"'It isn't his fault, really. He's not well.'
"Stefanik's jaws clamped together. 'Personal responsibility has to begin somewhere,' he said. 'I don't believe nerves are an excuse. Nor Society, nor anything short of organic brain damage.'
"'That's easy to say. It's not so easy to live by.'" (p. 38)
None of us chose, or could have chosen, either our genes or the time and place of our birth. For legal and practical purposes, we assume that anyone who has acted wrongly could have chosen to act otherwise because we want to influence each other's future actions although some of us think that all actions are either caused or random. An action was caused by a motive which in turn was caused by the sum total of all the factors generating the motivated individual.
We have to accept personal responsibility while also recognizing, I think, that nerves, society and brain processes, whether damaged or not, have combined to determine our actions.
4 comments:
"Cause" is not the same as "determine".
We know the universe is not deterministic -- that is, if you could rewind history and let it run again from exactly the same starting-point, it would come out differently more often than not.
Likewise, no amount of knowledge would enable you to accurately predict future human actions, or a good deal else.
Mr Stirling,
How would you differentiate between "cause" and determine"?
If human actions are not determined, then the only alternative that I can think of is that they have an element of randomness.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
As you know, I am not a determinist. I don't believe our actions, good or bad, are COMPELLED by nerves, "society," or brain processes, if that person understands the difference between good and bad, doing or not doing harm, etc. At most, we can be influenced by such factors. But if we are not clinically and genuinely insane it always comes down to deliberately choosing to do A instead of B. So I side with Stefanik's view.
Sean
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