A question about people in jails.

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If the guy didn't regret his actions immediately because of the impact it had on the victim and the victim's family, then what he regrets after 20 years is what it has done to HIS life. In my mind, those are two very different types of regret.

-KeithP

Those aren't as mutually exclusive as they sound.

 

[OinkBoink]

Of course that's assuming your magic brain reader was predicting future behavior with 100% predictability, not simply reflecting the prisoner's current state. You could be truly regretful and rehabilitated in prison conditions and then revert to your old ways under other conditions. If you can change one way, you can change the other.

Pretty much like we can be truly "innocent" under the conditions of our life but make some morally repugnant choices if the environment forces us to make them. We have no idea about the constitution of criminals' brains and the life experiences they've had. I'm not condoning what criminals do. Just thinking from a different perspective.

Dunno what to say about "innocence". People are as innocent as their environment allows them to be. Some people sacrifice themselves for others and some do whatever it takes to get ahead. It's all sort of tied to evolution, biology, science, neuroscience, "free will" and all that.

Our views on what "intent" is, why people behave the way they do etc. is constantly changing with developments in neuroscience and other fields. Don't you guys watch "The Charlie Rose Brain Series"? Well, you should!

This makes me wonder. If we wiped a murderer's memory clean, would you still want to keep him in jail? If you would, then it's probably because you think that he would still have the potential to be a murderer. If after we wiped his memory, we modified his genes (or his brain or whatever), so that he did not have those violent tendencies, would you still want to keep him in jail? Would that make sense?