Philosophical essay on morality, age limits, and brain function

maladaptive consequences. Brain imaging studies show that different circuits turn on when we lie about long held personal stories as opposed to lies about in-the-moment situations. When we distort reality, either omitting information or twisting it to create a false belief, we have to inhibit the way things are to create an illusion of the way we wish them to be. In each case, there is conflict between one version of reality and another. In each case, the electrical and chemical choreography of the brain recruits its braking mechanism, stifling one piece of knowledge in the service of lifting another to the surface of our lips. We perfect this capacity over the course of development. Some are born lacking this capacity. Others have a system that is out of control, unable to distinguish truths from falsehoods. Somewhere along this spectrum are healthy members of society who have the potential to justify themselves and a society of willing listeners about the importance of becoming willing executioners, a phrase coined by the historian Daniel Goldhagen to describe Germans involved in the Holocaust. Desire + Denial. We all carry out this sum easily, often automatically and unconsciously. When we are pushed by a desire to eliminate others or to achieve some other goal, we call on denial to justify both extraordinary means and exceptional ends. We convince ourselves that we are morally in the right and that extermination or manipulation are our only options. We convince ourselves that the other is an object or animal, emotionally inert or unrecognizable. We shrink our moral circle, creating a culture of indifference. We convince ourselves through self-deception that the other is a threat. When we feel threatened, we raise our hackles in self-defense. When self-defense steps forward it recruits violence, justified by the belief that fighting back is not only right, but obligatory. Once violence starts, supported by a moral imperative, uncontrollable escalation follows, leaving a trail of dead bodies, raped women, and abducted children. Desire couples with denial. Once this liaisons forms, it evolves, grows and feeds on itself. We have arrived at excessive harms. We have arrived at evil. What can we do? How can we harness our understanding of evil to predict when it might occur again? Can we reduce future danger? Future dangerousness Why do we allow 16 year olds to drive in many parts of the United States, but prevent them from drinking alcohol until 21 and from renting a car until 25? Why must the President of the United States be at least 35 years old, but members of the House of Representatives can enter at 25? If 16 is the magic number for driving, why isn't it also the magic number for drinking, voting, becoming president, marrying without parental consent, joining the military, and being executed for a felony murder? Or why not make 21 the magic age for all age-restricted behaviors and positions? This would make sense in terms of our biology: it is precisely around the age of 21 that our frontal lobes have matured more completely, thereby providing us with a more functional engine for self-control. Or, why not question why we have a legal age at all? Why not have a brain scan for frontal lobe maturation along with a test for self-control that would allow some pre-16 year olds to drive, but might prevent some post-21 year olds from drinking? And if you are in favor of the death penalty — I'm not — than why not detach it from age altogether and look at the individual's moral competence and capacity for self-control? These are hard questions. How we answer them will have resounding implications for law and society. When a legal system decides that someone can drive, drink, vote, kill, run for president, marry, and die as a penalty for crime, it has constrained human behavior based on a statistical evaluation of psychological capacity. In each case, our assignment of age-appropriateness indicates that we believe the person is responsible for his or her actions and thus, his or her future actions. It also indicates that those under age are not responsible for their actions. We grant permission to drive at 16 years of age because we believe that most 16 years olds are capable of driving responsibly, now and in the future. We believe that a person who committed a heinous crime at the age of 18 is responsible for harming others and is likely to do so in the future. He or she is thus eligible for the death penalty, at least in some states within the United States. In contrast, we believe that someone at the age of 17 is still developing and has the potential to change. In this sense, we hold them less responsible for their actions. Hauser Epilogue. Evilightenment 147 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012893