I just had a quick idea, and I want to write it down before I forget. I was thinking about the Primacy of Conscience doctrine that I’m sure I’ve talked a lot about before, and I think you may be able to explain (in a post-hoc fashion) our justice system based on it. First, four assumptions/assertions:
- There are objectively right and wrong acts in any given circumstance, even if we don’t know which is which.
- We cannot be faulted for doing the best we can. In other words, if we did not know any better, we can’t be blamed. (That’s where the primacy of conscience part is.)
- We cannot trust people to accurately report whether they were doing the best they could.
- Assume that adults know better unless proven otherwise. (Not the same thing as the previous rule: knowing and doing are different things.)
From there we get: how do we treat children? Depends on when we believe they might reasonably be expected to know better about basic things. How do we treat the insane? Not guilty by reason of insanity makes sense, but has to be proven. Innocent-until-proven guilty stems from the same assertion as the “innocent by reason of insanity” defense.
