Quote from: JA37 on August 27, 2011, 03:31:07 PM

Quote from: MoonShadow on August 27, 2011, 01:36:15 PM

Fortunately for me, that isn't an argument that I made. I can't even see how you came to the conclusion above by distortions of what I said, unless you just didn't bother to read them and just jumped in. I would agree that all humans are equal under the law, but certainly not identical. Again, it's not relevant that one person can be more influenced than another. It's a prerequisite of an adult that s/he be able to rationally control their own deviant tendencies regardless of whether those tendencies are the result of nature or nurture.

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If you ate lead paint as a child, and then go out a do crazy things as an adult, is that cause and effect? Clearly it is not ...

That's what I took issue with. It can absolutely be cause and effect for one person but not for another.
Are you responsible for your own actions? Yes.
Can blame for bad actions be shared with an enabler of those actions? Absolutely.

Another may be responsible for letting you eat lead paint as a child, but then they are primarily responsible to you, not for you. It is not, in any capacity, the liability of society and civilization at large for your heavy metal poisoning or it's associated effects. If society wishes to take such into consideration in the collective punishment (normally called 'justice' although it tends to be far from that) imposed upon you for your actions, society can choose to do that. However, that in no way implies that society is at fault for your condition, nor responsible in any way for your actions. The primary goal of modern justice systems isn't either restitution of the wronged nor even punishment of the wrongdoer. The primary goal is to limit the liberties (both in time and scope) of the wrongdoer in order to limit the further harm to society in general that the wrongdoer can commit. If it benefits society to commit resources to 'reform' the wrongdoer so that said wrongdoer can be released and support himself, that will happen to the greatest extent that it's actually possible. If it's not possible, and particularly if the wrongdoer is of particular risk to the public (such as a serial murderer) then reform is dropped in favor of simply indefinite incarceration. If someone (successfully) uses the mental incapacity defense to evade a conviction, the justice system still commits them to the care and incarceration of a state mental hospital; because anyone who has a history of causing harm and lacks the capacity of self-regulation, they are even a greater threat to society at large than the career criminal. The nutter cannot be reformed, but the mobster commits crimes due to the pursuit of profit and the belief in his own capacity of evading the police. If he can be convinced that the profit doesn't justify the risks, the mobster can be reformed.