Crime, Punishment and Free Will
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Several criminological theories based on the degrees to which people act according to free will or other determining factors may help to explain Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman's actions. Essentially, criminological theories run along a continuum from social contract theory, which relies entirely on notions of free will, to determinism, which argues that people's actions are controlled entirely by genetic, environmental and other factors outside of their control. This essay examines these boys' actions and concludes that their actions reflect both social contract/rational choice theory and determinism. Consequently, the paper contemplates that different punishments would be appropriate for the boys and the success of these punishments will depend on the extent to which they, in fact, address the causative factors of the boys' criminality.One might wonder why Kenny and Kyle turned out to be criminals when their triplet Stan did not. Moreover, why did Kyle, who was raised in the same environment as Stan, commit a criminal act and Stan did not? As two of a set of triplets, Kyle and Stan share much of their genetic information. Many scientific research studies have found a correlation between shared genes and shared "antisocial behaviors." For example, the Minnesota Twin Study surveyed 542 families consisting of 17-year-old identical or fraternal twins and their biological parents (Hick, Krueger, Iacono, McGue & Patrick 1). The stu
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fman 1). People weigh the possible negative consequences of their actions against this self-interest against when they perform their pleasure/pain rationalization. Cartman burglarized Mr. Garrison's home because he enjoyed tormenting Mr. Garrison. Cartman, therefore, gained significant pleasure from the idea of the burglary and this pleasure outweighed the possible negative consequences.
Notably, both the social contract and rational choice theories assume that most human action is free, or that people have free will (Hoffman 1). Therefore, these theories do not place much, if any, weight on genetic and/or environmental factors. Thus, rational choice theory could also explain why Stan, Kenny and Kyle acted as they did. As did Cartman, Kenny and Kyle rationalized that their own pleasure, their self-interest, outweighed the possible negative (pain) consequences of burglarizing Mr. Garrison's house.
Stan, on the other hand, rationalized that the possible painful consequences of burglarizing Mr. Garrison's house outweighed any pleasure he might gain from that action. Or perhaps, for Stan, getting Cartman and the others in trouble promised more pleasure than participating in the burglary, which would explain why he called the police
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Kenny Kyle, Kyle Stan, Kyle Kenny, Bentham Keel, Stan Kyle, Kenny Kyle's, McGue Patrick, Garrison Cartman's, Kyle Cartman, Kenny Cartman's, rational choice, social contract, kenny kyle, environmental factors, choice theory, littman 1, social contract theory, rational choice theory, contract theory, antisocial behaviors, 18 february 2005, accessed 18, 18 february, accessed 18 february, krueger iacono mcgue,
Approximate Word count = 2640
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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