Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
Your opinion is less valid because it's baseless. From everything we know right now, there is absolutely no evidence that he should be found NCR. Maybe that will ultimately come to light later, but it seems extremely premature to say he should be considered anything less than 100% morally culpable for his actions. "But it's been reported he has Asperger's", you might say. So what? Unlike paranoid schizophrenia, for example, Asperger's doesn't make you a psychotic killer unable to distinguish right from wrong.
On the other hand, there actually is evidence -- confirmed to have been written by Minassian himself -- that he was an incel misogynist who drew inspiration for his attack from Elliot Rodger's previous murder spree. In every one of my posts in this thread where I've speculated about his motive, I've always cautioned to wait for the final word from the proper authorities, but no information has been released to date that contradicts this.
|
Firstly, I didn't state that he should be found not criminally responsible. After a guilty verdict, moral culpability plays a role in sentencing. There are degrees to which guilty people are held morally culpable. Even then, I wasn't even talking about moral culpability from the perspective of the court system. I was referring to it in the context of blaming this incident on the alt right, and stating that Mannasian has an allegiance to the movement.
Statements he made about Elliot Rodger aren't relevant, as they still don't speak to what degree Mannasian knows the different between right and wrong (which also exists on a spectrum). That's like saying he knew what he was doing, because he turned the ignition on the van. It's all one long chain of events, and we don't know anything yet about Mannasian's mental capacity.
My argument isn't baseless its based on the callousness of his behaviour, and the description of his upbringing from his peers.
If he has full mental capacity, I'd still feel some degree of sympathy for him, as the description of his upbringing sounded very difficult, and even moreso for someone who was fully with it but couldn't form a single friendship. Either way, it's definitely a situation where society played a large role in the events that led to Mannasian's actions. Hence, the lowered moral culpability (once again, different than ncr).