How Science Can Change The Way We Treat Each Other

[kilowatt04]

The only boundary between what we see as a condition which cannot be helped, and either a choice to be judged for or a crime to be punished, is the current scientific understanding of how the human body and brain works. More than that even, it is what the individual doing the judging understands or accepts about how the human body and brain works, and a lot of those people are immune to scientific facts.

Once, people born with physical disabilities were rejected at birth, left to die or put to death. Far back in the evolutionary history of humans, this may have been to the survival benefit of tribe. Back then, even people who suffered an injury resulting in physical disability would have been abandoned. People with illnesses were also abandoned as the illness might be spread to others, and if it looked like it might be an illness then better to be on the side of caution.

Later all this was tied to religion – people born in a way that wasn't understood were considered abominations, the work of the devil, or perhaps the result of God punishing the person or the family for some evil committed. Likewise with illness – if something bad happened to someone that wasn't understood, it was attributed to God punishing them for something that was their fault. The idea was that they were to blame, and deserved any degree of punishment.

As people came to realize the mechanisms behind birth defects, illnesses, and the like, and realized that people who had them could still be beneficial members of society, things changed a bit. However, all of a person's thoughts and actions were still very much considered something that they always did willfully. The right way to be was referenced back to a religious ideal or something similar. If a person did any of the wrong things, they obviously chose to do so and were subject to moral judgment. This originally included everything, like falling on the ground and convulsing, going to sleep at inappropriate times, failing to obey instructions for any reason – everything considered abnormal and not explicitly prevented by an obvious physical condition. They obviously wanted to do these things, and would have to face the consequences.

Eventually, some behaviors were attributed to physical conditions of the brain, once enough people who exhibited the same physical traits were seen to exhibit the same behaviors. Things like epilepsy, narcolepsy, downs syndrome, autism, and a few other conditions were recognized as things that could not be helped voluntarily because they were caused by something measurable going on in the brain. Behaviors resulting from them were excused at least from being seen as that person's willful action subject to judgment and punishment.

Later, as science learned more about how the brain works, many other behavior profiles were accepted at least among the scientific and medical community as things one could not always help. Schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, mania, ADHD, and hundreds of other mental illnesses were defined and categorized, as things potentially curable by various types of intervention as they had measurable manifestations in the brain.

The conservative side of society has all the while, by definition, resisted the acceptance of these new understandings. People don't just believe everything they are told, and that is often a good thing. However unless they are extensively familiar with a subject first-hand, then telling them something new really has no validity to them. What people are willing to believe depends on how their belief structure has been set up and what they are familiar with, not whether it is true or not.

Beliefs to this day run the entire gradient from people who still believe that people are accountable under threat of damnation for each and every condition of their body and mind, to people who believe that everyone is totally unaccountable for everything they do. Where the general consensus lies has been gradually moving from the former to the latter throughout history with no foreseeable limit, but always lags a great deal behind what is scientifically shown to be true.

For many people, the line between what one cannot help and what one does willfully stems from the concept of a soul (whether or not they literally believe in a divine soul, it's the concept). Presumably the soul is the genuine person, their true self, which behaves under free will. Any behaviors resulting from things that are accepted as conditions are generally excused from being something the person's soul would willingly have them do. Further consideration of how or why their soul, their free will, decides what it does is generally not given.

The line between what is considered to be done under free will and what is done with influence from an excusable condition lies close to what can be measured by medical science of the day. This is literally the standard used by the courts when considering someone's guilt or innocence of a crime – a psychologist trained to the extents of medical science determines whether a person is mentally fit to stand trial, and whether or not they were acting as a sane person while committing the crime. A person's sanity is defined by what can be medically measured.

Outside the courts, the line between the types of thoughts and behaviors that it is generally considered acceptable to berate and ostracize someone for, and the types of thoughts and behaviors that cannot be helped and are not acceptable to berate and ostracize someone for, follows roughly the same principle – if it is understood then it cannot be helped, otherwise judge away.

Deeper consideration on the subject will be necessary as more is understood about the function of the mind. I would propose that more consideration is necessary now, and that for as long as more consideration is not given – past, present, or future – grave injustices are done to people who were worthy of being helped instead of punished. Society has lost out by punishing and setting up for further failure all the people who are not understood.

If we carry the simplistic view that bad behavior resulting from what can be measured is excusable and bad behavior resulting from what is not measurable is not, then we will run in to a point where all behavior is excusable, perhaps to the point where it is not necessarily discouraged either. We will be able to trace each behavior to a function in the brain, as we are already fairly far down that road. Many behaviors that were once punished for are now medicated or medically treated for, but generally lacking any deeper consideration of the situation.

Instead of following the path of switching from punishment to clinical treatment for each behavior or personality trait as it is re-categorized from crime to illness, perhaps we need to re-think our motives for punishment as well as the methods we use in the first place. Perhaps there is a deterrent factor that can influence some behaviors in some people under threat of punishment. In general though, does criminal punishment really exist to change people with problems into people without problems, who will do well and benefit society? Or does it exist to satisfy the vengeance of the victims and those who are emotionally attached to a given crime? Today, how much of it exists to profit the justice system, law enforcement, and the prison industry?

Likewise perhaps we need to re-think our means of treatment for those with problems. The medical and pharmaceutical industry is profit driven, and the best of its services remain out of reach to most people because of the fantastic cost. To maximize profitability, it is in the industry's best interest to only offer treatments to mediate symptoms in common people rather than address or prevent underlying causes of physical and mental problems. They profit when they keep people dependent on treatment, but not cured.

Also there is an extensive amount of regulation on the pharmaceutical industry, and on the pursuit of any drug research, and the severity of criminal punishment for violating such regulation, especially under the War on Drugs, is beyond reason. This, along with the extensive litigation the industry faces from malpractice, also works to make it immensely expensive, exclusive, and proprietary, probably even beyond what it would be under free capitalism.

Additionally, as with many scientific fields, medicine limits itself by only accepting as viable those treatments which are understood by their mechanism of action, even when the understanding of the brain is so limited. Other things, such as social factors, diet, and environmental factors, with mechanisms of action toward health that are not well understood, are dismissed by modern medicine even when their importance is great. Even if a given treatment is effectively proven by example to work, it is not accepted by medical science, much less put out to market, unless certain technical, business, and political hurdles are crossed.

On the other hand, there is a multi-billion dollar industry devoted to promoting treatments – homeopathic, health supplements, or otherwise, which have no scientific evidence of effectiveness at all, and in fact often much scientific evidence that they are completely ineffective. This all blurs the reality of medicine and makes people on both the giving and receiving ends of it doubtful of both effective and ineffective things alike, overconfident on both effective and ineffective things alike, and also doubtful of each other.

Perhaps we should take a step back, and look at all people, their traits, and their behaviors, with as much compassion as we can, understanding that who we are and what we do comes from a combination of our birth and our experiences, rather than from some arbitrary soul subject to moral judgment. Even if you believe in moral responsibility, ask yourself what good it would do to put someone down or punish them when they did something or are something you don't agree with, knowing that their goal wasn't to get punished or mistreated, and their goal wasn't to be outcast.

Are our motives when dealing with bad behaviors really to help? Or are they to take a moral high ground? Or to get vengeance for ourselves, our loved ones, or our interests? Even if you believe in the divine soul, good and evil, and all that, what made that soul decide to be something you consider wrong? Did they really willfully decide it would be best for them to go down a bad path, knowing all that there is to know? Or did they do what seemed to them to be the best choice each time they were presented with one, even if it turned out to be wrong?

[John_Doesnt]

Yeah, science to the rescue.