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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 25/02/2013 18:49, John Clark wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAJPayv3TdWup9aKsAX=TXt7WuBaeixxMbMD50bgavr+3+FSQ3A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 Anders Sandberg <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:anders@aleph.se"
target="_blank">anders@aleph.se</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">> Criminals are
assumed to know right from wrong but choose to do wrong;
mentally ill people might or might not have that ability </div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
I don't understand what ability you're talking about. If you
choose to do wrong you either did it for a reason (bad genes
or a bad environment or both) or you did a bad thing for no
reason whatsoever (a random quantum fluctuation in your head).
Neither possibility would matter to me in the slightest if you
were chasing me with a bloody ax, I don't care why you're
doing it I just want you to stop.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
We are not talking about the ax-chase part, but what happens once I
get caught by the police and/or doctors. <br>
<br>
If I was chasing after you because you owed me money, then it is a
matter for the justice system: I had a reason, I was aware that I
could harm you and that this was against the law and common decency
(even though the debt might have been big). I choose (using the
neural mechanisms of action selection in my brain) to use the ax
instead of sending lawyers after you. I had a choice: humans in this
kind of situation can and do use non-violent means to get their
money. <br>
<br>
If I was chasing after you because I believed that you were a
leprechaun who stole my name, then that is evidence that my reality
checking is broken and it is a matter for the hospital. Nobody says
that delusional people have a real choice (they do not update their
beliefs when given clear evidence against them). <br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAJPayv3TdWup9aKsAX=TXt7WuBaeixxMbMD50bgavr+3+FSQ3A@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div> And I think preventing things like that is the only reason
to have criminal law at all, and so in a logical world that
would leave no room whatsoever for the insanity defense.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
See my other recent post: you might disagree, but people actually
have a lot of other reasons for criminal law. And many of these make
the insanity defence totally sensible. (But it is not applicable to
that many crimes.)<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Faculty of Philosophy
Oxford University </pre>
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