Diminished Responsibility

Tuomas W. Manninen

There is a need to draw a line between the leaders responsible and the people like me forced to serve as mere instruments in the hands of the leaders.

Adolf Eichmann

The fallacy of diminished responsibility (DR), a variant of the fallacy of accident, is common enough to warrant being treated on its own.

The example cited in the epigraph comes from a letter by Adolf Eichmann, written mere days before he was executed (for crimes against human­ity - and other sundry charges). After Eichmann was convicted, sentenced to death by hanging, and had his appeals rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court, he appealed to the President of Israel, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, for clemency on the grounds that he was - put roughly - just following orders. Eichmann’s petition was rejected, and he was executed shortly thereafter. In part, the rejection of Eichmann’s appeal follows from the Nuremberg Principles (tri­als which Eichmann was able to avoid by skipping the country) where his

co-conspirators were tried and sentenced. In particular, the Nuremberg Principle IV reads:

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

In other words, just because an individual was ordered to do X (whatever the results of Xing would be), as long as the individual who was ordered to do X could have refused to do so - and he didn’t - the moral consequences of Xing cannot be escaped.

In a more philosophical vein, we can find a corresponding idea expressed already in the writings of Aristotle (384-322 âñå).

Individuals seeking exemptions to their moral responsibility on ideologi­cal grounds abound, there are also those who seek such exemptions on physiological grounds. The following from Miller (2016) will serve to illus­trate this:

In hindsight, it’s clear that Brock Turner was desperately trying to fit in at Stanford and fell into the culture of alcohol consumption and partying [...]. This culture was modeled by many of the upperclassmen on the swim team and played a role in the events of Jan 17th and 18th 2015.

This is an excerpt from a letter written by Dan Turner, the father of Brock Turner. The letter was addressed to the judge who ordered the younger Turner to a sentence - deemed by many to be too lenient - for committing sexual assault at Stanford University in 2015. In essence, the letter attempts to diminish Brock Turner’s responsibility for the assault on the grounds that he had fallen “into the culture of alcohol consumption and partying.” But even if (or, when) Brock Turner had consumed alcohol prior to committing the assault, this does not serve to diminish his responsibility - after all, the actions that led to his diminished capacity were self-inflicted. Moreover, this aligns with the recommendation from the United States Sentencing Commission (2016) (a bipartisan agency of the judicial branch of the US government) when it comes to diminished capacity:

A downward departure [from the sentencing guidelines] may be warranted if (1) the defendant committed the offense while suffering from a significantly

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reduced mental capacity; and (2) the significantly reduced mental capacity contributed substantially to the commission of the offense. Similarly, if a departure is warranted under this policy statement, the extent of the departure should reflect the extent to which the reduced mental capacity contributed to the commission of the offense.

As a further counterpoint to the claim advanced by Brock Turner’s father, we take his anonymous victim’s impact statement, which was read at the sentencing phase of Turner’s trial. Among the most poignant passages of the statement was:

I will now take this opportunity to read portions of the defendant’s statement and respond to them: You said, “Being drunk I just couldn’t make the best decisions and neither could she.” Alcohol is not an excuse. Is it a factor? Yes. But alcohol was not the one who stripped me.

And further:

I fully respected his [Brock Turner’s] right to a trial, but even after twelve jurors unanimously convicted him guilty of three felonies, all he has admitted to doing is ingesting alcohol. Someone who cannot take full accountability for his actions does not deserve a mitigating sentence.

(Miller 2016)

In essence, whether the fallacy of DR is committed or not depends on the context in which the claim for diminished responsibility is made. If the fac­tor that is offered as diminishing one’s (moral) responsibility is something that results from a voluntary choice, then the claim is fallacious. After all, if individuals make a voluntary choice to do something that can likely impair their judgment, then they cannot claim to be absolved from the conse­quences of their actions: it was their initial choice that left them (and their judgment) impaired. If, in contrast, the factor is beyond an individual’s con­trol, the claim is less likely to be fallacious.

In terms of avoiding the fallacy, as noted above, there are some instances where an individual’s moral (or legal) responsibility can be diminished due to factors beyond the individual’s control. However, in none of these instances is the causal responsibility diminished. Consider: A person gets in her car and goes driving.

factors beyond her control. After all, she did not voluntarily choose to have a stroke, and neither did she do anything (at least, not immediately) to bring it about. In such a situation, the person may be absolved from moral respon­sibility, even if her causal responsibility remains the same. A further question to be explored (elsewhere) would be: How far can this line of reasoning be extended? Revisiting the above hypothetical, consider these variants: What if the debilitated driver had been warned by her doctor to make lifestyle changes to reduce the likelihood of such a medical emergency - and she didn’t follow the doctor’s orders? What if the driver was a diabetic who didn’t take proper care of her blood glucose levels (again, contrary to her doctor’s orders) and lost the control of her vehicle due to hypoglycemia? What if the driver was prescribed narcotics that could impair her ability to operate a vehicle, and this was the cause of the accident? And What if...?

Reference

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, 2e. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999.

Miller, Michael. 2016. “‘A Steep Price to Pay for 20 Minutes of Action’ - Dad Defends Stanford Sex Offender.” Washington Post, June 6. https://www. washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/06/a-steep-price-to-pay- for-20-minutes-of-action-dad-defends-stanford-sex-offender/ (accessed September 26, 2017).

United States Sentencing Commission. 2016. “Guidelines Manual” https://www. ussc.gov/guidelines/2016-guidelines-manual (accessed September 28, 2017).