Quote:
Originally posted by antryg:
I really resent lawyers using such a defense. So many people suffer from the same problems/combination of problems and do not act out in such a horrible manner. The abrogation of personal responsibility should not be allowed. It is so tempting to place the blame on such factors.
Our society seems to reject such concepts as evil or that a person would willingly embrace it. I think that this is just such a case. He is evil and finds that acceptable and normal. We need to protect ourselves from such normalcy.
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First you can never say well this guy has the same problems as this guy so they should behave the same - you will NEVER find someone with exactly the same upbringing, internal skills, brain activity, genetic predispositions, conditioning, emotional problems, etc - even the smallest deviation can change someone's behaviour drastically! So it's a spurious argument.
Second where you say placing blame, I see as looking for causes. If someone starts behaving in an unacceptably sexual way and it turns out that they have epilepsy and were suffering the type of seizure that causes sexual automatisms that it the
cause and as such they should be treated accordingly. It is not 'passing the buck' or trying to get out of taking responsibility but saying why did this happen. Now that's not to say that if there are 'causes' found then the person is patted on the head and told to go on home since it wasn't their fault. As Mel said, the solution for some people is simply to lock them up because they can't function in society, and definitely for this guy that seems to be the answer. Looking for causes also means it is possible to help young people who may be at risk, if they seem to be travelling down the same path. If we just say you're evil - lock you up, and don't even consider what may have lead to the act that brought them under scrutiny then how can we evolve as a society and stop it from happening again?