View Single Post
 
Old February 26th, 2006, 01:41 PM
TomJrzk TomJrzk is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dallas
Posts: 257
Default Re: Evolved Psychology - Brain Region Tied to Regret Identified

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred H.
Of course TJ, psychologies, environment, and predetermination—how could it be otherwise? Sheds new light on war crimes and genocide—instead of the simplistic old defense, “I vas just following orders,” we now have a more nuanced, “I vas just predetermined; und my psychology just destined me to take advantage of mine environment.” Sounds like something comrade MiloÅ¡ević might be able to use.
Yes, we're in agreement once again! That's exactly my point, you and I are destined to do what our brains tell us. Just as your brain had in the past quoted my words to give the entirely wrong tone or mangled Margaret's words to a laughable caricature of her intent, their brains told them what they were doing was the right thing to do; whether out of greed or justice over prior abuses, I don't know. Whether you did those dishonest things because of a sense that the end of convincing us to your POV justified the means or sheer cruelty or retribution for some pain you've suffered, I don't know. Regardless, I don't hate you for doing those things; you sound like a decent person and you had some condition in your brain that made those things 'right' from your perspective. Even if it were from pure cruelty, I'd argue that is physical and not different from an aneurysm taking out the 'regret' module in your brain, in which case I pity you rather than hate you.

But there's still no blindness here, society was destined to identify those as antisocial behaviors and punish them accordingly. We have laws that change the environment as much as possible and jails if those laws are not enough in themselves to prevent people from behaving badly. So, in other words, if their defense is "my psychology just destined me to take advantage of mine environment" then our right is to lock them up. MiloÅ¡ević should be punished and I'd hope that punishment would include sitting in the bottom of a pit where anyone who lost a family member could at least pee on him.

Great posts, thanks!
Reply With Quote