins were collected, dressed elegantly, and ushered into a dining hall to be murdered. As the victims became numerous, mothers such as Anna Gonczy began to question the disappearance of their daughters. After hearing of her daughter’s death from servants, Gonczy persisted on seeing the body but was threateningly denied by Bathory’s officials. Although Gonzcy was denied initially, she would learn of the conditions surrounding her daughter’s death subsequently. A Reverend Janos Ponikenusz, discovered nine boxes of girls who were recently killed on a subterranean path between the church and the castle. The reverend sent correspondence to his senior Reverend Elias Lanyi about the findings, but Bathory’s officials confiscated these findings on route, but Ponikenusz would eventually be successful.
Despite her affluence, Bathory constantly claimed financial hardship. She sold some of the family’s fortune, including two castles⎯causing discontent amongst the family members, which included her cousin, Count Thurzo, Palentine Prince of Transylvania. In fear of expropriation, the family conspired to help capture Bathory. Under King Matthias II, royal charges had been made against Bathory for the death of nobles.
Bathory’s project of murdering young girls of noble class to sustain her youth, aroused disdain in the hearts of the nobles, and she had to be captured and put to trial. Before justice finally restrained Bathory, she killed Doricza, a strong Croatian girl , who was undressed and had her hands tied behind her back while Bathory beat her with a club. When the aged Bathory was fatigue stricken, another person would continue clubbing Doricza, until Bathory regained her strength. Doricza held on to the point where she had to be stabbed with scissors into a bloody clump of bone and muscle.
On the night of December 30, 1610, Bathory’s cousin, Count Thurzo, raided the Cachtice Castle. During the raid, Thurzo tripped over the chopped upped body of a girl in the castle’s courtyard. To capture Bathory, Thurzo had to travel 150 ft. below the castle only to encounter an iron door with spikes. In the main room of the castle was a girl’s body depleted of blood, and some were found in the dungeon alive with perforated flesh.
Bathory and her helpers were apprehended to bare stern justice. Bathory’s replacement witch, Erzsi Majorova, was sentenced to death for accepting fees to dispose of the bodies. Lloona Joo and Dorothea Szentes had their fingers cut with hot pincers because their hands were advocates of torture; afterward they were roasted alive by being tossed into a fire. Ficzko, the dwarf servant, was decollated, depleted of blood, and roasted. During the trial, a witness named “Zusanna” presented a list that was found in Bathory’s drawers. The list detailed 650 names of the girls Bathory murdered⎯written in her handwriting.
Although the magnitude of such evidence appeared impervious to doubt, the audacious Bathory insisted her innocence. Her insistence was ignored. A single walled-up room designed with a small opening for food, built within Bathory’s castle, was her prison. On July 31, 1614, Bathory wrote her last will and testament in dedication to two priests. She left her remaining fortune to her children, and she died one month after writing her will⎯face down on her bed at the age of 54. The universe needed Bathory. Moral intelligence may view Bathory’s psychopathology as abominable and ask⎯how could the universe need such a horrible human being? If mere existence is the prerequisite for universal function, then the universe needed Bathory. Her immorality has no bearing. If the universe requires the existence of a being and simply that, then what difference does it make if the being is ethical or not? Bathory reportedly killed 650 females, and she could have killed more, and the universe would still deem her an indispensable proponent of its machinery. The moral mind does not perceive Bathory as an asset to edified society nor to the universe possibly. A person such as Bathory could be described as demonic, but this description is driven by moral rationality. The demonic label only applies if moral standing is a consideration. Solely based on existence, moral standing is not a consideration. So if the question is posed, did the universe need Bathory ? The answer would have to be yes, the universe did need Bathory because she existed.
If the question of universal need is applied to Bathory’s victims, all the girls who suffered unjustly were needed by the universe irrespective of how badly they were tortured. Not that the universe needed these girls to suffer, but that it did not matter if they did or did not suffer. These girls could have not been tortured, and the universe would have needed them; universal need is based on existence alone, and not tortured existence. To conclude the universe needed these girls because they suffered, implies the universe needs people only if they are agonizing. Those who are not in pain apparently are not needed.
Therefore, the universe would not need Bathory on account of the joy she experienced torturing young girls, but the universe would need her during her miserable four year imprisonment. Universal need based on existence is distinct from universal need based on miserable existence. The former requires existence isolated from other qualifications, while the latter requires misery in addition to the qualities of existence.
Bathory tortured and murdered young girls. Her ethical status is not comparable to the ethical status of someone like Gandhi, who fought for the civil liberties of the oppressed people of India. But the universe needs the munificent Gandhi, and the diabolical Bathory, simply because they exist, and not because one is a good person, and the other is a bad person. The moral mind may object to the universe treating Bathory and Gandhi equally as ethical patients, but this objection may be driven by a moral rationality that prompts a projection of human scruples on to a mechanistic universe.
There is a moral problem in claiming⎯Gandhi and Bathory are equal in ethical status. This would suggest, fighting to free people from oppression is immoral, and that Gandhi should be punished for his acts.
Also, to claim that Bathory and Ghandi are equal in moral character, indicates, murdering girls should be recognized as a moral achievement in the same manner Gandhi was recognized for fighting to protect the civil liberties of the oppressed people of India. Either way, there is a problem, because good people are treated like bad people, and bad people are treated like good people. In contrast, universal function deems there is no moral problem in categorizing Bathory and Gandhi as equal in ethical status on account of the mechanistic nature of the universe.
Humans can hold each other accountable for violating ethical codes of conduct, but humans cannot hold the universe accountable for such violations. If a person is camping in the wilderness, and a sizeable branch falls on the person’s hip while slumbering in a sleeping bag, leaving the person paraplegic, it would be rather strange for the person to hold gravity morally accountable. Similarly, it would be rather strange for humans to hold the universe morally accountable for categorizing Bathory and Gandhi as equal in ethical status.
Suppose humans could hold the universe morally accountable, how will humans know if the universe is morally compliant? But first, how will humans hold the universe morally accountable? From a mechanistic standpoint, holding the universe accountable for moral violations yields the same results as holding gravity morally accountable for condemning the camper to paraplegia. In recognizing that both are objects, we do not hold either the universe or gravity morally accountable since both are not sentient beings subject to ethical systems.
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