Is There Value in Identifying Individual Genetic Predispositions to Violence?

Agar N. , in chapter 1 of ms. on political liberalism and human genetic engineering, (London: Blackwell's Publishing, forthcoming).

Wasserman D. , “Behavioral Genetics, Human” in Murray T.J. Mehlman M. J. , eds., Encyclopedia of Ethical, Legal, and Policy Issues in Biotechnology (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2000): 117–127

Sherman S.L. DeFries J.C. Gottesman I. I. Loehlin J.C. Meyer J.M. Pelias M.Z. Rice J. Waldman I. , “Recent Developments in Human Behavioral Genetics: Past Accomplishments and Future Directions,” American Journal of Human Genetics 60 (1997): 1265–1275.

Balaban E. , “Reflections on Wye Woods: Crime, Biology, and Self-interest,” Politics and the Life Sciences 15, no.1 (1996):86–88, at 87.

Caspi A. McClay J. Moffitt T.E. Mill J. Martin J. Craig I. W. Taylor A. Poulton R. , “Role of Genotype in the Cycle of Violence in Maltreated Children,” Science 297 (August 2, 2002): 851–854.

See Wasserman, supra note 2; at 123–126.

Wasserman D. Wachbroit R. , “Introduction: Meaning, Methods, and Morals,” in Wasserman D. Wachbroit R. , eds., Genetics and Criminal Behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 1–21, at 5–6.

Taylor K. , “On the Explanatory Limits of Behavioral Genetics,” in Wasserman D. Wachbroit R. , eds., Genetics and Criminal Behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 117–139.

Gibbard A. , “Genetic Plans, Genetic Differences, and Violence: Some Chief Possibilities,” in Wasserman D. Wachbroit R. , eds., Genetics and Criminal Behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 169–197, at 191.

See, e.g., Sherman , supra note 2.

Plomin R. DeFries J.C. McClearn G. Rutter M. , Behavioral Genetics, 3rd ed. (New York, Freeman, 1997).

See, e.g., Carey G. Gottesman I , “Genetics and Antisocial Behavior: Substance vs. Sound Bytes,” in Politics and the Life Sciences 15, no. 1 (1996) 88–90.

See, e.g., Sherman , supra note 2.

Taylor, supra note 7.

Features shared by virtually everyone in the population have little or no heritability

e.g., the trait of “having two arms” will have very low heritability in a country where almost everyone does, and where most of those who don't are missing limbs because of dismemberment or infection rather than genetic disease or mutation. It is important, then, to distinguish a trait's heritability from its genetic basis, a distinction central to the general critique of behavioral genetics discussed earlier in the text.

See Sober E. , “Separating Nature and Nurture,” in Wasserman D. Wachbroit R. , eds., Genetics and Criminal Behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 47–78, at 55–56.

Sober, supra note 13, at 55, Sherman, et. al., supra note 2.

Jencks C. , “Genes and Crime,” New York Review of Books (February 12, 1987): 33–41, 34.

See, e.g., Sherman , supra note 2

Carey Gottesman , supra note 10.

Balaban E. , “Human Correlative Behavioral Genetics: An Alternative Viewpoint” in Benjamin J. Ebstein R. Belmaker R. , eds, Molecular Genetics and the Human Personality (Washington, D. C: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2002): 293–314, at 305–307.

See, e.g., Sherman supra note 2

Plomin , et, al., supra note 9.

See, eg., Sherman , supra note 2.

Brunner H.G. Nelen M. Breakfield X. O. Ropers H.H. van Oost B.A. , “Abnormal Behavior Associated with a Point Mutation in the Structural Gene for Monoamine Oxidase,” Science 262 (1993): 578–580.

Balaban E. Alper J. Kasamon Y.L. , “Mean Genes and the Biology of Human Aggression: A Critical Review of Recent Animal and Human Research,” Journal of Neurogenetics 11 (1996): 1–43, at 18.

I want to thank Dr. John Roberts for reminding me of this anomaly, in conversation at the 2003 Pitts Lectureship.

Caspi, et. al., supra note 4.

Caspi , supra note 4, at 852–853.

Brunner et. al., supra note 20.

Caspi A. McClay J. Moffitt T.E. Mill J. Martin J. Craig I. W. Taylor A. Poulton R. , “Description of Methods and Measurements Used in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study,” supplementary material for “Role of Genotype in the Cycle of Violence in Maltreated Children,” Science 297 (August 2, 2002): 851–854.

Caspi , supra note 4, at 853.

Caspi , supra note 4, at 852.

Caspi , supra note 4, at 853. A year later, Caspi and his colleagues, studying the same Dunedin cohort, reported an interestingly similar pattern of findings for the impact of life stress and variations of the serotonin transporter gene on depression. Life stress, like childhood maltreatment, had a main effect on depression, while genetic variation on the transporter gene, as on the MAOA promoter gene, did not. There was again a significant gene x environment interaction, however, with life stress, like childhood maltreatment, associated with the phenotype — depression in the 2003 study — primarily in individuals with specific genetic variants — in the 2003 study, individuals with one or two copies of the short allele the promoter gene. Again, this suggests that individuals with that allele lacked the genetic “resilience” against environmental stress or trauma conferred by the other allele(s)

Caspi A. Sugden K. Moffitt T. E. Taylor A. Craig I. W. Harrington H. McClay J. Mill J. Martin J. Braithwaite A. Poulton R. “Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene,” Science301 (2003): 386–389.

Caspi supra note 4

Caspi ,. supra note 26.

Caspi supra note 4.

See, e.g., Improving the Well-Being of Abused and Neglected children: Hearing Before the Senate Committee on Labor and Human resources, 104th Congress (1996): 9

cited in Gordon R. , “Drifting through Byzantium: The Promise and Failure of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997,” Minnesota Law Review 83 (February 1999); 637–701, at 638.

Caspi supra note 26, at 2. Maltreatment was constituted by such factors as negative or maternal affect, maternal inattention or unresponsiveness, and frequent changes in caregivers, which would far well below the legal threshold for neglect in most U.S. jurisdictions.

See, e.g., Abrams N. , “Problems in Defining Child Abuse and Neglect,” in Aiken W. LaFollette H. , eds. Whose Child? Children's Rights, Paternal Authority, and State Power (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980): 289–303, at 294–295

Guggenheim M. , “Somebody's Child: Sustaining the Family's Place in Child Welfare Policy [Book Review],” Harvard Law Review 113 (2000): 1716–1750

Besharov D. , “Child Abuse Realities: Over-Reporting and Poverty,” Virginia Journal of Social Policy and Law 8 (2000): 165–203

Brining M. , “Choosing the Lesser Evil: Comments on Besharov's ‘Child Abuse Realities’,” Virginia Journal of Social Policy and Law 8 (2000): 205–218.

See, e.g., Besharov , supra note 34, at 190–192

Roberts D. , “The Challenge of Substance Abuse for Family Preservation Policy,” Journal of Health Care Law and Policy 3 (1999): 72–87, 85–86

Lindsay D. , The Welfare of Children (1994): 28

Pelton L. H. , For Reasons of Poverty: A Critical Analysis of Child Welfare in the United States (1989).

E.g., Guggenheim , supra note 34 at 1728–1732.

Caspi , supra note 26, 4–5.

The researchers coded maltreatment as “probable” if they found only one indicator; as “severe” if they found two or more, Caspi, et. al., supra note 26, at 2–3.

Guggenheim , supra note 34, 1736–1738

Besharov , supra note 34, 199–202.

The phrase, and its context, are discussed in Wasserman and Wachbroit, supra note 6 at 5.

Caspi supra note 4, at 853.

See, e.g., Adorno T. W. Rrenkel-Brunswik E. Levinson D.J. Sanford R.N. , The Authoritarian Personality: Studies in Prejudice (New York: Harper & Row, 1950).

Caspi supra note 4, at 852–853.

See, e.g., the papers in this volume/for this symposium by Franklin Zimring and Lance Stell.

Wachbroit R. , “Genetic Determinism, Reductionism, and Essentialism,” in Murray T.J. Mehlman M. J. , eds., Encyclopedia of Ethical, Legal, and Policy Issues in Biotechnology (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2000).

See, e.g., Garcia J.L.A. , “Strong Genetic Influence and the ‘New Optimism’ in Wasserman D. Wachbroit R. , eds., Genetics and Criminal Behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 273–302, at 273–274.

See, e.g, Fischer J.M. , “Recent Work in Moral Responsibility. Ethics 110, no. 1 (1999): 93–139.

See, e.g., Morse S. J. , “Uncontrollable Urges and Irrational People,” Virginia Law Review (forthcoming).

See, e.g., Greenspan P. , “Behavior Control and Freedom of Action,” Philosophical Review 87 (1978): 22–40.

Frankfurt H. , “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971): 5–20.

Accounts of moral responsibility based on these two features, which hardly exhaust the current versions of compatibilism, correspond roughly to what John Fisher, supra note 46 at 125–128, calls, respectively, “reason-responsiveness” and “identification” accounts.

Caspi supra note 4, at 852–853.

E.g., Morse, supra note 47.

E.g., Greenspan, supra note 48.

For broader skepticism about a criminal defense based on a bad rearing environment, see Delgado R. , “‘Rotten Social Background: Should the Criminal Law Recognize a Defense of Severe Environmental Deprivation?” Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice 3 (1985): 9–90.

Caspi supra note 4, at 853.

See Schoeman F. , “Statistical Norms and Moral Attributions” in Schoeman F. , ed., Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions: New Essays in Moral Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 287–315.

Wasserman D. , “Genetic Predispositions to Violent and Antisocial Behavior: Responsibility, Character, and Identity, Optimism” in Wasserman D. Wachbroit R. , eds., Genetics and Criminal Behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 303–327, at 303–305.

Watson G. , “The Two Faces of Responsibility,” Philosophical Topics 24 (1996): 227–247.

Morse, supra note 47.

Nagel T. , “Moral Luck,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 50 (supplement) (1976): 137–152.

Caspi . supra note 4, at 853

for reviews of the research on serotonin, impulsivity, and violence, see e.g., Goldman D. , “The Search for Genetic Alleles Contributing to Self-Destructive and Aggressive Behaviors” in Stoff D. Cairns R. , eds., Aggression and Violence: Genetic, Neurological, and Biosocial Perspectives (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996): 23–40.

Greenspan P.S. , “Genes, Electrotransmitters, and Free Will,” in Wasserman D. Wachbroit R. , eds., Genetics and Criminal Behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 243–258, 249.

Greenspan , supra note 62, at 249.

Frankfurt , supra at note 49.

Fischer J.M. Rivazza M. , Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Greenspan , supra note 62, at 249.

Caspi , supra note 4 at 853.

Frankfurt , supra at note 49.