Moral predicament: Is there such a thing as the bad seed?

[silversolitaire]

I heard about this case in the US about a guy who whacked an elderly couple to death with the handle of a revolver. He never admitted to the deed, said he wasn't there, even though it was obvious he'd done it. He received a death sentence. His mother, who's a psycholgist and adopted him when he was a small kid, did some research. Ever since he was a boy he was constantly lying, cheating and stealing. The family always treated him with love and support and the (non-blood-related) sister grew up as a normal member of society. The research uncovered that this man's family had a long history of violence, criminal behavior etc. With other experts a family tree was put together, showing that all sorts of disorders and crimes have occured in this man's family, all somewhat leading up to him. Adding to that his biological mother drank heavily while being pregnant with him which supposedly leads to violent behavior and learning disorders in the infant.

So, what's your opinion? Is there a genetic inclination to crime, to evilness? Is there a "bad seed"? And how should someone "inherently evil" be treated by society, by the law? Should the death sentence be carried out since he obviously can't change? Should be be imprisioned for life? Is he a lost cause now? Is it his fault at all? Who is at fault?

Obviously, death penalty is never the answer and I oppose this 100%. But how do you treat someone who you know can never change? Should someone have warned the family about this "genetic inclination" so they could adjust to it and treat him properly? Should the mother, being a psycholigist, recognized the problem and counteracted it?

Assuming there IS such a thing as a bad seed, a natural inclination to violence and misbehavior, should society make sure that these kind of people don't spread out? Or should they develop a program for them to be put into an environment that can deal with their aggressive behavior and put them into useful channels?

So many questions, so many thought... impossible to answer, most likely.

EDIT:

Tom's View:

Violence might be genetic, aggression could be inherited, such things could be in his nature to lie, cheat, and steal. Obviously his supportive family didn't help him stop this from emerging. However that doesn't give him an excuse to run around and beat people to death. There are many, many, many other ways to express such things in a socially acceptable way. He could've joined some boxing place and beat people up on a daily basis if violence was his nature. Lots of thieves become good at catching other thieves, entire lines of work were created merely out of that concept alone.

Criminal Behavior cannot be genetically inherited because ideas of crime change. The traits that could lead to it still exist, but the same traits could also be appropritately geared towards helping society. I feel that although it sucks for him to have these traits, it's not a go ahead to murder elderly people whenever his violent side shows.

EDIT 2:

Oh screw it, just go vote here. -.-;

EDIT 3:

WTF is wrong with my nicely poll? ;_; I can only see the words, but no polly stuff! ;_;

Comments

[tomkayito.livejournal.com]

Just a short reply.
I understand that someone who's never seen black or white would not know one from the other, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There is a black and there is a white, it's a fact, even if it can only be expressed in our limited perception and we cannot share such an idea with someone who doesn't percieve black and white. Or even if said person can see and understand them, perhaps sees them differently than the rest of us.

So although the person may not consider themself evil, or perhaps even they do consider themself evil, the deeds they commit and the thoughts they envision are indeed good or evil merely by being what it is, wether it is percieved as such or not.

Society's role, as it stands on this issue, is to determine what is good and evil, and even within this regard, it is merely a perception of society as a whole. Why is killing wrong, yet we send men off to war? A simple twist of setting changes perception entirely and makes an horribly wrong action by social standards into a completely acceptable method of achieving a goal. Killing is still wrong everyone would agree, but the line blurs and perception changes for that specific situation.

Ah, I see my reply is no longer short, but I hope I've gotten my idea across. I can agree that they would not percieve evil, but it does not mean that they are not evil.

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

>>>There is a black and there is a white, it's a fact
and infinite shades of grey..

in fact, i do not favor terms like "good"/"evil", "right"/"wrong". undoubtedly, they do convey something, but it's nothing exact; it's very relative, circumstantial, mostly subjectively influenced, and the borders are blurred.

let's for now agree to use 'primary' and 'secondary psychopath' as according to my definition (of course psychological concepts are usually rather hypothetical/speculative as they are troublesome to prove beyond doubt). their deeds and influence on environment may be similar. but what i wanted to express, is that to shove them all in the same bag would be like saying that all blind people live in darkness. it certainly wouldn't apply to those born blind. they do not know what seeing means, light to them is a word without meaning, and so is darkness. we cannot even imagine the perception of someone who has never seen. we cannot imagine the modality of vision totaly absent from consciousness.

if how i describe the 'primary psychopath' approximates truth (and my impression is that it does), then that understanding has many practical implications concerning our approach or dealing with them. they live in this human society and it has its standards and ideals. now this society is trying to impose these upon the psychopath, impose something that he is incapable to understand.
in this light for example it is rather stupid expecting the psychopathic convict to show remorse during his trial. well, he can maximally fake remorse, mimic something that he (observing other people's behavior) assumes remorse is like.
nevertheless, i agree that society HAS to deal with these entities somehow..

this is indeed a very controversial subject, because it suggests that certain humans are humans only biologically, but psychologically they are not. they are only mimicri/play-pretend humans, subhuman, humanoid.
and the psychopathic killer is not the real issue. that one is the poor unsuccessful psychopath - his hobby is so sociopathic that he can't go "undetected" for too long. the issue here is the "successful" psychopath who manages to blend in very well, who is often a person in position.. a politician, someone's boss, someone's parent, a doctor, etc.. you get my drift. and that can be hell.