{"id":606,"date":"2012-09-03T21:17:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T04:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=606"},"modified":"2012-09-04T17:31:53","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T00:31:53","slug":"on-responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=606","title":{"rendered":"On responsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I’ll leave the “sloppy thinking” series for now, although I expect to return to it in the future. \u00a0In this post I’ll share some thoughts about personal responsibility, especially as it pertains to the insanity defense. \u00a0It’s a topic much in the news lately, due to tragic actions by now-household names such as\u00a0James Eagan Holmes<\/a>\u00a0and Jared Loughner<\/a>. \u00a0The matter goes much further though. \u00a0We normally assume that adults are responsible for their actions, and that these actions are freely chosen. \u00a0The extent to which we treat this as absolute versus a matter of degree determines\u00a0our fundamental political views, and how we view our neighbors and ourselves.<\/p>\n

Many facets of everyday life are premised on personal responsibility. \u00a0The criminal justice system is the most obvious example. \u00a0In a wider sense our willingness to live in community with others depends on each person taking responsibility for his or her behavior. \u00a0Nonetheless, we’ve recognized exceptions to this default assumption for centuries. \u00a0Adults who are severely sick or injured may temporarily be unable to assume responsibility for themselves. \u00a0Likewise, infants and young children lack the ability to make informed choices and to exercise personal responsibility. \u00a0Non-human animals are exempt from personal responsibility and are never considered guilty of a crime \u2014 well, not anymore<\/a>.<\/p>\n

English common law\u00a0recognized\u00a0that the same lack of responsibility extended to insane adults:<\/p>\n

By the 18th century, the British courts had … developed what became known as the “wild beast” test: If a defendant was so bereft of sanity that he understood the ramifications of his behavior “no more than in an infant, a brute, or a wild beast,” he would not be held responsible for his crimes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The history<\/a> of the insanity defense then records the trial of Daniel\u00a0M’Naughten in 1843, where inability to distinguish right from wrong<\/em> was established as the crucial legal test. This became the standard, both in Britain and the US, for more than 100 years; the “M’Naughten rule” is still the legal standard in many states<\/a>. \u00a0Later modifications tended to liberalize its application, as with the “irresistible impulse” and “diminished capacity” doctrines, until the pendulum swung the other way<\/a> in the wake of John Hinkley’s attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981.<\/p>\n

As a society, we seem to be losing our inclination to forgive the mentally<\/a> ill<\/a>, and children<\/a>, when they commit horrific acts of violence. \u00a0Even young teens are now tried as adults when an alleged crime is bad enough. \u00a0And although insanity defenses are rare in U.S. courts, and their successful use often results in involuntary hospitalization longer than the prison sentence would otherwise have been, there is nonetheless a popular view that the insane “get away with it.” \u00a0Jared Loughner recently<\/a> plea-bargained for life imprisonment despite clear evidence of mental illness and the possibility of an insanity defense. \u00a0The court will decide whether James Holmes has severe psychosis, an antisocial personality, or just a very bad attitude. \u00a0As in Loughner’s case, this determination is unlikely to make a difference in terms of public safety \u2014 Holmes won’t be freed for decades, if ever. \u00a0But the way we handle the question of legal insanity bears on how our society views itself.<\/p>\n

Now that we are in a presidential campaign season, we hear rhetoric that cleaves the major parties around the question of personal responsibility. \u00a0“You didn’t build\u00a0that<\/a>,” a slightly misspoken point by President Obama about the government’s role in promoting business, became a rallying cry for Republicans in defense of the entrepreneur. \u00a0Yet both sides have a point: \u00a0The government makes and maintains highways (and founded the internet); individuals create trucking companies (and online businesses). \u00a0It’s really a matter of emphasis, and yet this emphasis is what most of the fighting is about.<\/p>\n

Decades ago, social psychologists coined the term “fundamental attribution error<\/a>” to highlight our tendency to over-apply dispositional or personality explanations to others, in the same circumstances we apply situational explanations to ourselves. \u00a0E.g., if others are unemployed we often imagine they are lazy or unqualified (personal factors), whereas if we are unemployed, we often blame a tough economy and a lack of jobs (situational factors). \u00a0Of course, some of the unemployed really are<\/em> lazy or unqualified, just as some killers really have the criminal intent (mens rea<\/a>) to be convicted of murder. \u00a0The question is whether and to what extent we allow for exceptions in cases other than our own. \u00a0Denying such exceptions flies in the face of our own legal tradition, our recognition of the fundamental attribution error, and our human kinship \u2014 the idea that we humans are more alike than we are different. \u00a0We are wise enough not to punish infants or “wild beasts” even if they hurt us; the severity of their behavior and its consequences has no bearing on whether they are personally responsible. \u00a0A person who cannot tell right from wrong due to severe psychosis is operating at the same level, and should be treated, not punished. \u00a0Personal responsibility is a strong enough concept that it can withstand some nuance and flexibility \u2014 especially when that happens to reflect reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll leave the “sloppy thinking” series for now, although I expect to return to it in the future. In this post I’ll share some thoughts about personal responsibility, especially as it pertains to the insanity defense. It’s a topic much in the news lately, due to tragic actions by now-household names such as James Eagan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,34],"tags":[13,55,54],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-human-nature","tag-ethics","tag-insanity","tag-responsibility","odd"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}