William Saletan provides a spirited defense in SLATE of Justices O’Connor and Kennedy against Justice Scalia’s derision of them as flip-floppers in Roper v. Simmons, the recent decision barring the death penalty for anyone under 18.
Although Saletan quotes Scalia’s much more devastating criticism of the American Psychological Association’s contradictory positions, he doesn’t address it. Here’s part of what Scalia wrote:
As petitioner points out, the American Psychological Association (APA), which claims in this case that scientific evidence shows persons under 18 lack the ability to take moral responsibility for their decisions, has previously taken precisely the opposite position before this very Court. In its brief in Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S. 417 (1990), the APA found a “rich body of research” showing that juveniles are mature enough to decide whether to obtain an abortion without parental involvement. … The APA brief, citing psychology treatises and studies too numerous to list here, asserted: “[B]y middle adolescence (age 14-15) young people develop abilities similar to adults in reasoning about moral dilemmas, understanding social rules and laws, [and] reasoning about interpersonal relationships and interpersonal problems.”
The APA, in short, has argued in briefs to the Supreme Court that 1) teenagers under 18 are mature enough to decide on their own whether or not to kill a fetus, but 2) they are not mature enough to be held responsible for murder. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the APA has tailored its allegedly scholarly arguments to fit its preferred political results, a practice that is, unfortunately, common enough to give all scholarship a bad name.
The idiocy and perfidy of these scholarly groups is well established. The Supreme Court just uses them as trimmings for the ignorant to consume, after they make their predisposed decisions. We do not need Mullahs in our system of government which is what the Roper decision amounts to.
The American Psychological Society has argued both sides of the question about the maturity of juveniles depending upon the left-wing position most preferred. Both sides cannot be correct!
I’m a psychologist by training, not consulting but research (I’ve worked with chimps, etc). I can tell you that the state of (consulting) psychology (and this applies to many social sciences) is atrocious. As a general rule, they produce research that confirms whatever current liberal dogma prevails. I can show you “research” conducted in the 40s and 50s that “prove” that minorities require vocational training only, that women prefer mindless repetitive labor, that Batman and Robin comic books encourage homosexuality (they sit around in bathrobes), etc. Many people, like myself, got out because it was opressively PC.
Dom
I’ve always wanted to put psychiatry to a FRYE hearing….
“For the non lawyers, FRYE was a case that set out the requirement that for a particular discipline’s experts to testify as such, the proponent of the testimony must show that the discipline has scientific validity. Ballistics, fingerprinting, D. N. D. all had to prove themselves, but psychiatry seems to have gotten a pass.
It would seem to me to require much greater moral maturity to make a decision regarding abortion – an action that is conditionally legal and about whose morality there is active debate – than a decision regarding murder, which is illegal and has long been held grossly immoral.
Nel Nelson
You are comparing apples and oranges.
Abortion vs. Murder not Abortion vs. Capital Punishment/ Death Penalty.
Despite your opinion Murder is not equal to Capital Punishment/Death Penalty anymore than Abortion is equal to Murder.
Abortion – an action that is conditionally legal and about whose morality there is active debate.
Murder – an action that is illegal and has long been held grossly immoral.
Capital Punishment/ Death Penalty – an action that is conditionally legal and about whose morality there is active debate.
I think Nels has it right.
Teenager 1: “I want to have an abortion.”
APA: “You are capable of grasping the rights and wrongs of this decision to the extent of being able to reach a mature judgement about it.
Teenager 2: “I want to shoot that person who ticked me off.”
APA: “You are too immature to grasp the rights and wrongs of this decision, therefore you cannot be held responsible for what you did.”
John and Nels are right, it is stupid.
Sorry, Must learn to read. I thought he was comparing Abortion and Capital Punishment
I apologize.