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

[sandrine]

Like you, I oppose death penalty in any case, so this is not an exception for me either way.

As for the 'bad seed' theory - the only way to prove it would be a Kaspar Hauser experiment, having two children with different genetic 'inclination' grow up in exactly the same way. The case you mentioned doesn't really prove much. The boy could have had violent friends when he was a kid, could have been influenced in ways his family couldn't prevent or didn't notice. Personally, I doubt there's a genetic programming influencing a person's behavior, but there's no (legal) way to prove that either.

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

O_o soooo many questions! ;p we could talk about that for a couple of hours.
you might want to look up Dr.Hare's website (www.hare.org), who currently seems to be the leading researcher of psychopathic personality disorder.
and if you are interested i can e-mail you a book.. probably the first and truly groundbreaking one about psychopathy by Dr.Cleckley.
ok, now THIS subject is controversial if there ever was one (no suprise it's not spoken or written about too much, it's pretty hushed up even in scientific circles).

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/robert_hare/

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

Sure, send me the book! I'm interested in the subject. There have been a couple of movies on the subject, "Bad Seed", obviously, but none of them really discussed the subject properly, IMO.

I realize this is extremely controversial. What I can't decide though is, if there WAS a bad seed would it be excusing evil people or rather accusing?

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

I really don't know. Part of me wants to say that this is bullshit and everyone can change and be the master of their own destiny. But then again there are so many things that are genetically influenced, such as the inclination to depression and other things. So, maybe it is possible after all?

But yes, the problem of proving it should be the biggest one.

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

the genetical link is not as tight as to say "bad seed", i think. if we agree to call these individuals "psychopaths", then there are psychopaths in families with totally ok parents and siblings.
the theory of a psychopath is one of my faves (if i can call it that), it's damn interesting and has quite scary implications (Cleckley calls his book 'Mask of Sanity'.. that should say a lot). having had personal experience with a few of the kind - and NOT only in position of a patient! - it's very strange this world. freaky sometimes.

on the other hand, it can be argued if calling them evil, blaming them or accusing them is the right approach. it is not easy to explain what i mean or how i percieve a true psychopath. i think a true hardcore psychopath doesn't understand the emotional world of "normal" humans, just like "normal" humans don't understand his.
there are some not quite explainable qualities that are the mark of 'humanity'. these are sometimes called higher feelings/emotions - empathy, love, unselfishness, ethics, aesthetics, morality, etc. now, a true psychopath seems to (at least in my observation) lack this human core. he's in that sense subhuman (human only biologically). words like empathy, love, ethics, honor, respect, etc. don't mean anything to him because he has no capacity to experience the phenomena that are described by mentioned words. he knows the words, hears them, grows up in a society that uses them, but he himself lacks the experience and thus the true understanding of them (see 'semantic aphasia' in Cleckley).. he is in that sense inherently/by nature disabled to the experience. can only mimic these aspects of human behavior.
now if someone is not capable to perceive light, never has.. does he perceive darkness? no, because darkness exists only as opposed to light. thus, imho, these individuals are not "evil" per se as they have no capacity to be the opposite or understand the opposite.

there ARE evil people, though. ones who do understand the concept of "good" vs. "evil", who do have a human dimension, have a choice and do chose conscious evil or "doing wrong". i like to call these 'secondary psychopath' as opposed to 'primary'. it's not easy at all to tell one from the other.

[boixboi.livejournal.com]

I find it highly unlikely that there would be a serious genetic predisposition towards crime. Even if there were, as has already been pointed out, nurture is far more important than nature, and we still have not found good controls for it. I know they say that that he was treated with love, but truly almost all people treat children that are not their own worse than those that are (studies and blah blah blah), in the same vein that people are naturally more caring for infants which look healthier (more studies and blah blah blah).

I find Tom's argument an odd addition, because I see that argument made about many things-- the problem is that I never see anybody advocating what they rail so hard against (that some sort of genetic predisposition should let somebody off the hook for something). One of these cop-type shows, I think it was Law & Order, tackled the subject of such a thing in a very interesting way-- an under-18 murderer's defense lawyers tried to claim he had some sort of weird genetic "two Y no X" sex chromosome pair to get him a lighter sentence, and in the end the kid hearing all of this decided to go away to life in prison, that he deserved it to keep him away from society (thus proving that he clearly was not the monster they made him out as in his defense while at the same accepting this life sentence, and also making the defense using this argument look like the 'bad guys'). Outside of that, however, I've never heard of anybody making this sort of silly argument.

To me it is obvious that if such a gene exists, it proves only a greater moral/ethical need to protect all children from harm and neglect.

I don't believe in people that "obviously can't change," either...I think that via counseling, people can over issues of mental health both genetic and environmentally created. It would also seem clear that we need to do work on drugs to check violence if there is such a genetic base, the same way we do for genetic problems like depression (that is, depression caused by chemical brain imbalance, not life situation).

And, of course, I find the whole concept of the death penalty abhorrent, so I must say no.

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

*adores* This is a great little treatise on the aspect of psychopathy! Thank you so much. Heh, I felt reminded of American Psycho! "I feel like my mask of sanity is about to slip." Guess that figures where Ellis researched at! *g*

What you described first is the pathological psychopath. And I agree, those can't be called evil because they are disabled in a way. Of course, that doesn't keep them from doing things that are generally considered evil. Those who consciously decided to counteract society's concepts of what is right could be called evil, because they have a different kind of disability. They might have actively chosen not to care about all these feelings which you called the human core. Then of course there's also a third kind (and more most likely), such as the pychopathic artist. Those kinds of people who, like the actively counteracting psychopath, decide that they have (in their opinion) some sort of higher moral set-up or justification to do the things they do, and those who consider what they do some sort of art.

Okay, now I lost my train of thought... >_>; Six Feet Under is on now! ^^;; Gonna log now. We'll continue this later! This is very interesting! *just finished dling*

[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.

[tomkayito.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, you're talking about very strong genetic disorders with this show. They are extremely rare and would severely change a case in most situations because the person truely has no control compared to "normal" people (theoretically). However I'm refering rather to more natural changes. Like natural selection, certain genes are more prodominant because of the way a species may survive in a certain area, and if such a thing can happen in other animals, why not in humans? We are, after all, animals ourselves.

It does not necessarily need to be one gene, but perhaps a certain mix of gene types that carries onward from generation to generation to cause certain reactions. A person with such a set may be more violent, prone to depression, and shut off from others, or conversely with another set could be peaceful, cheerful, and outgoing. Merely from their chemical processes that help to control emotions.

My real arguement isn't that this person should be let off, not by any means, but rather that he (and everyone) should be more closely acessed for such traits and have them used in a positive manner. As my original example:One inclined to violence and fighting might make a good boxer, thus releasing his agression in a socially acceptable manner instead of resorting to beating old people, a clearly unacceptable expression of his violence.

People can change, however it takes time and effort, and even at that it's more likely a change in how they express that side of themselves rather than changing that aspect entirely, wether originally caused from genetic issues or environmental causes, and in the long run their body adapts to the changes thus completely altering their habbits and their nature.

As for the drugs, there are already many drugs out there with purposes to counteract certain characteristics, as you've noted, however some of the "life situations" you refer to have just as much of a chemical impact in the long run as genetics. It just happens that this particular brand of problem is a bit more rare and not so readily researched or perscribed drugs to solve, although you are quite correct that it should be worked on as well.

As to the death penalty, I leave as I said in my reply to no_ron, there is a black, there is a white. It is only in society seeing it as less black to kill a man who has killed others than to kill an innocent man. Perhaps it is the blackness on his deeds that makes it a less contrast to the blackness of killing him that makes it seem acceptable compared to the sharp contrast of an innocent white man being sent to the blackness of death. *lets his black and white analogy run away with him*

I believe that is all I wanted to say, so I shall say no more unless another reply is deemed necessary by my colorful opinions.

[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.