bluechillj
Heisman
Personal Responsibility for Behavior
Alright, I'll give this philosophical musings thing a spin.....I'm curious to hear about people's conceptualizations of personal responsibility for one's behavior.
To me, this is a complicated issue. My own notions of a person's ability to choose and be in control of behavior have been shaken as I've learned more and more about the factors that influence behavior outside of our control.
For instance, there are now countless studies showing genetic influences on a person's behavior. So if I am 50% more likely than another person to commit a crime based upon my genetics, then surely I am less responsible for that behavior. Even when I do "choose" the behavior, the fact that I am biased toward choosing that behavior is not fair within my personal conceptualization of responsibility. In either case, the behavior is by definition less under my control than for other people.
There are many other external factors that are less intuitive than genetics but that are nonetheless influential on behavior too. For instance, over time we pick up associations between different concepts that influence our behavior toward those concepts, particularly in situations that are stressful, or occur quickly. To give a harmless example, perhaps I learn during my life that walking through a dark alley is dangerous. I never even give this a conscious thought, I just am exposed to the idea through television programs and movies. Later in life, I own an island where no one else lives, and that has perfect security. However, one day, when walking through a dark alley there, I hear a noise and jump at it and turn around fearfully, raising my arm to defend myself. This behavior is not under my control in the sense that I did not consciously decide to react is such a way...in fact, there was no rational reason to react that way. So am I responsible for that behavior? While my example is harmless, this type of automatic behavior happens in many situations that have important consequences, such as police confronting a suspect in an ambiguous situation that requires a split second decision about whether to shoot or not.
I think an interesting obstacle that prevents us from seeing this phenomenon in others is that we can't see it in ourselves very clearly. A bunch of recent research shows that we undertake many behaviors rather reflexively, or come to a decision before we are consciously aware of the decision. We later generate reasons for ourselves about why we acted like we did, and feel like we chose for ourselves, but are often woefully inaccurate about the true causes of our behavior. Some people may have read "Blink" or "Strangers to Ourselves," a couple good popular science books summarizing this type of research.
Personally, I am in the process of incorporating all of this into my model of responsibility. My solution thus far has been to adopt a continuous model of responsibility, although I admit that it is case by case and results in a lot of "I don't know's." So, most of the time in my model a person is only partially responsible for their behavior. I still think it is important to find a clear role for personal choice and control of behavior, but all of our best understanding about what governs behavior sure throws kinks into the traditional models.
Finally, note that the responsibility I am talking about is different than the question of whether a person should be sanctioned by the community for behavior, although this question easily follows from the discussion. So, for example, I'm not suggesting that a murderer be given a lenient sentence due to a heavy genetic influence on his behavior. However, I do think it is interesting to flesh out the implications of the models we use on things like sentencing, what the goal of punishment is, etc.
Alright, I'll give this philosophical musings thing a spin.....I'm curious to hear about people's conceptualizations of personal responsibility for one's behavior.
To me, this is a complicated issue. My own notions of a person's ability to choose and be in control of behavior have been shaken as I've learned more and more about the factors that influence behavior outside of our control.
For instance, there are now countless studies showing genetic influences on a person's behavior. So if I am 50% more likely than another person to commit a crime based upon my genetics, then surely I am less responsible for that behavior. Even when I do "choose" the behavior, the fact that I am biased toward choosing that behavior is not fair within my personal conceptualization of responsibility. In either case, the behavior is by definition less under my control than for other people.
There are many other external factors that are less intuitive than genetics but that are nonetheless influential on behavior too. For instance, over time we pick up associations between different concepts that influence our behavior toward those concepts, particularly in situations that are stressful, or occur quickly. To give a harmless example, perhaps I learn during my life that walking through a dark alley is dangerous. I never even give this a conscious thought, I just am exposed to the idea through television programs and movies. Later in life, I own an island where no one else lives, and that has perfect security. However, one day, when walking through a dark alley there, I hear a noise and jump at it and turn around fearfully, raising my arm to defend myself. This behavior is not under my control in the sense that I did not consciously decide to react is such a way...in fact, there was no rational reason to react that way. So am I responsible for that behavior? While my example is harmless, this type of automatic behavior happens in many situations that have important consequences, such as police confronting a suspect in an ambiguous situation that requires a split second decision about whether to shoot or not.
I think an interesting obstacle that prevents us from seeing this phenomenon in others is that we can't see it in ourselves very clearly. A bunch of recent research shows that we undertake many behaviors rather reflexively, or come to a decision before we are consciously aware of the decision. We later generate reasons for ourselves about why we acted like we did, and feel like we chose for ourselves, but are often woefully inaccurate about the true causes of our behavior. Some people may have read "Blink" or "Strangers to Ourselves," a couple good popular science books summarizing this type of research.
Personally, I am in the process of incorporating all of this into my model of responsibility. My solution thus far has been to adopt a continuous model of responsibility, although I admit that it is case by case and results in a lot of "I don't know's." So, most of the time in my model a person is only partially responsible for their behavior. I still think it is important to find a clear role for personal choice and control of behavior, but all of our best understanding about what governs behavior sure throws kinks into the traditional models.
Finally, note that the responsibility I am talking about is different than the question of whether a person should be sanctioned by the community for behavior, although this question easily follows from the discussion. So, for example, I'm not suggesting that a murderer be given a lenient sentence due to a heavy genetic influence on his behavior. However, I do think it is interesting to flesh out the implications of the models we use on things like sentencing, what the goal of punishment is, etc.
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