General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Could science convince you that the shooter was not ethically responsible for his actions? [View all]loyalsister
(13,390 posts)You can't exclude nurture when discussing behavior. It's uncomfortable, but logical to consider that he may have concluded that his plans were justified and even correct. I noted in another thread, that the reasoning behind the conclusion that one has a right to kill is sound. If there is a right to own weapons designed specifically to kill people, then there is a right to kill.
A starting point for speculation on what may have driven his intellectual perspective is that an accountant who loses money is a failure. Maybe it was a devastating self perception that led to self destruction. If there were people who would be hurt because of his behavior maybe he saw it as ethical to remove himself from their lives? In the realm of psychological speculation, maybe he was driven by that kind of suicidal ideation combined with one last self satisfying act to get even with the industry that reeled him in and ultimately caused his failure. I think that is a fairly common oversimplified scenario but contains some established elements of the motivations for suicide and murder. And even with that kind of justification, the fact that he hid could say something about shame or awareness of the wrongness of his actions.
The philosophical discussion on ethics has to include the possibility that he may have thought he was doing someone a favor, as well as the irrational, but natural dispair and self pity. I think it is entirely possible that organic brain damage reduces impulse control. But, there has to be an intellectual seed that could be controlled. It requires too much mental and behavioral effort for the impact of ethics or lack thereof to be excluded.