ETHICS

When We Dont Blame People for Their Bad Deeds

Justin MartinFiery Cushman
FEBRUARY 16, 2016

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In 1966, Charles Whitman murdered his wife and mother in the middle of the night.
The next morning, he purchased guns, ammunition, and other supplies, and drove
to and ascended a nearby clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin. He then
continued his killing spree, leaving 13 people dead and 32 wounded before police
fatally wounded him. If anyone ever deserved moral condemnation, surely Whitman
fits the bill.

Whitmans case is not so simple, however. In the months and weeks leading up to
the event, he reported feeling strong headaches and increasingly violent urges.
Whitman in fact sought medical attention to no avail. After his spree, an autopsy
revealed a tumor pressing on regions of Whitmans brain thought to regulate
emotional reactions and urges.

What if Whitman had survived to face trial for his crimes? Imagine, for a moment,
that you are his defense attorney and that a medical examination revealed your
clients subcortical tumor. What kind of defense might you mount that could sway a
jury toward leniency, given such heinous actions?

The answer to this question depends on moral psychology, the ways in which
ordinary people, like jurors, make decisions about right and wrong, good and evil,
and crime and punishment. A simple rule governs many cases: it is wrong to cause
harm if you do so intentionally.

But the human capacity for moral judgment is complex, and we felt that something
about this rule must be incomplete. Whitman clearly caused harm, and it wasnt an
accident. After all, he methodically planned his killing spree, purchasing weapons,
ammo, and other supplies after killing his wife and mother. He even brought
deodorant and vitamins with him to the top of the clock tower. And yet surely it
matters that a large tumor was impinging on key decision-making centers of his
brain.

We wanted to test how observers might make fine-tuned judgments about moral
culpability on issues like these, from high-profile cases like Whitmans to more
mundane situations that crop up in ordinary workplaces. In a series of studies using
over 5,000 participants, we investigated the relationship between manipulations of
behavior, control, and intent. For instance, participants read a case in which a
doctor either had two treatment options for a patient (possessing control over their
choice) or found out that a patient was allergic to one treatment, thus forcing them
to proceed with the other treatment (possessing reduced control). Another case
focused on an investment banker managing money for a hospital. The banker could
either freely choose between two investment vehicles (possessing control) or was

informed of a new rule established by his company prohibiting investing in one of

the options, thus forcing him to proceed with the other choice (reducing his control).

We found that changing how much control an agent has over their behavior does
indeed influence our moral judgment of that person: Perpetrators with reduced
control are punished less. Further, this reduction in moral judgment occurs because
the person is viewed as being less causally responsible for harm. In other words,
perceiving someone as lacking control over their behavior causes us to view them
as less causally responsible, and therefore morally culpable, for outcomes that
follow from that behavior.

Armed with this knowledge of the relationship between control and causal
responsibility for harm, your hypothetical defense might proceed like so: Charles
Whitman developed a brain tumor that caused him to have violent thoughts and
urges. Whitman felt these urges were coming from a place apart from his true self,
as expressed in his suicide note and in his attempts to seek medical attention. Thus,
Whitmans behavior was beyond his ability to control it. In some sense, it isnt really
Whitman himself who was responsible for the tragedy on that day; rather, his tumor
bears ultimate responsibility.

Of course, most of us arent called on to defend capital cases, and most mass killers
dont have rare tumors. But anybody with a parent, child, spouse, friend, employee,
or boss has probably been called upon to play the role of prosecutor or defender at
some point in his or her life.

Consider the workplace: When an employee misses an important deadline, when a

coworker misrepresents one of your ideas as his or her own, or when your
companys policies are being flaunted, you must craft a response. In doing so, it
helps to understand how people the board, the clients, the employees, the
stockholders, and the public are likely to process the facts of the case. In
particular, you should understand that they will be sensitive to whether harm was
caused, if it was done intentionally, and how much control the perpetrator had over
their behavior. Its not enough to claim that harm was done unintentionally; you
might also have to make the case that it was not in your power to stop it.