NationStates Jolt Archive

A normal agreeable or a smart and intelligent person sustains a brain injury and becomes a hateful annoying twit yet after a few years a doctor discovers a way to heal his brain and other similar cases. The person's mind and intellect are restored. Consequently the unnacceptable behavior of said behavior ceases. Would you hold said person responsible for his/her actions even though technically he/she wasn't in his/her right mind?

Keep in mind that the brain damaged twit and the agreeable intellectual are different personalities. (one being what he/she would be like with parts of the brain missing and the other being the person with a functional brain)

A normal agreeable or a smart and intelligent person sustains a brain injury and becomes a hateful annoying twit yet after a few years a doctor discovers a way to heal his brain and other similar cases. The person's mind and intellect are restored. Consequently the unnacceptable behavior of said behavior ceases. Would you hold said person responsible for his/her actions even though technically he/she wasn't in his/her right mind?

Keep in mind that the brain damaged twit and the agreeable intellectual are different personalities. (one being what he/she would be like with parts of the brain missing and the other being the person with a functional brain)

No. As was made clear, the normally functioning body yields proper behaviour, so it is logical to assume that this is the true nature of his soul.

Not fully responsible at least, especially from an accidental injury. Once their brain was restored to full functionality, it would be apparent that this was their actual personality.

No, because the person who did the unspecified nasty things got killed when he was... altered, given your premise of "two different personalities". Just as you wouldn't attribute kindness to a Jesus-gone-Hitler and praise him for what he didn't do. Hooray for pharmaceutical mind control. On the other hand...

...of course, by neverending brain-self-restructuring we wake up a different person each day, so technically no one can be blamed for anything, unless you have such silly desires as wanting for society to function or something.

Finding out whether a new personality emerged or if the old one just faked it is another story and has to be blissfully ignored with a question as hypothetical as this.

Nah, they had DR.

depends.
after all, even tho he 'wasn't in his right mind' did he have full control over his actions?
does he show guilt or remorse for what was done?

who's to say that all violent/anti-social behavior are done by people who are not in their right mind due to injury sustained from childhood trauma?

can't give a blanket yes or no, it has to be examined case by case.

A normal agreeable or a smart and intelligent person sustains a brain injury and becomes a hateful annoying twit yet after a few years a doctor discovers a way to heal his brain and other similar cases. The person's mind and intellect are restored. Consequently the unnacceptable behavior of said behavior ceases. Would you hold said person responsible for his/her actions even though technically he/she wasn't in his/her right mind?



No, so long as it is clear that this does not open the door to a crass form of biological determinism wherein people gain the right to be hateful annoying twits and blame this on the physical structure of their brains.

A normal agreeable or a smart and intelligent person sustains a brain injury and becomes a hateful annoying twit yet after a few years a doctor discovers a way to heal his brain and other similar cases. The person's mind and intellect are restored. Consequently the unnacceptable behavior of said behavior ceases. Would you hold said person responsible for his/her actions even though technically he/she wasn't in his/her right mind?

Keep in mind that the brain damaged twit and the agreeable intellectual are different personalities. (one being what he/she would be like with parts of the brain missing and the other being the person with a functional brain)

Yes and no. The trouble is, its rarely quite so clear-cut and although you could argue that had diminished responsibility, they would still have a level of responsibility for their actions since personality does not necessarily equate to behaviour. But that's only IF the only thing that changed was their personality.

However, although underlying brain deficits since childhood do result in various personality disorders (including, for example, psychopathy), adults who receive injuries resulting in personality changes will often display significant mental impairments as well as personality changes. You will very rarely see it just being the personality which changes and so no, I would not hold them responsible on that level, because their ability to make decisions was actively impaired.

I do think that with some alteration to the brain, someone can become a completely different person. I had a friend who fell in with some unsavory characters, and got himself badly addicted to meth. After a few years of using it, that friend is dead, completely gone. Someone else is inside that head now.