Victims of child abuse and future culpability

[MRW]

I've had a pretty serious question that has been bothering me for a few days already. Given free will, I hold individuals responsible for their actions and the effects of their actions. Although, Stef's documentary indicates how child abuse destroys the reasoning center of the brain, among other things, and enhances the "fight or flight" center - leading to a much higher potential for harmful behavior later in life. At the same time, forced actions are not in the realm of moral judgment. Certainly, no one is directly present to force someone to commit violence later in life but that individual's capacity for reason is severely corrupted.

 

To what extent are the victims of child abuse morally culpable for violations of the NAP later in life; and when, if anywhere, does that culpability begin?

[STer]

Exactly the issue I raised repeatedly in this thread just in the last week or so

 

http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/37876-does-the-peaceful-parenting-philosophy-have-sympathy-for-miserable-parents-on-louis-ck/

 

My raising of the issue was not appreciated. But I agree with you that it is a very important question.

[Kevin Beal]

(This is me speaking as a layman with a strong interest in these subjects)

 

It's my understanding that these parts of the brain work like different muscles. If you injure a muscle in your left leg you are likely to compensate with muscles in your right leg. It doesn't mean that you can't use your left leg necessarily. People who have been abused are plenty capable of reason, have free will etc, it's more that they are quicker to rely on their reactive defenses. These defenses are more familiar, we know how to do them, and there is often some limited success (even if it is short lived or at a significant cost).

 

Sometimes it is great for that person. A person who is a prison guard (for example) benefits from full blown or selective sociopathy, receives benefits from his dysfunctions.

 

Depending on the level of damage, you can do physical therapy on your left leg so that you no longer compensate with your right leg and as a result your mobility improves. This won't work with a completely atrophied leg, but to have completely atrophied frontal cortices is not what happens to victims of abuse AFAIK.

 

It doesn't help that most people relate to each other on the level of their false selves, that there are positive incentives for dysfunction and that doing self work can be enormously painful.

 

When you work with repressed material in your own psyche and you "realize" what you already knew, it's hard to see how you could ever have not seen it.

 

It could be argued that we know what people know because of how they act. Actions speak louder than words as the saying goes. The kinds of behaviors that people do that indicate at least some level of culpability are that they avoid those topics, they use justifications that contradict other things they profess, they hold other people to higher standards than they hold themselves, etc.

 

In any event, even if we had no way whatsoever of telling what level of knowledge someone had over their own actions, we can at least all agree that if they are holding you to a moral rule, then they are themselves also bound by it.

 

Another argument that Stef makes is that with the internet "I did the best with the knowledge I had" no longer is a reasonable excuse. It takes a hundredth of a second to get google results on the effects of spanking, or circumcision, or humiliation on children. And the science on these things is very clear and has been for a while.

 

I hope that makes some kind of sense. This is also an issue I struggle with.

[Wesley]

My rule of thumb is that they know what they are doing is wrong when they inflict the opposite on others. Otherwise, there may be obvious proof that they have no knowledge that an action is wrong in which case they would be in a "state of nature" until informed.

 

Let me give some examples:

 

A parent hits a kid because they were hitting a sibling and hitting is wrong. This shows they fully comprehend that hitting is wrong and they still hit.

 

There are more subtle ways that this may happen, but you can generally ask people if assault is wrong and 99.999% of people will say yes (assuming not self defense and all the proper caveats). However, if you ask American parents if they hit their kids then 80-90% will say they do.

 

 

The other standard was that they had obvious proof that they had no idea that it was wrong. For instance, they think hitting is perfectly acceptable and randomly hit kids, randomly hit cashiers, randomly hit their parents, randomly hit cops.

 

You can see that this type of person almost never exists as they would quickly be corrected and informed that hitting is wrong and will then be responsible for not hitting people or face consequences.

 

There is the rare situation where they still cannot comprehend this, but then they are severely mentally deficient or insane and thus are not responsible for their actions.

 

It gets very complicated for a child as you go through a gray area from which you are mentally deficient into able to mentally comprehend things. When you are a baby you have 0 responsibility for hitting someone. When you are 18 I would probably consider it close to 100%, though I haven't totally reasoned it out and it may be earlier or later.

 

The biggest factor is if they do something that they know is wrong. I think that there can be partial responsibility and a portion of restitution or apology should be made for actions committed as a child with the understanding that the environment was so bad and a large contributing factor.

 

Once you do something that you know is wrong (either by asking or by not randomly doing it to people) then you have responsibility in the action. It may be difficult to determine with random actors, however you already know this about people who are in your life or about yourself in the past.

 

I hope the explanation made sense, feel free to ask questions.

[Kevin Beal]

and do they do it in public? No? Well, that's very interesting.

[MysterionMuffles]

Depending on the severity of the abuse and what the individual chooses to do about it is what determines their actions as an adult. If they've grieved their childhood pain by growing out of the justifications kids have to come up with to cope, the better chance they have at self reflection and effort in not emulating destructive behaviour. However, some people remain in that defensiveness and learn how to direct the anger elsewhere where it's not warranted and that's what makes an angry person. Without aiming it at the right target, it just gets pent up and released where it may not be appropriate. People are responsible for their actions and even the most damaged person has at least a split second to reconsider what they are about to do.