Brains, Tumors, and Morality
Questioning Free Will and Motivations
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In a bizarre case reported in various news outlets, a man who suffered from sexual urges he didn't understand and couldn't control was "cured" through brain surgery. His situation had reached the point where he made sexual advances towards his step-daughter, causing his wife to leave him and putting the Virginia schoolteacher in jeopardy of going to prison on charges of sexual molestation. Then he had a previously unknown brain tumor removed from his right frontal lobe.
After surgery, everything changed for him. Not only was he able to stop making sexual advances on others, but the urges to make those advances in the first place also disappeared. This carries profound implications for the nature of free will, criminal justice, and even traditional religious ideas about the nature of morality.
In this case, it is thought that the man's tumor had grown to a size where it was able to draw or squeeze enough blood away from the frontal lobe that it was essentially asleep. He had lost the ability to control his impulses or to anticipate the consequences of his action. His brain was, in essence, functioning abnormally - but what does that say about free will?
Was the schoolteacher who kept leering at nurses acting under his own free will or not? What about someone who doesn't have a brain tumor - is he acting under his own free will? If the first isn't and the latter is, what is the salient difference? At the very least, this suggests that the level of "free will" we have isn't as clear as we might normally like to think - and if the difference between the two is accepted as being wholly physical in nature (because of the tumor), then whatever "free will" we have must arguably be wholly physical as well.
This case should also cause us to take a closer look at how we morally evaluate the conduct of others. If the man's brain tumor simply released urges that he previously had, does that mean that he was and/or is a "bad person" because he experienced those urges in the first place? Or was he an especially good person because he had urges which he was able to resist? Arguably there is more merit in resisting temptation than in never being tempted at all.
And once he did give in to temptation, is he as immoral as someone whose actions are unconnected to tumors or other sorts of physical malfunctions in the brain? Clearly his actions are just as wrong, whether from a deontological or teleological perspective; the fact that we might be inclined to judge him less harshly points to a critical flaw in both of those types of meta-ethical systems. Even if we take motive into account, that doesn't allow us to treat him less harshly because he did intend the actions he committed.
The implications for the criminal justice system are clear. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded because they have a diminished ability to control their urges and to reason out the consequences of their actions. Even under lesser crimes with lesser penalties, such diminished abilities typically result in lighter prison sentences with a greater emphasis on compassionate supervision and less on punitive measures.
Shouldn't the same be the case with people who suffer from brain tumors, if it can be reasonably shown that those tumors affect their urges and reasoning? If human behavior is largely governed by events in the frontal lobes, and that region of the brain isn't functioning properly, then to what degree can we hold someone criminally liable for their actions?
If someone's judgment is diminished through no fault of their own, shouldn't that be taken into account? Shouldn't they receive treatment first and then later punishment - if any punishment at all? It doesn't seem that punishing such people would do very much to deter others, to rehabilitate them (at least any further than treatment already has) or to deter those same individuals from future misdeeds.
Finally, there are also implications here for traditional religions which place the origin of our ability to make judgments and moral choice with our souls rather than our physical brains. It seems quite clear that this man's actions were precipitated by physical events in his brain. Although we may not fully understand exactly what happened, there does not appear to be the slightest reason to invoke any non-natural and non-material causes.
This suggests, however, that whenever a person either gives in to an urge to make sexual advances on someone or resist the temptation to do so, this can be explained by physical events in our brains without any need for non-natural and non-material causes. If this choice is moral in nature, then we can further conclude that our moral decision was devoid of supernatural or immaterial basis - but if that is so, then what role could a "soul" possibly have?
If a soul exists, it can't be held responsible for that schoolteacher's decision to make sexual advances on his daughter and so neither can the souls of all the fathers and step-fathers who don't make such sexual advances on children. How, then, could any of those souls be justly rewarded or punished for any of those men's actions? It really doesn't make any sense and strongly suggests that traditional doctrines regarding the role of "souls" in decision making and morality are seriously incoherent.
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