I recently had a disagreement with the owner of a quite popular facebook page, because of a post of his, in which he asserted that no one is born being something and that we are all victims of our social environment. That is, even if someone commits a heinous crime, what he needs is help rather than a punishment. That post was the beginning of an exceptionally interesting conversation, as well as of some dismal observations concerning the beliefs of most people nowadays.
One of them is about the percentage of those that seem to embrace this -almost radical- view when it comes to the personal responsibilities of criminals: in the 21st century's western world (at least in Europe), though the advocates of death penalty and even forced chemical castrations for sex offenders are existent, the other extreme, claiming that criminals are victims of society or their genes themselves and deserve de facto humane punishments, is -especially in the juristic circles- more popular.
The other is about the widely held (at least in Europe) belief that all criminals deserve a second (and not only) chance and help, which has resulted in many legal systems not only abolishing the death penalty but setting a limit to how many years one can stay in prison.
The extent to which genes are responsible for criminal behaviors was the beginning of my disagreement with the page's owner, who seems to hold the nowadays-prevailing view in the humanitarian fields, ascribing the responsibility of our social milieu or criminal behaviors to experiences. Though this view has some powerful arguments (which I shall elaborate later), there is evidence that criminal predisposition, especially for violent crimes, can depend on genetic factors.
Criminal behavior: genetically determined or depending on nurture?
Research on twins, as well as on children of convicts that were adopted as infants, indicates that there can be an -often heavy- genetic influence on criminal behavior (an example) -though that does not render it necessary that the genes to blame will be "activated".
There are several mechanisms via which genes can affect behavior and the degree of criminal predisposition. For instance, the way genes can influence testosterone levels in our body and its' effects on the brain can play a significant role. Even though high testosterone levels have been connected to increased aggressiveness, it is not testosterone itself to be blamed: there are countless men with high testosterone levels that are not violent and wouldn't even harm a fly, so the way testosterone can lead to aggressiveness may have to do with other substances interacting with it (there may be genes that somehow require high testosterone levels to be activated, and it may be them that lead to aggressiveness) or the brain structure and how it gets affected by testosterone.
When it comes to the latter, the research indicates that criminals tend to have a thinner pre-frontal cortex -a part of the brain contributing to decision-making, altruism, and empathy. There is also research indicating that psychopaths and violent criminals tend to have a problematic limbic system, which controls emotion and the degree to which they can prevail over reason, as well as research indicating that criminals tend to have a lower intelligence quotient (IQ).
The impact of one's brain structure to one's behavior is undeniable, given that we are basically our brain (rather than an immaterial entity that is going to exist after our physical death), and if this brain is problematic the odds are that so will be the case with us. So is the case with our body chemistry.
Nevertheless, when it comes to criminality, there seem to apply the same rules as in heart disease: just like one can be born with a genetic predisposition for heart disease yet remain healthy until the end of his or her life thanks to a healthy lifestyle, so can one be born with a genetic predisposition for criminal behavior and aggressiveness and yet never commit a crime or harm anyone. Conversely, one may be born with no genetic predilection for a heart disease and yet end up suffering one, thanks to a long-lasting unhealthy lifestyle, just like one may end up being a criminal without being genetically predisposed to, thanks to a long-lasting rough lifestyle and personal problems.
Though there is stark evidence that criminal behavior can be affected by genes, the other view -that whether one will commit a crime or not depends exclusively on the social environment, the nurture and the needs of someone- has some unassailable arguments on its' side: according to the statistics (source: The better angels of our nature by Steven Pinker), during antiquity and the middle ages the probability of someone to murder or be murdered was significantly higher than nowadays. That is also the case with today and several decades ago. Did our genome undergo considerable changes in some decades? Or violent and criminal behavior depends more on the social environment?
The advocates of this view have, thus, a strong argument that made their opinion prevail: the dramatic and impressive reduction of the use of violence during the last decades, indicative of the degree to which our behavior depends on our social environment and way of life rather than genes.
Still, what is certain is that no matter how much are we influenced by our social environment, some people are born with a criminal predisposition. There are countless people living in awful social environments yet the vast majority of them does not commit a single crime during their lifetime -just like there are people who lived a perfectly normal life yet committed heinous crimes. And, bizarrely, they tend to have very particular brain dysfunctions (atrophy of a region and limited blood flow toward it is, technically, a dysfunction) and body chemistry (high testosterone levels, possibly affecting the brain or particular genes)
Free will and personal responsibility
Hundreds of books have been -and are being- written on the influence of our genes and way of living on our behavior. Yet sooner or later arises the question of whether a criminal is to be blamed for being a criminal. No matter if criminals are "victims" of their nurture and social environment or their genes, why should we blame them for their actions if the responsibility lies on an external factor -something they have no control over? That was the main topic of our disagreement, and it was that that led me to dismal and disappointing observations on the prevailing opinions.
Those lovely cultivated humanists that talk about lenient punishments for criminals on the logical grounds that they are not responsible for their actions, commit a gross logical fallacy: they use a reasoning that applies exclusively to philosophical issues to voice an opinion for a social one.
By philosophical/realistic aspect, no one is really responsible for one's actions, not because one is determined by one's genes or social environment, but merely... because our very existence as entities separate from our environment is just a figment of our fantasy. We are made out of cells, which in turn are made up of molecules, which are made out of atoms, etc, which means that we, just like all of our universe, are a superstructure of interacting quarks arranged in highly intricate structures. There is nothing that separates our quarks from the rest of universe's.
Even where our body ends and "the rest" of the environment begins is unclear: in the quantum level, not a single particle is in a particular position in space. Where do the particles of our bodies (which in fact are constantly interchanged with the ones surrounding us) end, and begin those of the rest of the universe?
The bitter reality is that our behavior arises neither from our instincts nor out of our social environment, but from the laws governing the sub-atomic particles. We are parts of the universe and exist as separate entities, basically, only in our fantasy. Millions of years of evolution resulted to us having a brain, and for the brain to be able to control our body and ensure our survival, it had to have the illussion that the body which it had control over (whatever was controlled by its' nervous system) was an entity distinct from the rest of the environment. Yet that is not the case.
Think, you who had the time and the patience to read until this point: would you consider as sane someone who would ask in earnest for murder's decriminalization with arguments like "no one really dies because his atoms still exist in the universe"? Or someone who would use the vanity of existence and that we are just particles obeying to the laws of physics, as grounds to elaborate his argument that it is not bad to slaughter a family?
Whoever would say in earnest that killing and raping is not really bad because life is an accident, because we "exist" only in our fantasies, and because no one is really responsible for what he does, would end up as a case study for psychiatrists and psychology graduates. For the simple reason that he would have been talking with arguments of the wrong level. To be too much of a rational realist and to mix philosophical and cosmological issues with the social ones, is to end up having strange or even insane opinions.
From a realistic aspect, no one is really responsible for his/her actions, nor has he/she influence to the surrounding world and is just a sort of marionette of it (though there is a pretty convincing counterargument* for the opposite view, of us having a free will). We don't have to talk about instincts, genes, and social determination: everything is interactions of particles. But that is realistically speaking. By a social aspect... there are other logical rules, and we don't take the universal reality into account.
By a social aspect, the only thing we care about is what we are -no matter if it has a free will and individuality or not- to be able to survive and be happy, and that requires a functional society. In order for a society to function, the members that cause problems are to be punished, no matter if they chose to or not. By a social aspect, the philosophical question of whether we have a free will or not is irrelevant. Even if we do not, we can only pretend that we do. Just like a criminal may have had no other choices, we have no other choices either.
*[When it comes to free will, some asseverate that they have found the solution to the problem of its' existence in a deterministic universe. The sub-atomic particle level is chaotic and works with probabilities (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) -which means that there may be some "space" for free will to exist. Since nothing is predetermined in the particle level, by choosing to do anything, you disturb and unbalance the probabilities of the next situation of the particles around you, which means that they depend, to a certain degree, on you -and not exclusively you on them. That's the counterargument.
I do not intend to elaborate, advocate, or refute this view in the present article, so what we ought to keep in mind for the time being is that we simply cannot care for the subatomic (or molecular, or gene) interactions when speaking about social issues, and that the quantum chaos may allow to what we call a "free will" to thrive. Let us accept this point and proceed. ]
Confusions and misunderstandings
It is a gross logical fallacy to be led to take into account things that are true only within a philosophical or cosmological context when it comes to how we act and behave in a society. Should we free all serial killers and rapists because "it wasn't them, but the interactions of the electrons"? Well, it is equally illogical to reduce their sentences' length because "it was not them, but their genes/family environment/dysfunctional brains". And beside being logically untenable, given the capabilities and intricacy of our brains, but also devastating to the process of administrating justice.
In the US juries, it is typical for an attorney to blame the dysfunctional brain or the problematic family environment of their clients in order for them to get a lighter sentence. Indeed, in several states, if a convicted rapist and murderer is proved to be mentally retarded can avoid a death sentence and get a plain life sentence instead. Such criminals, technically, do not get the punishment they deserve just because they happened to be born some way. For a choice the didn't make, for a purely statistical mistake, they avoid the death sentence they deserve for a crime they consciously chose to commit.
One could claim that in those states, the ones who get a death sentence, get it because they committed a crime without being retarded. For, as we all know, a retarded criminal is a better person than an intelligent one, and therefore deserves a "lighter" sentence. Where is justice -or even rationality- in this? Especially if we consider the fact that it is not mental retardation that leads someone to crime, and that the vast majority of people with retardation doesn't even harm a fly.
The same applies to the ones that happened to grow up in problematic families. There are hundreds of thousands of them, yet not even one tenth of them ended up robbing, murdering, and selling drugs. Simply put, belonging into that category may increase the odds that you will choose a life of crime. Yet the choice remains yours.
And even if it isn't, as I elaborated, even if behaviorists were right and we are indeed completely predictable automata reacting to stimuli, possessing no free will whatsoever and choosing our deeds as much as a planet chooses being trapped into the gravitational field of a star, what we care about in a society is the survival and well-being of its' members. If some member happens to be problematic and does not allow society to function normally, we have no choice but to make sure that society gets rid of it.
So, regardless of which logical approach we choose -behavioral determinism or not- the conclusion remains the same: a criminal is to be punished. The only question is whether we ought to help some criminals and give them a second chance. The only ones to be helped and given a second chance are those who committed a crime on grounds of a compelling need -a starving homeless stealing something to eat, for instance, or a long-term unemployed who ends up slinging for to have his children fed. When it is society itself that pushes some of its' members to a criminal life, the root of the problems lies on its' structures.
Consider someone whose parents had an accident when he was an infant and ended up in an orphanage. He was most likely never given the proper education and preparation to get a college degree or even finish high school -the state did not take care of him. He ended up doing minimum-wage jobs for a choice he didn't make, and it is well-known that the ones getting the minimum wage are highly more likely to commit a crime than the rest of the population. Take into account cultural factors (i.e. it once was highly respected in mountainous Greece to rob the wealthy), and you may agree that in some cases it is the society that is problematic, and not such criminal members of it. If our hero committed i.e. a theft, he would most likely deserve help rather than plain punishment.
When the reason someone was led to crime is clearly a problematic society or state, or even a serious personal disaster (who would want a harsh sentence for someone who killed the rapist and murderer of his daughter?), then we can discuss second chances and help. Still, that depends on the particular case and no general rule can be applied to the whole category.
Do the same principles apply to people who committed hideous crimes with no apparent reason other than their biology and psychology? A serial killer who carefully planned his murders, committing them merely for joy and pleasure, can ever be considered to deserve a second chance? Why should we take into account their past and even their genetic make-up before deciding whether they are to be executed or not? And if we are to pardon or give a lighter sentence to someone because it was his past or "his genes", why not do so with everyone because, after all, it was the interactions of elementary particles?
And this is the second disheartening observation: not only more and more seem to commit the logical fallacy of confusing the genetic, the psychological, and the social level but, as if that wasn't enough of a fallacy, they typically insist that the lighter the sentence, the more just and humane. Let me show you why this premise is ridiculous.
I want to believe that we do not disagree on that the punishment of a crime ought not be disproportionate to the harm it caused. Stealing a chocolate-bar (an act lasting several seconds with technically no harm and damage for its' owner) ought not be punished by chopping the offender's hand off (which lasts for a lifetime and it is devastating in all aspects of life). That would be unfair, since it would be a disproportionately heavy sentence compared to the offense itself. The most fundamental principle of justice is the analogy of misdeed and punishment -not necessarily literally an eye for an eye, but one should have his life ruined when willingly ruining the life of another.
Once we accept this as a fact, why should we consider more just a "humane" punishment for a murderer?
Let us accept that if you killed only once you may deserve a second chance. Let's say that you were very young when you did it and that you have become another person in the meanwhile, or that you were led to such an act after the victim attacked against you, or that he harmed your family and got what he deserved. A second chance and mild sentence for someone who committed a serious crime only once, may be reasonable and just (even thought that is still debatable and depends on the particular case).
Is it so for someone who committed multiple offenses? Is someone who is behind the murder of six people and the rape of four other getting a second or an eleventh chance after being released from prison after 25 years -the longest time one can be held as prisoner in Greece, where I happen to live? When Norwegians release Brejvik after 21 years in jail, how just and "humane" will it be that the "man" who ruined dozens of families by killing their members is once again in the streets?
The punishments ought to be proportionate to and suitable for the offenses, and in some cases the proportionate and suitable is... the death row. The widely held principle that all strict punishments and death penalties are unjust and unsuitable, has the prerequisite of us abandoning the most fundamental principle of justice, that a punishment should be proportional to the offense -which happens to be simultaneously reasonable and in accordance to our instincts-, and is based upon an arbitrary -almost superstitious- bias against strict sentences. This prejudice treats such punishments as de facto unjust, without providing many reasonable arguments. And it is very dismal that the ones in favor of the death penalty in Europe are, on average, less educated: it is as if we have been brainwashed into connecting in our minds the death penalty with primitives, as if we try to seem "cultivated" by talking about second chances and "understanding" for each and every psychopath.
This belief is logically falacious. "Humane" punishments are not necessarily just, and in some cases the "primitive" ones may be more suitable. There is no real rationale that can support the arbitrary beliefs about second chances even for dangerous criminals, and no such arbitration can stand a rational analysis.
In conclusion
Criminal behavior, as the statistics of the last decades indicate, may depend largely on the social environment, yet the role of the genes and body chemistry is undeniable. As an interlocutor put it, you inherit the probability to become a criminal and whether you will engage in criminal behaviors or not depends on your nurture and social milieu too -genes alone cannot determine it. Nor can nurture. There are countless people living an awful life yet never harmed anyone -just like there are people living perfectly normal lives yet committed hideous crimes. Just like there are countless people with "criminal" genes, yet are well-behaving and law-abiding.
When it comes to determinism -whether it is social or genetic-, it does not diminish the personal responsibility of a criminal. Our brain is intricate enough to pretend that it provides us a free will, and to blame a behavior on a set of genes to get a lighter sentence is equally illogical with blaming it to the interactions of the subatomic particles we consist of and our inability to control them. There is no reason to get to so fundamental levels of nature, as the genetic, the molecular, and the subatomic, to explain the behavior of a human being -let alone justify it.
We can only talk about helping a criminal only if he was led to a criminal act due to a compelling economical need or personal disaster, and his psychological world, genetic make-up, and cognitive abilities are absolutely irrelevant and not to be taken in to account. If he suffered from psychological problems, he could have consulted a psychologist. If he has a problematic gene, to take it into account in order to give him a lighter sentence is equally unjust and irrational to take into account his racial origins for the same purpose -just like it is unjust and irrational to give a harsh sentence to someone who happened to be born with African genes, it is unjust and irrational to give someone a light sentence because he happened to be born with "criminal" genes. When it comes to cognitive abilities, it is outrageously idiotic to take them into account since mental retardation does not increase the odds of becoming a criminal, nor is a mentally retarded offender de facto a better person than an intelligent one who committed the same crime.
The punishments ought to be lenient for otherwise law-abiding people that were led to crime clearly due to a need, yet strict and harsh for the ones who committed a crime with no reason other than their psychopathy or problematic genes. In extreme cases -such as serial murderers, rapists, and arsonists-, the "primitive" punishment of the death penalty may be more appropriate. A "primitive" punishment is not necessarily unjust; it is a logical fallacy and an arbitrariness to consider harsh punishments as de facto unjust and humane punishments as de facto fair.
One of the typical "arguments" of those who want to abolish the death penalty is that executing a murderer does not bring the victim back. Well, not executing him does not bring the victim back either. But at least the offender gets a punishment proportionate to his deed -as is justice supposed to be-, and society gets rid of a problematic member.
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©George Malandrakis
All rights reserved
All rights reserved
