Way back in 2012 the Washington Post published a story about how teenage Mitt Romney took offense at the long hair of fellow student John Lauber. Lauber was often teased for being a nonconformist and suspected of being a homosexual. One day young Romney and some friends overpowered Lauber and cut his hair. Apparently, no disciplinary action was taken against Romney. As time begins to run out of me, I have taken to reflecting on my own past, with a focus of sins that I might need to atone for. A key question is, of course, whether the man of today is accountable for the sins of the boy of yesterday. I’ll use Mitt as the focus of the discussion, in part because I am nostalgic for a time when even youthful misdeeds by Republicans seemed they might matter.
Intuitively, under normal circumstances a person is morally accountable for his actions. There are, of course, clear and obvious exceptions to this. In the case of teenage Romney, he seems morally accountable. He does not seem to have been coerced or compelled.
However, it is fair and reasonable to counter this view with the obvious: this took place when Romney was a teenager. Research on the teenage brain has confirmed what has long been believed: teenagers often have poor impulse control and assess actions differently than adults. Stereotypically, young males are supposed to be even more prone to bad behavior. Thinking back on my own teens, the research matches my own experiences. I can recall numerous instances in which either I or other people did rather stupid things. In some cases, I was the perpetrator. For example, when I started playing D&D we thought it would be a great idea to engage in live combat with homemade medieval weapons. During one fight, I whacked my friend Mike in the back of head with a wooden flail and drew blood. Lots of blood. Sometimes I was the victim, like the time I had my shorts ripped off on a track team run and was forced to run back to school wearing just a jock and my shoes. For male readers who are beyond their teens, I suspect that the same is true.
While it is tempting to excuse our sins because our brains were immature, this does not seem to be enough of a basis to completely excuse bad behavior. After all, having a teenage brain does not preclude a person from making sound moral judgments. It does, however, mean that teenagers are not as good at it as adults and hence should be held less accountable than adults.
John Stewart Mill noted the difference between children and adults in his writing on liberty in terms of decision-making ability. On his view, this reduced the degree of liberty they should be allowed. From a moral (and legal) standpoint it is important to consider the extent to which an immature brain affects judgment and impulse control. After all, it is to this degree that children should be morally (and legally) excused in their actions. This difference is, of course, already recognized in some laws: in general, children are not tried as adults and in the United States and there are juvenile courts just for kids. But, as one would expect, the United States incarcerates youth at a rate much higher than the rest of the world.
We do not know how much impact the immaturity of the brain has on judgments and behavior. However, it is sufficient for my purposes to say that teenage Romney’s immature brain probably had some impact on his decision to attack Lauber, just as it did in my decision to whack my friend with a flail. Whacking a friend with a flail is not something I would do today, outside of a video game.
However, it seems reasonable to claim that teenage Romney should not be held as accountable as an adult would be in similar circumstances. Likewise for the teenage flail wielding LaBossiere. I will admit that I am unsure of the degree to which accountability should be reduced, but it does seem quite sensible to hold children less accountable than adults, and this should clearly extend to all of us.
In addition to the question of how accountable a person is for the action at the time of the action; there is also the question of what the sins of the past reveal about the person of the present. In the case of Mitt Romney, the clear concern was what this incident from his teenage years told the people of the United States about his fitness to be president. While Romney’s case was somewhat extreme, similar questions can be asked of all of us. For example, what does the flail incident reveal about my fitness to be a professor of philosophy? If I ran for office, should that incident be brought up by the press? What about the time I…wait, my imaginary lawyer has advised me to not speak of great egg madness of 1984.
When assessing past incidents as indicators of current character, an important point of concern is the seriousness of the action. For example, the fact that I got into a couple minor scuffles in school does not show that I am a person of bad character now. As another example, if someone committed an unprovoked brutal murder as a teenager, then this would indicate that they could be an evil person today.
In Romney’s case, the incident was somewhat serious. After all, he was involved in what seems to have been assault and battery. Likewise for the time I whacked my friend with the flail (or the time my shorts were stolen). As such, Romney’s incident and my own seem worth considering when assessing current character. While it is a tautology, it does make sense to say that we are what we did. That is, the person I am now is the result of what I did in the past. Because of this, my past actions (and anyone else’s) would be relevant to assessing who I am now.
But, of course, a person is more than just a sum of past actions. These actions impact the person and what a person does can change them so that they would no longer do what they once did. People can change for better (or worse). As such, it would not do to simply look at a specific incident and take it to define the person of today. Rather, it must be taken in context of the person’s life. How a person responds to the past action is also relevant to determining the person’s current character.
In my own case, and in the case of my friends, we generally managed to become decent adults. While I whacked my friend with a flail, I grew up to be a calm professor of philosophy. My friends turned out well, too. Naturally, I remember the flail incident (and others) very well and I feel bad about what I did. This is one reason why I became the calm philosophy professor I am today who would not hit someone with a flail. As such, the flail incident does not show that I am currently a person of bad character.
In the case of Romney, there has been no evidence that he is prone to attacking people and cutting their hair. What was somewhat worrisome is that he initially denied remembering the incident.
On the one hand, a case could be made that Romney honestly did not remember. After all, people forget things. No doubt there are some rotten things that I did as a kid that I have forgotten that other people (such as my parents or sister) remember. Perhaps Romney honestly did not remember. Naturally, some folks might see this as a sign of bad character in that the attack did not make enough of an impression to remain in his mind. After all, I vividly remember hitting my friend with the flail. But I suspect that other people remember some bad things I did as a kid that I have forgotten.
On the other hand, politicians often claim they do not remember an incident in which they (allegedly) did wrong. This always strikes me as an odd tactic, especially when there is evidence and it is something they should remember (barring mental deterioration). A claim to not remember a misdeed certainly says something about a person’s current character. Admitting the misdeed, showing remorse and an improvement in character is, I would contend, says something far better about a person. Unless, of course, it is just a clever move to look good. But I am, in fact, sorry about whacking Mike with the flail.
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