Mobiboros wrote:RedImperator wrote:It's more than just lack of memory, though. The entire personality that committed the crime is wiped out. He can't be punished anymore because he's already dead.
No, he's not. There is a shift in the persons personality. It may be a marked shift, even a complete one. but the person never ceases mental functions. The brain is running, albeit changed. There is no 'death', except as a existential argument in this case. For all intents and purposes, this is just an extreme form of amnesia due to brain damage.
The memories are gone, the personality is gone. What, exactly, is left of the person besides the body?
There is continunity of the body, but the fact that the body that comitted the act is still alive isn't relevant, or else insanity isn't a valid defense. From a philosophical standpoint, we have is an entirely new person who came to life one morning in the former body of a convicted criminal.
Most people misunderstand insanity as a defense. When you plead insanity, you don't get off. You are remanded into a mental health facility. When you plead insanity you are being legally defined as unable to determine right and wrong and not responsible for your actions. You are then remanded to a facility for study and evaluation and after that, if you are released you lose many rights (the ability to vote or own firearms for example). In addition, 'insanity' is purely a legal term and not a psychological one. Psychologically this person would be diagnosed as acute amnesia brought on by damage to the brain.
I understand the insanity defense just fine--did you think I thought if you plea insanity, they just send you on your merry way? The point is that the mind is held responsible for actions, not the body, so continunity of the body doesn't make the new personality responsible for the old one's actions.
I disagree that from all philosophical standpoints that this is an entirely new person. As I said, I don't feel this is a different person. It's simply a person who has no recollection of the crime.
Again, it wasn't only his memories that were erased. His personality went, too. There is nothing left of the former person except the physical body.
Keeping him in prison would be the same as transplanting a law-abiding citizen's brain into a criminal's body and then imprisoning him for the criminal's acts.
No, it's not the same at all. There is a transference of body mass (the brain), which is also where the 'mind' is reposited. Your example is of a person being convicted for a crime they didn't commit. The OP is an example of a person serving a sentence for a crime they DID commit but cannot recall anymore.
Please explain how someone with no memory of the past and a different personality is the same person.
