Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!oddjob!uwvax!dogie!uwmcsd1!bbn!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!geb
From: geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self Awareness
Message-ID: <1206@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
Date: 19 May 88 20:25:09 GMT
References: <770@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk> <1177@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <10942@sunybcs.UUCP> <31024@linus.UUCP> <1176@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <32390@linus.UUCP>
Reply-To: geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu.UUCP (Gordon E. Banks)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
Lines: 36


In article <32390@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort) writes:
>>>But as adults, we know that when a machine fails to carry out its
>>>function, it needs to be repaired or possibly redesigned.  But we
>>>do not punish the machine or incarcerate it.
>>>
>>Pray tell, how do you repair, or redesign
>>a human?  
>>If you had a machine which was running amok, and you did not know
>>how to repair it or redesign it, would not destroying it or isolating
>>it from the objects of its aggression be a prudent course?
>
>We don't call it repair, we call it healing.
>
>It seems to me that destroying something that one does not understand
>is not a good policy. 

Alex in the Clockwork Orange was a fairly good representation of
a psychopath--a person with no conscience or moral feelings whatsoever.
These persons are much more common in the general population than
most people believe.  They aren't all murderers and rapists, but
are successful politicians, deans, chairmen of departments, lawyers,
doctors, etc.  One could well argue that an antisocial, amoral
variant could have definite evolutionary advantages when mixed in relatively
small numbers among a primarily social species.  Evidence is that
their brains are actually wired differently than "normal" peoples'.
We "understand" them on a certain level: their behavior is characterizable
and predictable.  For example, it can be predicted that they will
not change.  If incarcerated they will continue to be amoral in
prison, when (if) released they will continue to be amoral afterward
and will not have "learned their lesson".  No therapy of any kind
has been found to be effective.  The tendancy to psychopathy seems
to be hereditary.  I would suggest that we understand them well enough
that we are justified in destroying those psychopaths who are convicted
of murders until such time (if ever) we find a way of "healing" them, simply
for self-preservation, if nothing else.