Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Methods, Meanings, and Morals
- PART I
- PART II
- 8 Crime, Genes, and Responsibility
- 9 Genes, Statistics, and Desert
- 10 Genes, Electrotransmitters, and Free Will
- 11 Moral Responsibility without Free Will
- 12 Strong Genetic Influence and the New “Optimism”
- 13 Genetic Predispositions to Violent and Antisocial Behavior: Responsibility, Character, and Identity
- Index
8 - Crime, Genes, and Responsibility
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Methods, Meanings, and Morals
- PART I
- PART II
- 8 Crime, Genes, and Responsibility
- 9 Genes, Statistics, and Desert
- 10 Genes, Electrotransmitters, and Free Will
- 11 Moral Responsibility without Free Will
- 12 Strong Genetic Influence and the New “Optimism”
- 13 Genetic Predispositions to Violent and Antisocial Behavior: Responsibility, Character, and Identity
- Index
Summary
As ethicists and metaphysicians we have been asked to discuss freedom, responsibility, and desert in connection with the possibility that a genetic marker will be discovered for “criminality” or aggressiveness. Some have thought that if there was a marker, then individuals with the marker could not be held responsible for whatever criminal or aggressive behavior they might engage in. Would we, they worry, be morally justified in punishing a murderer or a rapist if this person's genes predisposed him toward violent behavior?
Before answering this question, we should note a problem in its formulation. So far I have used as if they were interchangeable all of the following: “criminality,” “aggressiveness,” and “violent behavior.” Of course, they are not interchangeable terms, but the problem is that we don't know what a genetic marker, if found, would mark. Toward what would a person with the marker be predisposed? Anger? Or calculated, premeditated violence? Some sort of generic criminality (whatever that might be)? Or a sort of generic aggressiveness – a tendency to try to get one's way by force rather than by asking or negotiating? Or something more specific: a tendency to beat “loved” ones when they seem to be getting too independent? Or something specific and criminal but nonviolent: tax evasion or embezzlement or shoplifting?
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- Information
- Genetics and Criminal Behavior , pp. 201 - 224Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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