"As a child, I really had no opinion on the death penalty--I just didn't give it a lot of thought. But as an adult, shortly after looking at the first brain scans I ordered, I started to get a very uncomfortable feeling. The brain function of my patients who did bad things was much worse than that of people who were living productive, healthy lives. If the brain is the organ of behavior and free will, and brain function was impaired, then obviously we all did not have the same level of free will. As I think of it, free will varies on a scale of 0 to 100. A person with a very healthy brain has nearly 100 percent free will. A patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or Tourette's syndrome (TS) or drug addiction has significantly less, and a person with late Alzheimer's disease has virtually none. Uh-oh, I thought to myself, killing people with bad brains is akin to killing sick people. That was not the sign of an evolved society. Subsequently I have scanned more than sixty murderers and more than two hundred other convicted violent felons. The brain dysfunction I saw was often dramatic."
From "Making a Good Brain Great" by Daniel G. Amen, M.D., Three Rivers Press, New York
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Taka,
ReplyDeletethat is a great line: you know in this country we are killing many sick people via some very evil means:
1) No health care or very expensive health care
2) 57% of the Nation's budhet is spent on military spending!
Bottom line: we spend more money to kill people(WARS and OCCUPATIONS)than to heal people(HEALTH CARE)!
Thankyou for your posts and arrivederci!
Mr. Roamin Roman,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind comment. I think what is needed is treatment, but not punishment. Even with punishment (death penalty), murderers continue to exist. Even with nuclear weapons, people will continue to fight. We should spend more money on treatment rather than on punishment. I totally agree with your suggestion.