Outside the Beltway

THE BLAME GAME

James Joyner · Monday, November 10, 2003 · 5 comments

A commenter to an earlier post observes,

Just another move to take away personal responsibility. Overweight? It’s a medical condition and a part of my genes. Smoke? It’s an addiction and I can’t stop. Homicidal maniac? I was born that way and it’s not my fault.

Nothing anybody does is their own fault any more, is it?

The trend seems to be increasingly in that direction. From my decidedly non-expert view, we seem to be finding that virtually all behavior–good and bad–is deeply rooted in genetics, biochemistry, and the like. I’m not sure what the practical and moral implications of that are, but they’re certainly complicated.

To use a benign example, it’s often argued that, since homosexuality is a biological predisposition rather than personal choice, it’s inhumane/ unfair/ immoral to treat homosexual conduct any different from heterosexual conduct. The argument is indeed quite compelling in that case, especially when coupled with the utilitarian argument that homosexuals engaging in consensual activity do no harm to society.

To take a much less benign example, there have been a few instances where women have been acquitted of murder charges on the grounds that they were suffering from severe PMS and weren’t in control of their actions. Even the staunch criminal defense advocate Alan M. Dershowitz is troubled by the implications of this:

Any defense of criminal irresponsibility is–as Dostoyevsky once put it–“a knife that cuts both ways.” It may excuse in one case, but it causes suspicion and prejudice in other cases. For example, when we excuse the mentally ill from responsibility for their criminal actions, we stigmatize all mentally ill people as irresponsible and incapable of controlling themselves. Nor is suspicion and prejudice against women who suffer from PMS warranted by the empirical data. Though some women who are irritable and hostile during the premenstrual period of their cycle may well suffer from PMS, the vast majority of women who suffer from PMS do not behave the outrageous way the surgeon in this case did. Her PMS did not cause her unlawful and rude behavior. Her actions were caused by her entire background, personality, and circumstances. She is obviously an elitist and deprecating person during the entire month, or else she would not have said what she did to the trooper. PMS alone does not change Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. She admitted that she had several drinks before she drove that night, and surely her PMS is not responsible for that behavior.

We live in an age when everybody tries to blame someone or something for their failures. Several years ago there was the “Twinkie defense.” And then there was the “TV made me do it” excuse. Now it’s raging hormones. This well-educated doctor should have realized that during the premenstrual part of her cycle, she behaves differently, and she should have taken precautions against breaking the law. Surely her PMS did not come on suddenly without previous manifestations. Her acquittal sends a doubly dangerous message. First, that our hormones are beyond our control and that we are not responsible for how they manifest themselves. And second, that women with premenstrual problems are somehow less reliable and less predictable than other people. Neither is true.

As we finish decoding the genome, we’re sure to find that there is a genetic link to virtually every human trait imaginable. We’re surely not going to simply excuse dangerous conduct because some people are less able to control themselves than others; but we are likely to be forced to rethink the concept of punishment if it turns out that criminal behavior is essentially a birth defect.

From that extreme, let’s briefly return to the issue of obesity as a disease. Clearly, we’re learning a lot about this issue every day. It’s not nearly as simple as the medical community thought it was a mere decade ago. Still, simple logic tells us that most people who are obese are so through their own actions: Do you recall the rotund, 300 pound Somalis or Ethiopians who, while everyone around them was wasting away from starvation, were failing to lose weight? No? Neither do I. Indeed, even aside from the extreme condition of a famine, morbid obesity was a comparative rarity in the United States as recently as a quarter century ago. Our genes didn’t suddenly become defective overnight; our lifestyles have undergone a rapid change as we’ve gone from the days of the housewife staying home preparing nutritious meals for her family to the two-career couple subsisting on fast food, microwave dinners, and whatever kind of food can be delivered to the door in 30 minutes or less. Obesity is an American epidemic; but it’s not a disease.

Are there people with defective thyroids, pancreases, and the like who need extreme measures to maintain a healthy weight? Of course. But those are specific medical conditions that most everyone who agree would qualify as a disease. The vast, vast majority of overweight Americans could achieve a healthy weight through a smarter diet and more exercise.