mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (08/01/85)
As the free will battle rages on, I am reminded of an anecdote from
John Krumm's _The Moral Climate_ (unfortunately out of print). He says:
The autonomous self-- presupposed in moral exhortation-- is discovered
by these new behavioral sciences to be nowhere near nearly so
autonomous as had been imagined. The late Clarence Darrow argued
from this discovery that punishment of criminal acts was, in most cases,
grossly unfair since the criminal was so largely a product of socio-
psychological factors. The difficulty of applying the sciences of
sociology and psychology is illustrated by the story of a judge who,
having heard Mr. Darrow make such a plea, retorted that since the
judge and jury also represented socio-psychological conditioning,
although of a different sort, they must be expected to mete out drastic
punishment to the criminal-- and Mr. Darrow could scarcely object if
they did! Obviously, the impact of the sciences of sociology and
psychology can be more devastating for morality than even Mr Darrow
realized.
In light of Rich's dedication to determinism, I find his highly moralistic
attacks to be rather amusing, for reasons that should be obvious.
Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe
"Better get used to those bars, kid."