From Democracy Journal, Issue #18, Fall 2010,
If what we do, what we read, and what we buy—who we are, in other words—can be plotted on a bell curve and reduced to “science,” we trade the rarity of action for the normalcy of behavior. And the diminished responsibility of rational actors leads to an unwillingness to judge those who are clearly responsible for what they do.
One could parse “rational actors” for a day or two and still not skim the surface of what is meant in this quote and what real “meaning” that phrase might have given that it is fraught with more ideological signification than neurological evidence. Berkowitz is also quite happy to petition Kant as if he remained incontestably au courant. Still the thought that due process should be applied without fear or favour remains a liberal ideal that I cannot help but pay allegiance to.
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