From: Jeff Davis (jdavis@socketscience.com)
Date: Sat Feb 12 2000 - 15:18:33 MST
Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
10 Feb 2000 14:54:41 +0100 wrote:
>"john grigg" <starman125@hotmail.com> writes:
>> What could be very disturbing is when people decide to "turn off" their
>> conscience to do ethically malicious things. Of course drugs and alcohol
>> have been used for centuries in this way. Not just by individuals but also
>> governments and militaries.
>To take an example that came up in my "Big ideas" sf campaign: a business
leader being
>questioned about whether he had done some illegal things, and answered
turthfully: "I have no
>recollections of ever having done so, and I consider the act deeply
immoral!". But earlier he had
>been much less ethical, and deliberately created an ethical "Dr. Jekyll"
personality that had no
>memories and had very different values, and a "Mr. Hyde" personality with
no such inhibitions
>that appeared at certain points or in certain situations. So he could
continue his unethical
>dealings without his conscious knowledge. Of course the real problem here
is juridical: is he
>guilty of his crimes, or a victim of mental insanity? Is it a crime to do
this kind of restructuring?
>Should Mr. Hyde be punished but not Dr. Jekyll?
It's clear to me--dare I say obvious--that if the Dr. Jekyll created this
personality duality so that the crimes could be committed without "his"
knowledge, then he is the leading agent in a criminal conspiracy, and
deserves the lion's share of the blame. Creating the means to escape
responsibility for your crimes is just an additional crime. Nail the
sumbitch.
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
Ray Charles
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