[ExI] insanity plea

[spike]

>. On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] insanity plea

 

Stefano, how does the insanity plea work in the continental law tradition?

On 24/02/2013 15:35, spike wrote:

 

Ja.  If we presume to set up a number of different varieties of crazy, I can
see a hundred ways this whole notion could go seriously wrong.  In the US,
gun ownership and voting are considered constitutional rights for those who
have not been convicted of a felony.  In introducing a new category of those
whose gun rights are to be infringed, it seems logical to me that if anyone
is too crazy to have a gun, then they are definitely too crazy to vote.  


>. And I think one can make a good case that some people who have mental
disorders yet should have the right to vote (should we prevent depressed or
anorexics from voting?)-- Anders Sandberg,

 
 
How about irrationally exuberant anorexics?  If depression is a mental
illness, and the opposite is elation, then elation is negative mental
illness, which would cancel the anorexia, and I should break even at least.
 
This whole thread really isn't about guns, but rather about some of the
implications of restricting gun ownership based on anything other than an
arrest record, such as mental health.  I hope to point out how dangerous is
the whole concept.
 
>. Criminals are assumed to know right from wrong but choose to do wrong;.
 
It is too easy to imagine voting rights being forbidden from all those who
know who is the right candidate but chose to vote for the other one.
Preventing the mentally ill from voting creates a new collection of
problems, for it assumes an objective means of determining who is too crazy
to vote.
 
Unrelated:  Anders I went up to Stanford yesterday to Cubberly Hall at 1000,
but it wasn't a transhumanist event.  Rather it was a string quartet.  The
1000 event was titled Hayden Makes You Smarter, a combination concert and
lecture on Hayden.  This was quite good and well worth the ride up there.
The event which looked like a transhumanist gathering, on bioethics, was at
1300 in Cubberly.  Was that the event that Natasha and your friend was
presenting?  Or did I have the wrong date, time or place?
 
spike
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