On the subject of Accountability

When forced to act unjustly, do any negative moral ramifications take place? This question is subject to the type of situation that the dilemma occurs in. In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, three murderers are ordered to kill innocent lives by their corrupted king, Macbeth. The murderers carry out the order without remorse and give no second thought to the deeds they commit. This kind of order following is outright wrong. The three could have walked away from the king's order without any repercussions. This type of cruelty is just completely and unabashedly wrong. In the two stories of the nazis, this type of distinction was not so clear. One person, Victor Capesius, sends his former neighbors to their deaths just as he is ordered to. He mentally eradicates any human memory of his friends in order to carry on with his horrific malice. This type of following is also obviously unlawful and completely unjust. The other man mentioned in the article is Konrad Jarausch. He is another nazi charged with malicious orders just like Capesius. The only difference between the two is that Konrad truly feels regret about what he was doing. Konrad created documents where he expresses his direct regret for his actions. However, he does nothing to stop the wrongdoings. During his time serving as a nazi, he knew that he could have never affected the outcome of the third reich. This logic, he stated, was why he never chose to protest against the unlawful duties he was charged with. Despite his deep and profound regret for his actions, he is still accountable for what he did. Participating in the absolute horror of the Holocaust can never be justified. Just because Konrad felt intense peer pressure from his nazi friends doesn't mean that his innocence can be salvaged. He was, in a sense, more moral than the completely intrinsically evil Capesius. Capesius never admitted one tiny bit of regret, even at trials after the war. These situations beg the question of where the line of innocence while committing sin can be drawn. While most of the time judgment must be passed independently on each situation, it can be said in general that a person must do everything in his power to not commit mortal sins, even when threatened. None of the people in any of these cases tried at all to stop the tragic murders before they were committed, and they should be all held accountable for it.