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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Like drunks, sleepwalkers seem somewhat incapacitated, so perhaps they should be excused from crimes to a similar degree as drunks.

They're a lot more incapacitated than drunks. As Kahneman puts it, their System 1 is in complete control. They're just acting on associations and incapable of executing a plan or even acting consistently with their own Immediate aggrandizement.

But that just means sleepwalking is a bad example for the point you want to make. "Accidents" do allow motivated behavior despite the absence of conscious intention. This tolerance expresses a moralistic belief that culpability resides in acts of "free will," but the doctrine might serve the function you note. (See my Free Will and Legal Intent: Consequences of a Myth's Demise -- http://tinyurl.com/35d37l9)

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

What? Are you really serious? They're both asleep, but the woman was almost raped, for krist's sake. You're not even helping.

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