Free Will Day 01 lntroduction 1, 2

Name

Tabula rasa or blank slate: Stoic epistemology emphasizes that the mind starts blank, but acquires knowledge as the outside world is impressed upon it. Aetius summarizes this view as "When a man is born, the Stoics say, he has the commanding part of his soul like a sheet of paper ready for writing upon." - http://www.uvm.edu/ What would Descartes say?

In one study by Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello, a toddler was in a room with his mother when a stranger walked in with his hands full. The stranger walked over to a closet to open the door but couldn't manage it. As this drama was unfolding, no one iooked at the toddler or encouraged him to do anything. Yet about half of all of the infants tested spontaneously got up and walked over to the closet to open the door for the person in need-an all the more remarkable feat when you realize that toddlers are very reluctant to approach adult strangers at all. - theatlantic.com 1. In-Class Readins: "Robert Harris" (10 minutes) Students will read the "Robert Harris" article bv Miles Corwin.

2. Activitv : What is Re o uired for Moral Resnonsibilifv ? THINK/PAIR/SHARF,:

THINK: (5 mins) Individual writing 1. Is Robert Harris responsible for being

a

killer?

2. Would

we hold someone who is insane or a young child to be responsible for a crime? How about someone who is forced at gunpoint to hurt another person?

3. What requirements are necessary for thinking that someone is morally responsible for an action?

Free Will Day 01 lntroduction 1, 3

PAIR: (10 mins) Discuss in pairs your answers to the questions above. Begin to formulate what conditions are necessary for thinking that someone is morally responsible for their actions. 1

. Compare

SHARE: (10 Each pair

will

mins)

Pairs report back to the class

describe their requirements for moral responsibility.

What could lead a person to kill justifiably?

What do you think about fate or predestination based on our conversations?

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Miles Corwin

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Miles Corwin was until recently a reporter with the Los Angeles Times, focusing on crime. His account of Robert Haris and his c me is de' signed to bring out the difference in our reactions before and after we learn about Harris's childhood and about the ways in which he was mistreated. (Another way of presenting the story would have been to describe his childhood first and his crime second-think how that might have affected your reactions.) Corwin draws no very exPlicit conclusion, and certainly does not claim that the facts about Harris's childhood show that he should not be blamed or punished. But a determinist Iike Blatchford (see the following selection) would be very likely to make such a claim. (Robert Harris was executed in the gas chamber at San Ouentjn State Prison in California on April 21, 1992.)

i

Robert Harris

I

case

ofRoben Harris.

On the south tier of Death Row, in a sectioo

called 'Peckerwood Flats' where the white irunates are

houseq there will be a small celebration the day Robert Altoa Harris dies. A group of iDmates on thc row have pledged several dollars for candy, cookies and soda, At the moment they estimate that Harris has been execute4 they will eaq drink and toast to his passing. "The guyt a misery a total scumbag; we're going to party wheq he goes," said Richard (Chic) Mroczko, who lived in the cell next to Harris on San Quentin Prison's Death Row for more than a year. "He doesn't care about life, he doesn't care about others, he doesn't care about himself."

"Wete not a bunch of Boy Scouts around here, and you might think we'rc prctty cold-blooded about the whoie thing. But then, you just doD't know th€ dude." San Diego County Assistatrt Dist. Atty. Richard Huffrnan, who prosecuted Harris, said, "If a person like Ilarris can't be executed under Ca.lifomia law and

Frorn The Los

Angebsfimes (Mag 6,

1982)

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federal procedure, then we should be hoDest and say we're incapable of handling capital punisbmcnt." State Deputy Atty. Gen. Michael D. Wellington asked the court during an appeal hearing for Hanis, "If this isn't the kind of defendant that justifies the death penalty, is there ever going to be one?" Wlat crime did Robert Harris commit to be considered the aJchet ?al candidate for the death penalty? And what kind of man provokes such enmity that even those on Death Row . . . call for his execution?

Ou Juty 5,

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8, John Mayeski and

Michae I

Baker had just driven through [a] fast-food restauratrt

and were sitting

io the parking lot eating tuch.

Mayeski and Baker . . . lived on the same street and were best friends, They were on their way to a nearby lake for a day offishing. At the other end ofthe parkilg 1ot, Robert Harris, 25, and his brothet Daniel, 18, were trying to hotwte a [car] when they spotted the two boys. The Harris bro&ers were planning to rob a bank that aftertroon and did not want to use their own car. When Robert Harris could not start the car, he pointed to the [car] where the 16-year-olds were eating and said to Daniel, "We'll take this one-" He pointed a . . . Luger at Mayeski, crawled into the back seat, and told him to drive east. . . .

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Daniel Harris followed in the Harrises' car. Wtren they reacbed a canyon area . . , Roben Harns lold the a robbery uour-bs be *as goiug to use their car in bank Ld assured them that they would aot be hurt. Roben Harris yelled to Datriel to get the . 22 caliber rifle out of the back seat of their car. "When I caught up," Daniel said in a recent interview, "Robert was telling them about the bank robbery llr'e were going to do. He was telliag them tbat he would leave them some money in the car and all, for us using it. Both of them said they would wait on top ofthis litde hill until we were gone, and then walk into towa and report the car stolen." Robert Harris agreed. "Michael turned and went tlrough some bushes. Joh! said 'Good luch' and turned to leave." As the nvo boys walked away, Harris slowly raised the Luger and shot Mayeski in the back, Daniel said. Mayeski yelled: "Ob, God," and slumped to tha gound. Hanis chased Baker down a hill iato a little valley and shot him four times. Mayeski was still alive wheu Hanis climbed back up the hill, Dardel said. Harris walked over to thc boy, knelt down, put the Luger to his head and fued. "God, everything started to spirl' Daaiel said. "It was like slow motion. I saw the gun, aad then his head exploded like a balloor, . . . I just started runniag and runing. . . . But I head Robert and tumed arouod. "He was swinging the ri.fle and pistol in the air and laughing. God, that laugh made blood and bone fieeze in me." Harris drove [the] car to a fiiend's house where he and Daniel were staying. Hasis walked into the house, carr5,iag the weapons and the bag lcontaining] the remainder of the slain youth's luoch. Then, about 15 minutes after he had killed the two 16-year-old boys, Haris took the food out of the bag... and began eating a hambuger He offered his brother an apple turnover, and Daniel became nauseated and ran to the batlroom. "Robert laughed at me," Daniel said. "He said I wx wea! he called me a sissy ard said I didal have the stomach for it." Haris was in an almost lighthearted mood. He smiled and told Daniel that it wou.ld be amushg if the two of tlem were to pose as police officers and inform the parents that tieir sons were killed. Then, for the frrst time, he tumed serious. He thought that somebody might have heard the shots and that police could

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be searching for the bodies. He told Daniel that they should begrn cruising the steet near the bodies, and

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possibly kill some police in the area. [Late1 as they prcpared to rob the bank,] Harris pulled out the Luger, noticed blood staiDs and remoaots of flesb on the barrel as a result of the poinr blank shot, and sai4 "1 really blew that guyk brains out." And then, again, he started laughing. . . . Harris was given the deatb pena.lty. He has refused all requests for interviews since the couviction. "He jlst doesn't see the point of talking," said a sister . . . who bas visited him three timos since he has been on Death Row. "He told me he had his chaoce, he took the road to hell ald there's nothing more to say."

...

Few of Harris' friends or family were sur-

prised that he ended up on Death Row. He had spent seven of the previous 10 years behind bars. Harris, who has an eighth-grade educatioq was convicted of car rheft ar 15 aDd was sentenced to a federal youth center After being release( he was arrested twice for torturing arimals and vr'as convicted of manslaughte! for beating a neighbor to dealh after a dispute.

Barbara Harris, another sister, talked to her brother at a family picnic on July 4, 1978. He had been out of prison less ttran six months, and his sister had

rot

seen him in several years.

.. . Barbara Harris noticed his eyes, and

she

begar to shudder. . . . "I thought, 'My God, what have they done to him?' He smiled, but his eyes were so col4 so totally flat. It was like looking at a mttlesmke or a cobra ready to strike. Tbey were hooded eyes, witl nottring but mea:raess in them. "He had the eyes of a killer I told a friend that I knew someone else would die by his hand," The next day, Robert Harris killed the t\,,o youths. Those familiar with the case wele as mystifed as ttroy were outraged by Harris'actioDs. Most found it incomprehensible tlat a man could be so devoid of compassion and conscience that he could kill two youths, laugh about thet deaths aod then casually eat

theirhamburgers.... . . . Harris is a daagerous man on the sheets ard a dalgerous man behind bars, said Mroczko, who spe more than a year h the cell next to Harris's. . . . "You doo't waot to deal with him out there," said Mroczko, . . . "We doo't rrant to deal with him in here." During his fust year on the row, Mroczko said, Harris qas involved ia sevcral fights on the yard and

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Harris was born Jan. 15, 1953, several hours after his mother was kicked ia the stomach. She was

stabbed and the other prisoner shot by a guard. He grated on people's nerves and one night he kept the whole cell block awake by bangiag his shoe on a steel water basin and laughing hysterically. Arr encounter with Harris always resulted in a conAontatioD. If an inmate had cigarettes, or something else Harris wante4 and he did not think "you could hold your mud," Mroczko said, he would try to

jealous man, . . . came home druk and accused her of hideliry He claimed that the child was trot his, tlrew her dow:r and kicked her. She began hemorrhaging, and he took her to the bospital. Robert was bom that Dight. His heartbeat stopped at olre poiot. .. but labor was iaduced and he was saved. Because of his premature birth, he was a tiny

take them-

baby; he was kept alive

Harris was a man who just did not know "when to be cool," he said. He was ao oboox.ious preseDce i! the yard and in his cell, and his behavior precipitated uDwatrted ane[tioD fiom rbe guards. . . . He acted like a man who did oot care about anything. His cell was filthy, Mroczko sai( and clothes, tash, tobacco and magazines w€re scattered on the floor. He wore the same clothes every day ard had little interest in showers. Harris spent his days watching television in his cell, occasionally reading a Westem

mon0rs in the hospital.

was caught

a prisoner

in an adjacent

yard with a lcrife. During one fight, Harris

novel. 1 Think carefully at this point about your assessment of Harris: was he mordlly responsible for the cdme descnbed an.i did he deserve to be

severely punished for it? (Reservations about the death penalty are not relevant to our present concerns,)

Ou the face of it,

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ris is an "arcbet ?al

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for blame. We

to his heartlessness and viciousness with respond

moml outage and loathing. Does it matter to our reactions how he came to be

so€ We must trow investi-

gate the relevauce of such historical considerations to the reactiye attitudes. As it happens, the case of Robert Harris is again a vivid

illustration.

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"fDuring the interview] Barbara Harris put her patms over her eyes and said softly, 'l saw every graut of sweetoess, pify and goodness in him destroyed. . . .

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It \vas a long point."'

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joumey before he reached that

Robert Harris' 29 yeaIs . . . have been dominated

by incessaDt cruelty and profound suffering that he has both experienced and Fovoked. Violence presaged his

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and ugly

life.

birth, and

a

violent act is expected to end his

6X months pregnant and her husband an insanely

in an incubator ard

sp€nt

His father was an alcoholic who was twice coqvicted of sexually molesting his daughters. He fiequently beat his chil&en . . . and often caused serious injury. Their mother also became an alcoholic aud was arested sevelal times, ooce for banJ< robbery

All of the children had monskous chil
The pain and perrnanetrt injury Robert's mother suffered as a rcsult of the birth, . . . and the constant abuse she was subjected to by her husban4 tumed her agaimt her soo. Money was tight, she was overworked ald he was her flfth child il just a few years. She began to blame all her problems otr Robert, and she glew to hate the child. "I remember one time we were in the car aud Mother was in the back seat with Robbie in her arms. He was crying and my fath{ tkew a glass bottle at him, but it hit my mother in the face, Thc glass shattered and Robbie started screaming. 1'll uever forget

it," she said. . . . "Her face was all pink, ftom the mixtrue ofblood aad milk. She ended up blaming Robbie for all the hwt, aU the things like that, She felt helpless and he was someone to vent her alger on." . . . Harris had a learnirg disability and a speech problem, but there was Do mooay for therapy. \{aben