The Neuroprediction of Violence

"There's the King Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn't

even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all."

"Suppose he never commits the crime?"

"That would be all the better, wouldn't it?"

Alice felt there was no denying that.

"Of course it would  be all the better," she said:

"but it wouldn't be all the better his being punished."

"You're wrong there, at any rate," said the Queen.

"Were you ever punished?"

"Only for faults," said Alice.

"And you were all the better for it, I know!" the Queen said triumphantly.

"Yes, but then I had done the things I was punished for," said Alice: "that makes

all the difference."

"But if you hadn't done them," the Queen said, "that would have been better still;

better and better, and better!"

                                                            --Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

 

The criminal law, much like the human mind, is ultimately in the business of predicting behavior.  In order for legal sanctions to work effectively, they must be based on sound predictions concerning the complex relationship between people’s motives, aversions, beliefs, desires, intentions, and actions.  We create and enforce criminal laws with the hope that doing so makes it less likely that people will engage in activities that tear at the moral fabric of society.  Unfortunately, despite our best efforts to wield the power of the criminal law to shape and mold human behavior, unlawful acts of violence and aggression still occur more frequently than we would prefer.  Given the emotional, moral, and financial cost of violent behavior, it is unsurprising that attempting to predict and prevent it is one of the most important functions of the criminal justice system.  However, until very recently, the empirical track record on this front did not inspire much confidence in our ability to accurately identify those individuals who pose a continued threat to society.  Indeed, clinical predictions of violent recidivism and dangerousness were so grossly inaccurate that just twenty years ago a task force of the American Psychological Association officially concluded that “psychologists are not competent to make such judgments.”

Fortunately, the field of violence risk assessment has made tremendous progress in the past two decades.  With the assistance of newly developed actuarial tools, psychologists and criminologists are slowly piecing together a more accurate picture of the biological and situational roots of violent behavior.  In light of these advancements, our ability to accurately predict violence has increased considerably.  Of course, we admittedly still have a long way to go before we should feel comfortable with the ubiquity of prediction in the criminal law.  After all, errors on this front are as morally unacceptable as they are economically costly.  Whether we are inefficiently paying to imprison or institutionalize someone who does not actually pose a future threat or we are releasing a menace to society under the mistaken assumption that he is no longer dangerous, we pay a steep price both in terms of resources squandered and in terms of innocent lives lost.  In short, the problem of prediction is not only an empirical problem; it is a pressing moral, political, legal, and economic problem as well. 

One issue that the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project is actively exploring is whether recent and future advancements in neuroscience could shed new light on the problem of prediction by further unlocking some of the remaining mysteries of the violent mind.  In the upcoming months, I will be writing a series of posts which will provide the readers of this blog with updates concerning the progress we are making.  For now, I simply wanted to attempt to elicit some feedback from readers concerning the neuroprediction of violence by posing the following questions:

1. As we become increasingly better at predicting violent recidivism, drug relapse, and the like, should this affect our basic notions of agency, free will, and responsibility?  Assume, for instance, that for a certain sub-class of offenders—e.g., psychopaths with substance abuse problems—we are able to predict that 90% will violently reoffend within two years of being released.  Should this change our views concerning their free will and autonomy?  If not, why not?  If so, why?  If we keep inching our way towards 100%, is there a point at which we should conclude these individuals are no longer free?
2. Given that actuarial violence risk assessment is so much more accurate than traditional clinical risk assessment, why is it that both judges and jurors seem to prefer the latter?  Do you think adding neuroscientific data to actuarial violence risk assessment would make it more appealing to legal decision makers?
3. For those of you who work in neuroscience, criminology, and cognate fields, what recent and future neuroscientific discoveries and methodologies do you believe might help improve our ability to predict, prevent, and manage violence (e.g., pattern classifiers, machine learning, MAOA, etc.)?
4. What moral and legal problems do you think arise when it comes to the neuroprediction of violence?  Are any of these problems unique to neuroprediction or do they apply to prediction more generally?
5. One area that could prove to be particularly controversial is the use of neuro-actuarial risk assessment to predict future violence in juveniles.  If we could do a better job of distinguishing juvenile offenders who pose a continued threat from those who do not, wouldn’t this actually be a positive development in terms of social justice?  If not, why not?
6. Assume that in the near future, we were able to predict violence in non-offenders with a very high probability (here again, 90%+).  Indeed, assume we are able to use neuroscientific and genetic data to predict future violence in children?  What moral and legal problems arise in this context?

These are just a few of the many thorny problems and questions that arise when thinking about the future of neuroprediction.  We look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas on this front.  Needless to say, we believe taking a careful look at these kinds of worries is an important part of our task as we explore the boundaries of the possible future of violence prediction.

Comments

[Steven Palmer Peterson]

QUOTE
Assume, for instance, that for a certain sub-class of offenders—e.g., psychopaths with substance abuse problems—we are able to predict that 90% will violently reoffend within two years of being released. Should this change our views concerning their free will and autonomy? If not, why not? If so, why? If we keep inching our way towards 100%, is there a point at which we should conclude these individuals are no longer free?
ENDQUOTE

I don't think this kind of scenario would undermine our assignations of free will. After all, if your friend's boyfriend cheats on her a couple times but promises her he'll change, you'd likely advise her that the dog is just going to cheat again. And you'd likely be right.

But I think you'd also see that as a situation where we simply know how the guy will exercise his free will given his lack of moral character and concern for how his actions affect others.

To the extent that the psychopath case would make us question his free will and responsibility I think it has less to do with how accurate our predictions turn out -- whether they're 90% or 85% or 95% -- and more about the underlying mechanisms of psychopathy.

To what extent is being a psychopath like having the serial adulterer's lack of moral character?

[Josh Shepherd]

So much to respond to here, so I'll just mention two:

It seems that, even with neuroprediction in its infancy, we know a lot about the distal causes of violent crime. And we need not scrap a theory of responsibility to reconsider our theories and methods of punishment (I'm of the mind that even with 100% accuracy, we could still consider offenders responsible, but that's a thorny issue, too big for defending here). So, one interesting application of neuroprediction going forward might be its relationship to effective societal responses to violent crime.

Second, I don't think there are any special moral or legal problems with neuroprediction. But this would need some defending, because if one considers the brain somehow sacred - some religious folk in our society do, although they would probably call it the mind or soul or something (and with neuroprediction, I would think you have the whole range of brain/mind issues hanging around) - then you have a moral problem, and even if not, I can see an argument for privacy issues on the legal side.

[tnadelhoffer]

Steven,

Here is a thought experiment: Assume we scanned the brains of a large number of boyfriends (1,000+) and then used the scans alone to predict with 99% accuracy the sub-class who went on to cheat? Now imagine that we scanned young male children and we were able to predict with 99% accuracy which ones would grow up to be adulterers. Do your intuitions about free will still hold in these cases? Setting that aside, I am unsure you can decouple the % from the mechanism as you suggest. After all, the best explanation for high predictive accuracy is presumably that we have a handle on the underlying mechanisms. If, on the other hand, our predictive accuracy is low, we might not have a very good grasp of these mechanisms.

Josh,

First, you're right that scrapping our theory of responsibility is not a necessary condition for reconsidering our punitive practices. Be that as it may, it may nevertheless be the case that the most sure fire way to motivate changing our punitive practices would be to scrap the retributivistic theory of MR that is currently the dominant view. The sort of responsibility I am interested in when it comes to prediction--neuro or otherwise--is desert-based not deterrence/prevention based. So, even if you're right that the ability to predict violence with a high degree of accuracy does not rule out the latter kind of MR, it may put pressure on the former.

Second, I would like to hear more from you (and others!) about what might be called the "privacy of the neural." This is something that comes up a lot in discussions about neuro-prediction, fMRI lie-detection and mind reading, etc.--but I am admittedly unsure that I fully grasp the thrust of the worry. Why think imaging data is any different that DNA, biographical data, etc.?

[Andrew Mansfield]

Steven,

Kent Kiehl, at the MIND Institute, is producing fMRI data for Scott Grafton here at UCSB. We are running pattern classification algorithmic software that will determine whether there is an identifiable brain difference between psychopaths under the Hare PCL-R, ordinary criminals, addicts, and non-criminals. If we identify a structural brain difference by which we determine they cannot empathize and don't possess a theory of mind module, would this change your view? If someone had a brain tumor that caused criminal behavior that, once removed, completely ended the criminal conduct, does that change your analysis? Is someone who can not engage in action for rational reasons recognized as essential subject to punishment?

[Andrew Mansfield]

Thomas,

The issue is whether fMRI and MRI data shows one's thoughts, which are protected from disclosure under the Fifth Amendment. Are you being compelled to testify if subject to neural imaging? If so, this is simply a legal problem, not a moral problem. Or is imaging data more like blood and physical evidence, in which case the law allows us to compel the production of such evidence against one's will?

[tnadelhoffer]

Andrew,

I suspect Steven would concede that given the circumstances you mention with respect to tumors, psychopaths, etc., these individuals are not free (or at least, they are less free), but he would simply deny that this has anything to do with how predictable their behavior is. On his view--which seems roughly in line with Morse's own--when freedom is circumscribed, it is not because the agent's actions are caused nor is it because his actions are highly predictable, it's because his capacity for moral reasoning is diminished. Actually, upon closer consideration, I suspect that both Steven and Morse may simply conclude that the psychopath is free even though he is not morally responsible. After all, it is not as if the psychopath cannot control his violent actions--think about the "police at the elbow" scenarios--it's that he doesn't have the moral motivation that would make him less likely to harm others. So, he is free but non-responsible. I, for one, don't agree with this view--but it seems like an argumentative avenue one might pursue in this context.

As for the 5th Amendment issue, I suppose I just don't get it. Keep in mind that forensic psychologists are already allowed to interview offenders/defendants about their thoughts and beliefs. Now, if what you are using imaging to do is lie detection with respect to a material element of the offense, then I can see how it might run afoul one's right not to be forced to self-incriminate. However, if the imaging data you are collecting are not for lie detection--i.e., not about a material element of the crime--but rather about whether the offender/defendant is likely to pose a risk to society in the future, then I don't see how this is any different that the kind of clinical evaluation that is already permitted.

[Andrew]

Thomas, thanks for the helpful comparison of Steven and Morse's views. That is helpful. I know that Morse belives that (1) free will talk is irrelevant and (2) psychopaths should be civilly committed indefinitely.

On the Fifth Amendment issue, being clinically interviewed is not subject to evidentiary objections. But such evidence in a trial could not be used to prove guilt or innocence nor could a clinician opine on that. In probation, sentencing, and death penalty phases, it comes in (loose evidentiary rules, at best, in these things). I suppose, then, that fMRI could be compelled for those determinations.

There is a practical consideration right now, though. A prisoner cannot be tied down in such a way that they would be still nor would they cooperate with a task in fMRI. So we would be stuck with MRI. Even moving ones tongue during fMRI ruins it.

[Steven Palmer Peterson]

Sorry for the slow response on my part!

Andrew,
Those sorts of brain differences would be the sort of "underlying mechanism" that I think would make us question his free will.

and Thomas,
The more one could predict behavior purely from looking at a brain scan, the more I think we'd be inclined to say they're not responsible -- though I do have a caveat I'll mention later.

My concern is that when these studies use the "biological and situational roots", that the situational roots are doing some heavy lifting.

And, situationally, I can predict with rather high accuracy that my friends kids will go to college.

Okay -- my caveat regarding the brain-scanning situation is that I think that in the case of psychopaths we already suspect that there's a serious malfunction there.

Moreover, if we were to be able to brain scan and predict more mundane forms of being a garden variety fink, that the success of the method would actually *reduce* our inclination to say that prediction by itself means no free will.

Sort of like Moore's hand example -- everyday life decisions or finkishness are just our core examples of free actions.

Though I do also think that the more we see an action rising out of a specific and localized brain module (like a tumor) as opposed to arising out of a wider variety of cognitive centers -- the more we'll see the process as coming from impaired deliberation and thus being less free.

[Philoponus]

Regarding your first point, may I suggest that it is mistake to assume an inverse relationship between predictabilty and responsibility. Most of us, I would wager, are acquainted with some men of strong character whose actions in morally difficult circumstances are close to 100% predictable. They will do the right thing. Yet we do not therefore conclude they are not free in their choices or responsible for actions.

I worry when I hear someone hint at the idea that (some) criminals are not responsible and free agents. This leads to the notion that they are not agents who should be held criminally responsible for their actions, with a right to due process and trial and all the constitutional guarantees therein entailed. Criminals become more like pathogens or dangerous animals, with whom we may deal in the way that best protects the general public. This is a path toward de-humanizing criminals and justifying policies of treating them as toxic human waste. I don't say that this is implied in any of your remarks, but it is the omni-present worry when we begin to wonder whether (some) criminals are really resonsible agents who may claim Article One and due process rights.

I am not arguing that we should not take full advantage of the data NARA puts at our disposal in deciding whom we should incarcerate and whom we should release into society. We must not allow psycho-paths out on our streets. But let us not by-pass the process of trial & conviction in deciding whom we shall keep behind bars.

[Philoponus]

Regarding your fifth point, though I am not as familiar with sentencing and parole/release policies as I would like to be, I see it as no violation of a convicted felons rights to use NARA's (neuro-actuarial risk assessments)in both processes. We need to avoid releasing certain classes of violent offenders whose likelihood of repeating their horrific acts remains high. Juveniles should be no exception. Perhaps we should modify our sentencing & release laws to include indeterminate sentences for certain classes of offenders, where the court/board periodically reviews a set of reports including NARA's in deciding whom it is safe to release.

[tnadelhoffer]

Philoponus,

I have to admit, I always find this to be a strange line of reasoning--namely, the worry that treating criminals as unfree will lead us to treat them worse. I actually think quite the opposite is true. By my lights, it is the ramped up retributivism that leads this country to treat criminals in far less humane ways than they are treated in other countries that are motivated more by deterrence, prevention, and rehabilitation. James Q. Whitman's "Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide Between America and Europe" is an interesting book that explores these issues. Consider, for instance, your suggestion that if we quit treating criminals as free and fully responsible, they will be reduced in our eyes to "toxic human waste." I think just the opposite. I don't think young children are free and fully responsible, and yet when they misbehave, I treat them with dignity and compassion. It is the hard-lined retributivists who view criminals in this country as "wild beasts" who don't deserve any comfort or respect. Indeed, violent criminals are already viewed as moral monsters who deserve to suffer mightily for their transgressions. The only "dignity" people think they are owed is the right to suffer--and the more suffering, the better.

Relatedly, I think you are conflating two entirely distinction issues: On the one hand, there is the question of whether neuroprediction might lead us to view criminals as less free and responsible, and hence, more apt for treatment and rehabilitation than deserving of retribution. On the other hand, there is the question of whether criminals ought to be afforded due process, etc. As far as I can tell, the latter issue is orthogonal to the former. After all, there is no inconsistency in maintaining that some violent offenders are not free and responsible and yet they ought to nevertheless be afforded all of the protections of the Bill of Rights.

As for your first example--namely, men of strong character--it is actually a matter of debate amongst those who work on the issue of free will whether these folks are free or not. Consider Martin Luther's "I can do no other." If he could really "do no other," then I don't see why we ought to say he is free. After all, if my beliefs and convictions make it such that it is practically impossible for me act other than I do, then I am arguably not free and responsible. That being said, your claims about what "most of us" think is precisely the kind of claim that experimental philosophers point out that you cannot answer from the armchair. Of course, you could be right. But determining whether most people share you intuition about the "men of strong character" case would require you to actually ask a large number of other people to see whether they agree. At least amongst rank and file philosophers, there is disagreement. Perhaps the folk present a more unified front about the issue.

That being said, it is worth pointing out that if we have learned anything from the situationist literature, it is that the "men of strong character" you mention are very far and few between, at best, and a fiction of our imagination, at worst. But that is a story for another day...

[tnadelhoffer]

Philoponus,

First, given that you were already familiar with NARA, I bet I could guess your true identity! :)

Second, I, too, am a "Lover of Toil"!

Third, and more seriously, when I talk about retributivists above, I should have distinguished between what we might call "folk retributivists" and "philosophical retributivists." While the two camps are obviously related, there may be some important differences--especially when it comes to intuitions about particular cases. Even if people in the latter camp might leave an important role for dignity and respect to play when it comes to how we treat violent offenders, I don't think the same could be said for members of the former group. Indeed, I think folk retributivists view violent offenders in precisely the "toxic waste" way you mentioned earlier.

Of course, quarantine/prevention theorists like myself do admittedly view violent offenders as animals that need to be either retrained or retained. But it simply doesn't follow from this that the retraining or retention ought to be inhumane or uncivilized. Indeed, quite the contrary. After all, we are all just animals. It's just that some of us were less lucky in terms of genetic inheritance and/or social circumstances than others. By my lights, that's actually a good reason for being less cruel to offenders than is our present tendency. They ultimately need our help and compassion, not our anger and hatred.

[JohnM]

tnadelhoffer wrote:
I have to admit, I always find this to be a strange line of reasoning--namely, the worry that treating criminals as unfree will lead us to treat them worse. I actually think quite the opposite is true.

----
As a "folk" and engineer by training and practice, I have always found the above line of reasoning by philosophers strange. There is another outcome to a widespread loss of belief in free will and MR skeptism possible (and I would argue probable) that I never see written in any philosophy website. I think that every no FW and/or MR skeptic assumes that the retributivists would fall by the wayside as we would come to see criminals as "broke machines". The strange part I find is the automatic assumption by these same philosophers and skeptics is that more compassion would be the next result. I would argue that there is another possible path. That path would be a type of rational indifference that would not be retributive, but an outcome the MR skeptics would have not considered. One only need look at how modern socities handle current cases of "biological broken machines" as represented by other fellow animals.

Take the case of violent dog that has been raised
to fight and has harmed a child after it got loose. What is the "folk" response? Is it retribution or moral outrage? No. The response is that people will not blame the dog, but sigh instead that it was the environment it was raised in plus pre-existing genetic tendencies to fight. The humane and civialized thing done is to put the dog to sleep because of its future danger to society. There is no retributive impulse involved, but the the dog is destroyed
for the goodness of all society (by preventing future harm plus not using limited resources for quarantining the dog for the rest of its life).

If I looked inward and I came convinced that there was no free will, we were all machines; I could easily see myself with the same atitude toward the unfixable types of human beings out there. Human beings such as psyhopaths and child molesters are not fixable in any sense. My atitude would not be driven by anger, but from the standpoint of minimizing future damage to human society. To quote the previous entry in this blog: "After all, we are all just animals". If humans are no different than other animals in a materialistic philosophy, I see no reason why we would rule out using the same humane and civilized methods applied to "broken" animals such as a violent, dangerous pit bulls to dealing with psychopaths and other dangerous criminals.

I can just hear the argument against the above approach is that humans have higher cognitive abilities, so the way we deal with a "broken" animal like a could not apply. However, that logic would, rationally applied, mean that we can treat human beings with no cognitive ability (such as in a vegatative state) with a much different standard of dignity than higher functioning humans. I am guessing that this is why Peter Singer has the philosophy that he does with regards to the treatment of newborn humans with serious birth defects compared to chimps. He is being logically consistent (which is a whole lot different than what I have seen on philosophy blogs).

Finally, there is a relationship I believe between due process of the law and the belief in free will. I believe that implicit in due process is the philosophy of respect for an individual in the sense of some fundamental, universal, and independent property. As far as I have seen, proponents of no free will (usually the materistic types) and MR skeptics disavow these independent properties. Therefore morality and even what is humane or civilized are purely asthetics. There is no reason that these asthetics could not evolve, due to loss of belief in free will and a belief in no objective MR, over time .... and evolve in a direction that is a lot different than many of those philosophers who want to smash the foundations of belief in FW think they will automatically go in.

Finally and also related to the due process concept, I do not see how in any form of robust individual freedom can survive a widespread acceptance of no free will. I have seen many times posted that no free will means people can still be held responsible. The posters then go on to say, however, the only impact will be that we (as a society) will loose our retrebutive impulses. Somehow (other than wishful thinking) that the loss of retrebutive impulses logically means some form of treatment of criminals that is more humane and "civilized". I am arguing that "humane" and "civialized" can easily mean something much more different than many of these authors think. Taking into account the desire of minimizing the the pain in society, pre-emptive control of potentially dangerous individuals is opened up. And I would be all for it if there is no objective moral reality or no free will!

For example, if evidence shows that an young individual of 14 is a psychopath (he has been found to torture other kids or something), the cost-effective, rational, logical and humane way of dealing with the situation could be the same as the way we deal with "broken" pit bulls after a dog fight ring bust. You don't like that idea? Another more costly way (from a resource standpoint) would be to outfit the kid with tracking devices for constant surviellance and quarantine. Far fetched and think that society would not go that direction, just look at the growth in surveillance societies in Europe. for example, news was flying around the web last week in Britian about a Government proposal to outfit certain family homes with indoor 24/7 cameras to make sure that some at-risk parents in public housing were properly raising their kids. The objective is to start to control for the good of society the environment that these kis will grow up in. One can easily see how this same logic could be extended to the concepts outlined above, aided by the loss in the belief that individuals are truely free.

JohnM

[tnadelhoffer]

JohnM,

Thanks for your comments. You have supplied us with a lot to think about. Unfortunately, I won't be able to address all of the issues you raise. However, a couple of your suggestions/comments merit special attention. So here is my reply:

First, you make the following claims:

"If humans are no different than other animals in a materialistic philosophy, I see no reason why we would rule out using the same humane and civilized methods applied to "broken" animals such as a violent, dangerous pit bulls to dealing with psychopaths and other dangerous criminals."

As you correctly point out, I neither did nor would move from "we are all just animals" to "we are no different that other animals." This would be a silly inference to make given the vast difference between hummingbirds and humans. Clearly, the cognitive capacities of humans can be both different in kind and different in degrees from other non-human animals. Moreover, our fellow human beings--even the ones who are "broken"--are part of the human community in a way that broken pit bulls are not. So, I am unsure that your "broken dog, broken human" analogy works as well as you assume. Indeed, I think it breaks down on several fronts. Consider, for instance, what happened to all of the "broken dogs" left in Michael Vick's wake. It would have been easiest for us to humanely put all of them to sleep. But alas, that is not what we did. We carefully evaluated them all and determined that the vast majority of them could be "fixed"--to stick with your own preferred way of framing the issue. So, we invested the resources, fixed them, and found them loving homes. Of course, not all of them could be fixed. So, some were euthanized. Now, your suggestion is that some humans are similarly "unfixable"--for instance, psychopaths and sexual predators. As such, you go on to say that if we fw/mr deniers had our way, even if we longer retributivistically forced these unfixable individuals to suffer, we might nevertheless decide to simply protect ourselves by putting them out of their misery.

For now, I want to offer two replies: First, we already execute plenty of psychopaths and sexual predators. So, I am unsure why the free will-less future you imagine is any different in this respect. Second, I think your claim that we can't treat psychopaths and sexual predators is also off the mark. Indeed, progress is being made on both fronts and I see no reason for thinking more progress won't be made in the near future--especially on the pharmacological front.

Second, I find your attempt to associate free will deniers with an Orwellian future to be puzzling. After all, the examples you give--for instance, the recent invasion of privacy in the UK--are occurring despite the fact that our collective beliefs about free will are not yet in retreat! The same can be said with nearly all of the other "treatments" and "solutions" you envision. In each case, we are already treating humans in the ways you suggest despite the fact that we think they are free and responsible. So, are you claiming that if we did not believe in free will these practices would intensify? If so, I would like to hear your argument for thinking this is the case. What is it about disbelief in free will that would speed up the process? After all, the process is already developing while robust beliefs about free will and desert-entailing responsibility are intact.

[JohnM]

Thank you for your reply. As I mentioned earlier, I am not a philospher nor have I ever taken a philosophy course (aerospace engineer by training and practice), So the below can be take as comments from a "folk" perspective. I hope to clarify a few things that I wrote earlier.

With regards to execution of psychopaths or sexual predators, I was trying to address the majority of comments that I read by FW deniers about their beliefs in the impact of widespread FW disbelief. I constantly read that a beneficial effect of no-FW belief would be the loss of retribution impulses. These statements are immediately followed by statements that criminals would be treated more humanely and not held morally responsible. Implicit or explicitly it is also stated that we would turn to retraining or moral instruction program rather than prisons. What I was arguing is that the assumed replacement of retributive feelings with feelings of compassion does not follow. Reflecting on how I would react, I think a form of indifference would be the most likely outcome. Just in the news is a story about a 17-year old girl named Lily Burk who was killed by a 50-year old transient and parolee who was enrolled in a residential drug-treatment program. Rather than anger, I can see people instead just shaking their heads and feeling that there is enough empirical data on that individual say we need to humanely, but permanently deal with the problem.

I know that the argument by proponents of no FW will be our lack of FW would have instead resulted in policies that would have retrained this individual prior to the committing of this crime. However, I think any earlier intervention policies would be much different then many no-FW proponents think would be created. As I will explain later, I think that the intervention policies would reflect a "A Clockwork Orange" approach rather than Orwellian. More on this item later.

For me personally (and I believe other folk), a general idea of a human community would not have that much power to modify my comments on the earlier view that "we are all just animals" and the subject of no-FW. For many of us (theistic) folk, the idea of a general human community rests on non-secular pillars. I have often reflected if I lost that pillar what I would think. I can tell you that I would consider creatures such as dogs (for example when I see a guide dog) much more part of my community than I would a psychopath. If I became convinced of no FW and the strongly associated view of atheism, I am certain that my views on who (animal or a particular human) would change. For example, given the following situation of a person and a dog drowning on a lake, I would rescue a drowning dog before trying to rescue a person. I am fairly certain that is where my views would evolve to. As evidence I am not unique, I offer the following quote form a Richard Dawkins website thread "Man's Best Friend" at https://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29106

--- Start Quote
"Would you leave a child or anybody who can't take care of themselves in a burning building? My dogs are my family, asking this would be like asking why someone would run into a burning building to rescue their grandmother. (In fact, my grandmother wasn't a pleasant woman. I would rather give my live trying to safe my dogs.)
--- End Quote

There were many other statements like the one above. Being these were on a Richard Dawkins website, empirically the authors were atheists. And I am convinced that you would have a much easier time convincing (if they do not believe it already) in no FW. Also in general no FW is closely coupled with atheism based on everything I have read.

Finally I want to address why I think that loss in the belief in FW will modify societies to more along the lines of A Clockwork Orange. I think that the impacts would be in two areas: 1) the criminal justice system and 2) pre-emptive actions by society on potentially dangerous individuals. Many FW skeptics feel that criminals would still be held responsible, but that our treatment of them would no longer be retributive like the current system. The listed alternatives are usually "humane" treatment such as retraining". (Note that I still believe that the definition of humane is way more subjective than that implicitly assumed by the speakers of these ideas) Proponents of no FW then address the issue of fears of medicalization of criminal behavior using reasons that I think in reality could prove to be very weak. I think the weakness against reasons on why forced medical solutions on individuals are due to the vary reasons that the authors say there is no FW. On a Naturalism website (or on GFP somewhere), I saw a proponent of no FW state that loss of FW does not alter fundamental human rights (interesting that human rights in this context is treated as an objective reality). Therefore, forced medical treatment for criminal behavior or tendencies would still remain unethical. I find it interesting that forcing medical treatment on someone "against their will" is considered immoral or unethical by these same authors (as far as I can tell from their writings). The statement "against their will" seems to really mean "against their free will", which would seem to be linked to some kind of fundamental human autonomy related to this statement. Yet given their belief in no FW, there is nothing to be against in the individual targeted for treatment.

Even if you fall back on some concept that "local control" that an individual has means you can not conduct forced medical treatment, I would argue that a criminal has demonstrated a lack of local control. If you want to maximize overall aggregate happiness of society, we would be justified in exercising a powerful medical treatment response to criminal behavior. Therefore, reasons not to do forced medical intervention resting on arguments that you would be violating some kind of fundamental autonomy along the lines that all individuals are "free beings" or doing "against their will" would no longer apply. Once a population loses widespread belief FW, I think Governments, medical, the psychiatric establishment, and drug companies could easily sway opinion in the direction I outlined above.

I would also argue that treatment of criminals by powerful drugs will be by far the preferred method rather then administrative and implementation labor intensive retraining of criminals. You only have to look at the exploding usage of psychotropic drugs on children for things like depression and ADHD to see how economics would play into this area. Talk therapy is expensive while usage of drug therapies would be much cheaper. Pharmaceutical companies are also very powerful in promoting the expanded usage of these types of drugs. If I were a Pharmaceutical company, I would be spending some serious money on research into drugs that could be used to modify human behavior and applicable to usage in criminals. Note that I would find it acceptable (and I think most people would) if these drugs modified behavior beyond criminal (such as shutting down all emotional reactions) and provided a form of control.

Heavy usage of forced medical treatment of criminal behavior would be much more attractive (once society accepts there is no FW) from another economic standpoint. Look at California recently having to turn prisoners loose because of budget cuts. Companies offering to the state, a low cost method to control on these individuals using drugs would be very attractive. Since these individuals have no FW and lack local control, society could then use them for performing humane public works jobs (such as mowing grass along the highways, etc.)

I would offer that economic forces operating in a no FW society would easily overwhelm any subjective opinion on the part of a few no FW philosophers that what I outlined above is not a proper response.

Finally for the second effect I believe would happen due to widespread disbelief in FW. There is a lot of empirical evidence supporting the
probability of children with certain characteristics (such as psychopaths) or already displayed criminal behavior of growing into criminal or other problem-creating adults. Our current justice system and even consequentalists say we have to wait until something happens to do anything. From an engineering standpoint, a high or even moderate probability of someone
committing an act or behaving in a certain way would be justification for society to take action. After all, in the name of public safety, we do not wait for a bridge to collapse (e.g. waiting for the consequence) before taking action. If in general, individuals do not have FW and only have or don't have local control, evidence of not having local control gives society the right to exert external control. The concepts of fundamental personal autonomy that I believe are directly linked to the concept of FW would no longer hold. From a utilitarian and a public safety standpoint, true social engineering would be enabled for dealing with problem individuals. While not morally responsible or blameworthy for not having local control, a no FW society could be convinced that strong external, pre-emptive action is required. For example, based on empirical data, certain children were found to exhibit future risk to society either due to genetic or displayed behavior characteristics, I could see the usage of powerful drugs (which would be cost effective compared to labor intensive talk therapy) as the engineering solution. In a no FW environment, I think that it would be an easy selling point to the public if officials offered a mechanism to identify and medically treat with powerful psychological drugs kids such as the school shooters inthe 1999 Columbine massacre. Even today, there have been stories about kids being tagged for watching by authorities after they have created some kind of writings that looked threatening. After reading blogs like Garden of Forking Paths on the FW subject, I have changed my original libertarian bias toward one of pre-emptive action on individuals with a risk of violent behavior. If I were to loose my belief in FW, I would fully embrace pre-emptive, large scale usage of medical engineering solutions to individual behaviors that showed a future risk to society. To an engineer, probabilities are more than enough of a rational reason to take action.

In summary, I believe that the above outcomes would be much more radical and unexpected than reflected in the typical FW skeptics response such as Joshua Green "no FW changes everything and nothing" I think you will find you can drop the "and nothing" from that statement if no FW belief became widespread enough.

JohnM

[tnadelhoffer]

JohnM,

Thanks once again for your comments. Much like before, you have provided us with more food for thought than I will be able to presently address. That being said, I wanted to at least make a few remarks:

First, I hope you know that when I talk about folk intuitions, beliefs, judgments, etc., this is not a term of abuse. Indeed, experimental philosophers take folk perspectives very seriously. For more on our research, you should check out the so-called “x-phi” blog.

Second, as Tom Clark points out in his comments on the post on the free will debate, there is some recent data that suggest that when people are induced to disbelieve in free will, their retributivistic impulses seem to be lessened. The paper by Shariff et al. has yet to appear in print, but I am sure if you email any of the authors, they would probably be happy to send you a draft. At the end of the day, the claim on the part of free will skeptics concerning the effect that disillusionment about free will is likely to have on our attitudes about moral and legal responsibility is an empirical issue that is amenable to controlled and systematic exploration.

So, while I appreciate your own speculative ideas on this front, whether you’re right is an empirical affair. As such, I would encourage you to try to think of creative ways one might operationalize the problems you raise so that psychologists and experimental philosophers might be able to test to see whether your worries are well-founded. For instance, you claim that even if our retributivistic emotions and practices are torn asunder in the face of disillusionment about free will, these emotions and practices won’t be replaced by something humane or compassionate. Instead, you claim that something along the lines of Clockwork Orange would likely take its place. Keep in mind that this is a straightforward prediction that is open to empirical investigation. Here is some prima facie evidence that your worries will not come to fruition—the folks who have already ceased to believe in free will do not adopt the attitude/stance you suggest. Now, it is open to you to claim that folk intuitions will not track the intuitions of philosophers and psychologists. But this, too, is yet another empirical claim.

That being said, I have a question for you. When you say that you “reflect on how you would react,” what exactly are you imagining? Given that you are someone who professes to believe in (a) God, (b) an immaterial soul, (c) robust God-given free will, and (d) heaven and hell worthy moral desert, it is unclear to me what you are imagining when you imagine that (a) through (d) are false. Indeed, it is unclear to me that it is even possible for you to accurately predict how you would react. To see why, I suggest you take a look at Dan Gilbert’s work on so-called “impact bias.” As someone who grew up in the church, I can assure you that had you asked me twenty years ago what I would think or feel if I no longer believed in God, the soul, free will, etc. I would have done a piss poor job predicting that I would have the views I currently hold. Indeed, I would have predicted a kind of existential crisis and deep seated depression that has simply not come to pass. As such, I worry that your own predictions concerning how you would react if you came to believe that your most cherished beliefs were false are no more accurate than my own would have been.

That being said, I appreciate that for you—as well as for billions of others—“the idea of a general human community rests on non-secular pillars.” But it demonstrably need not. After all, regardless of whether you believe in the supernatural, we are all, as a matter of fact, members of the human race. And while you may not see how this could ground a common morality, lots of philosophers who are far more capable and clever than me have spent a great deal of energy developing precisely the kind of secular morality you seem understandably unable to envision given your current non-secular point of view. That such a view can be rendered coherent and consistent is evidenced by the fact that there is a rich and storied tradition in philosophy of thinkers who do precisely what you seem unable to do.

Now, as for Dawkins remarks about the drowning dog, it is unclear to me that you have placed them in their proper context. Under these circumstances, a dog owner risked and lost her life trying to rescue her dog from a fire. As a dog owner myself, I completely understand this individual’s decision. What I don’t understand is why you are viewing this through the lens of theism/atheism. I find this dog owner’s heroic behavior no less compatible with theism than with atheism. Indeed, given that this state of affairs unfolded in the heart of the so-called “Bible Belt” of SC, I would be surprised if the dog owner in question wasn’t a theist. As such, it is entirely unclear to me how and why you interpret the case as you do. So, it turns out that both theists and atheists alike can love their pets so much that they are willing to sacrifice their lives on their pets’ behalf. So what? I don’t see how this has anything at all to do with free will skepticism. The same can be said about Dawkins’ own claims about his grandmother. I see no reason at all for assuming, without argumentation, that a theist could not have made the same statement. Imagine, for instance, that a theist’s grandfather was an unrepentant child molester and murderer. Don’t you think the theist would rather save his dog if forced to choose between the two? If so, this just shows that the issue is orthogonal to the theism/atheism debate. In short, I think one should avoid cherry picking quotes from websites without placing them in context. I am quite confident that if I surf fundamentalist Christian websites looking for outlandish and indefensible views, I won’t have to search for long. But what would this establish? That all theists are racists, homophobes, hate-mongers, etc.? Clearly not…but then I fail to see the probative value of your own references to Dawkins and the like.

Finally, I want to address your worries about “forced treatment” and the “medicalization of criminal behavior.” For instance, you state that:

“I find it interesting that forcing medical treatment on someone "against their will" is considered immoral or unethical by these same authors (as far as I can tell from their writings). The statement "against their will" seems to really mean "against their free will", which would seem to be linked to some kind of fundamental human autonomy related to this statement. Yet given their belief in no FW, there is nothing to be against in the individual targeted for treatment.”

On the one hand, “against their will” most assuredly doesn’t mean “against their free will.” I don’t think cows have free will. But if I drag them into a slaughter house, I certainly do it against their will—which, in this case, simply means “contrary to their preferences/wishes.” On the other hand, whether “medical treatment” of deviant behavior is unethical will depend both on the nature of the behavior and on the nature of the treatment. Is giving someone treatment for a drug addiction rather than simply locking them up “inhumane”? Quite the contrary…but I don’t see what this has to do with free will skepticism.

I nevertheless happen to agree with you that “treatment of criminals by powerful drugs” is likely on the horizon—but I think this is independent of whether people generally become disillusioned about free will. As we come to better understand the neural and genetic underpinnings of sexual predators, psychopaths, and the like, it is only natural that we would seek to find pharmacological treatments that would make it possible for these individuals to be successfully reintegrated into society. To insist, instead, that these people should simply be punished—i.e., made to suffer—and then released untreated once they have “paid their dues,” seems incredibly immoral to me. Unfortunately, this is our current pro-free will pro-desert strategy. I, for one, remain unimpressed with the theological/moral framework that gives rise to this state of affairs. Indeed, it is hard for me to imagine that disillusionment about free will could do anything but improve the present situation.

[JohnM]

Dear Thomas,
Once again thank you for your response. I apologize in that my previous posting was trying to address some of my thoughts on issues that are at best tangential to the subject of this blog with regards to free will. I must admit that reading blogs like these over the years has caused me existential depression. After my postings on this thread, I plan on stopping to read philosophy and neurophilosophy blogs in that they contribute negatively to my life. The reasons for this reaction on my part are personal and inappropriate for me to post.

With that said, I will narrow my reply focus to one area - that of pre- and post- intervention. I would agree that the current prison system is not working very well. I believe you also agree with me that a pharmacological solution could be appropriate. I think where I differ is how far I would be willing, and desire, for soceity to force medical treatment for behavior modification. You mention some studies about peoples attitudes given the if there was no FW. An intersting question to ask after people like me have been exposed to the idea of no FW is if 1) would it be acceptable to force medical treatment on people with criminal behavior even if it is "against their will" and 2) if #1 is acceptable, would be acceptable to still use medical treatment of a criminal condition is the side-effects included the elimination of a lot of other non-criminal behavior. My hypothesis is that current legal system resistence against forced treatment reflects a long held belief that humans have FW, soul, and autonomy that blocks forced medical intervention. I would theorize that FW and freedom in most people are not easily separable as many philosophers would think. If you could weaken of these ideas, it would be much easier for Governments, drug companies, and medical professionals to modify the other beliefs ... and maybe that is not a bad thing if it would open the doors to more research and practice of pharmacologically modifying behaviors in individuals even in the cases that it would be "against their will".

With regards to pre-emptive treatment of people and especially children, there is also another set of questions to ask folk like me after being exposed to the concept of no FW and the concept of responsibility is related to local control by an individual on themselves. For example, if a school or police have discovered a website of a 15 year old who reflects those types of atitudes held by the Columbine shooters. Also suppose that in further research and interviews, it is found that this information reflected the true views of this 15 year old and it was not some kind of prank. Would you support the forced drug treatment of this individual as ordered by legal courts even if the drug produced side-effects such as a stunting of other behaviors?

In both of the above scenarios, I believe a much more robust attempt on forced external control via a pharmacological solution of people's behaviors. Weakening the belief in FW would help in an ability to condition societies to accept forced interventions in both the pre-emptive and post-emptive cases. I would agree that modifying people from being criminals to even a zombie state would be much more cost effective than today's prisons. Rather being a cost to society, pharmacologically modified criminals could be used for doing public works (such as I mentioned mowing grass along roads, fixing parks, etc.) and provide an aggregrate improvement to society in the utilitarian sense.

JohnM

[tnadelhoffer]

JohnM,

Thanks once again for your comments. Hopefully, you'll change your mind about blogging! I, for one, always find the dialog to be stimulating--even if it understandably ends up being unfocused from time to time. Given the complexity of the issues surrounding agency and responsibility, it's easy to indulge tangential ideas and it's also easy to understand why one might feel some creeping existential angst from time to time. But, at least for me, it always passes sooner rather than later!

That being said, it is still unclear to me precisely why you think that disillusionment about free will would make people more likely to cave in to the idea of "forced medical intervention." Even if I don't think people have robust contra-causal libertarian free will, I can nevertheless consistently believe that they have human dignity and rights. As such, I could seemingly consistently maintain that these rights would be violated by forced medical intervention. But if this is true, the issue of the moral appropriateness of these kinds of interventions is orthogonal to the existence (or non-existence) of free will. Now you and I might disagree that forced treatment is acceptable under certain circumstances, but I still don't see why we would need to appeal to free will (or the lack thereof) to make our case.