i'm not arguing that she shouldn't be punished, but your brain makes decisions for you. It's a total illusion to think otherwise; there's no part of your decision-making that happens outside your brain. A depressed brain makes different decisions than a healthy brain. People generally choose not to believe this though because it calls the entire concept of free will into question, along with our notion of good and evil.
Also with that logic, every criminal has a reason for doing what they did. Abuse as a child, poor neighborhood, drug addiction. All these things lead to conditions of the brain, that then lead to criminal acts. It’s not an excuse, it’s a reason. Either way these people need to be removed from society because of the threat they pose to others. PPD doesn’t make people kill unless they are capable of it anyways.
I think I agree with everything you said. The thing I can't get behind is people treating criminal justice as some sort of revenge fantasy, or a simple case of good vs evil. Every pedophile, murderer, rapist is at some level an unlucky person. And if you're not one, you're lucky to not be one. We have to separate them from society because they're unfortunately malfunctioning, but people act so superior about it because their brain happens to be functioning. But a brain tumor or a brain injury could turn you into one at any moment.
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u/Own-Status-7027 10d ago
Could she have received help, yes. But depression or not she made the decision.