In the wake of America’s growing discourse on mass shootings and gun violence, Micah Johnson explores the possibility of a connection between a killer’s brain damage and the erasure of free will. In the article “How Responsible are Killers with Brain Damage” published under Scientific American, Johnson challenges the very definition of free will that neuroscience has proposed, but agrees that possible symptoms of brain disease question the universality of the concept. The article uses the case study of Charles Whitman, a school shooter and mass murderer, and examines the pattern of brain lesions that he and other killers have shown to have. I agree with Johnson’s implications that impaired free will should not necessarily pose amendments to the moral charges of the crime. However, using Johnson’s own definition of free will, I disagree that the cases presented in the article show a lack of it.
Johnson pairs Charles Whitman’s case study with one that analyzed seventeen cases of criminal behavior linked to brain lesions. The study shows that the seventeen lesions were part of a “functional network”, a collaborating neural circuit which extends throughout the brain. This network is closely related to the moral decision-making networks and involves two notions of moral psychology: the theory of mind and the theory of value-based decision making. The study goes on to question if the killer is morally responsible for his actions if they were caused by a fault in the network, and to an extent, a lack of free will. Here, Johnson claims that the concept of free will is not an illusion, as the researchers had claimed. He argues that it is actually based on the connection between our brains and our actions. With this idea in mind, he asks researchers to explore how or if the brain damage affected the principles of moral psychology. If the principles were impacted, it could be concluded that free will had been reduced. Johnson then turns the issue to legal and moral responsibility and asserts that brain lesions can’t be the only cause for criminality because other factors contribute to the complexity of human behavior.
My immediate reaction upon reading the title of this article was one of exasperation. I was expecting Johnson to jump on the recurring bandwagon of attributing mass shooters’ actions solely to mental illness or brain trauma while aiming to distract the reader from engaging in the broader discussion of a public health concern. Because of this, Johnson surprised me with his objectivity in discussing the facts of the study. I especially valued his explanation of the “criminality-associated network”. I had thought that it only would make sense if all the killers shared a deformity in one part of the brain, but I now realize that I failed to understand the extent to which the regions of the brain work together.
However, because of Johnson’s inability to apply his theory to the case study, I cannot agree to consider free will in criminal cases when Johnson himself points out that many external factors can just as likely cause violence. While I do agree with his statement that “human behavior is complex and a brain lesion is neither necessary nor sufficient for criminal behavior,” his thought does not connect with his earlier argument of the perpetual existence of free will. Because he separates the moral argument from the free will argument, I do not see how free will could ever be “injured” by lesions if moral psychology can ultimately be swayed by factors like behavior or obsessions. Employing Johnson’s own definition of free will, which asserts that the brain’s ability to store personal memories and ethics leads people to make their own choices, I argue that the killers showed an ability to use decision-making to shape their personalities, even with the lesions. Because of this, they carried out their actions through free will. Yet, I agree with Johnson’s disapproval of the researchers’ view that brain lesions take away all free will. Johnson calls for cases to be assessed beyond brain injury, and I appreciate his reluctance to blacklist the hundreds of thousands of individuals in America living with brain tumors and strokes. Because of this, I do not find Johnson’s frequent support of further research as indecisive; rather, I see that he is contending that the problem cannot be simplified, so it should not be summarized as such.
Micah Johnson discusses a sensitive topic in the modern era, where mass shootings have become hardly a surprise. Articles like these are important because they provide an objective view of an epidemic with the purpose of restarting the conversation around topics like gun violence. In my experience, people are often conflicted when discussing such issues, and I understand how science can be contentious to certain beliefs. This is why I believe that it is important to incorporate ideas such as free will into studies because it may provide a more convincing argument to those who follow a different line of thought. For that reason, this article has driven me to question if philosophy is the missing piece that allows science and psychology to be accepted by a wider population. I am also curious if Johnson used free will as a metaphor, and if he didn’t, I want to understand why he finds it to be an acceptable argument. Lastly, I speculate how one could apply free will to legal cases, as the article deems it as a possibility. Therefore, while reading this article hasn’t convinced me that free will is an appropriate way to regard a killer’s actions, it has caused me to think more deeply about the “whys” of the crime. Rather than disregarding the criminal as purely demonic, I will now consider how being human, biologically and socially, contributes to the devastations plaguing our worlds.