I’m not guilty – but my brain is
…The idea that someone should not be punished if their abnormal neural make-up leaves them no choice but to break the law is contentious but not new. However, one prominent neuroscientist has sparked a storm by picking it up and turning it round. Writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany’s leading newspapers, Wolf Singer argued that crime itself should be taken as evidence of brain abnormality, even if no abnormality can be found, and criminals treated as incapable of having acted otherwise.
His claims have brought howls of outrage from academics across the sciences and humanities. But Singer counters that the idea is nothing but a natural extension of the thesis that free will is an illusion – a theory that he feels is supported by decades of work in neuroscience. …
ha! i’ve been arguing this since the early 90s (minus the neuro blah blah blah “justification” that follows the quote). mentioned my theory to a lunch group at the mises institute last march, and i don’t think anybody out of the 5 or 6 agreed with me. glad to know somebody else is considering this, because it’s the theory of the future. the down side is that nobody wants to hear it without assuming 50 things that you didn’t say. it’s usually concluded that you want murderers given a pat on the back and sent back out into the street. wrong.
mark my words: “this is the girl.”