Im interested to know when do we become responsible for our actions. — NoWill
Im interested to know when do we become responsible for our actions. Say a sleep walker goes to the kitchen turns on the gas which blows the house up killing everyone, is he responsible for that?
Jeff Welty, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, tells us, adding that the concept began to gain traction in courtrooms in the 1980s. He continues:
“Sleepwalking qualifies as automatism from a medical-legal viewpoint, as it meets both criteria: it is unconscious and involuntary. In general, a person can’t be convicted of a crime if he or she acted involuntarily; If a jury concluded that a defendant was unconscious when he or she killed another person, the jury could acquit the defendant on the basis of automatism.”
I've had a look at the recent study and Professor John-Dylan Haynes who conducted it says it does not prove free will.
"Our conscious decisions are not slaves to unconscious brain processes," Haynes said.
"In other words, we can stop the fall of the dominoes. But does this ability translate to free will? Haynes says no."
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