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Re: For what would You Punish them????
by Mangar
No. But we've been laboring under the tacit assumption that mens rea can only be a basis for punishment if it is not otherwise explainable by physical causes. Think about that for a second: a person's mindset must (basically) be an uncaused causer, which puts it in a supernatural category. People don't usually think of it this way, but in a materialist philosophy where everything is the product of past physical events, an event that is unexplainable by material events is mystic. Defenses have begun to be based on the mental-state correlation: criminals have a higher baseline average level of testosterone, for example. So, if you get a high-testosterone person committing a crime, was it "them" or was it the testosterone (or, was it the Twinkies?) Thing is, there is no "them", or else they ARE the testosterone and every other neurological structure and transmitter in that head. So the question is not whether people deserve punishment based on our human intuitions (which are not designed to include cognitive neuroscience data), but whether the person or persons, as a physical system or systems, is (or are) likely to respond to the punishment in the desired fashion. That is, are they less likely to offend in the future if punished? If a mental illness keeps them from appreciating the punishment, then it's pointless. If a "compulsion" will cause continued behavior despite any punishment, it's also pointless. In those cases, it may be best to restrict freedom not out of a sense of "justice", "anger", or other punitive sentiment, but simply to keep the person from re-enacting the behavior, mens rea or no.
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