Walt Whitman's The Insanity Defense

While we have a justice system that is based off laws and cases that come before, and there are also some cases that express the moral principles found in our societies for a case by case assesment. The idea that anyone who commits a crime, but is missing the ability to defer right from wrong shouldn’t be held to the same standards as someone who has a rational mind.

For example, in “The Insanity Defense” the narrator talks about if a person is convicted of a crime, the prosecutor must prove two things; that the person engaged in a guilty act and that he or she had guilty intend. “But what about situations in which the person commits the act and intends to do so, but was suffering from a mental condition that impairs their ability to appreciate

Whitman was an Eagle Scout, former Marine, studied architectural engineering at the

University of Texas. Had a regular job like the rest of us and even scored a 138 on his IQ test placing him in the 99th percentile. “Eagleman” Whitman was eventually gunned down and upon his request via suicide note, he asked that an autopsy be performed to determine if something had changed in his brain. Upon examination, the medical examiner found a tumor lodged in his brain in the amygdala. The amygdala is involved in emotion regulation, especially of fear and anger(Eagleman 965) There is also a different account of a man named Alex, who up until his 40 years of age never experienced abnormal sexual preference towards children. He was engulfed with the pleasure of child pornography, prostitution. He restrained himself as much as he could but the sexual advances he made towards his step daughter alarmed his wife. Not to long after that she discovered his secret life he was trying to keep away from his family and friends. On his was to prison he experienced severe headache and was send to the emergency room where he underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his orbitofrontal vortex. After the romval of the tumor Alex’s sexual appetite returned to