I Never Wanted to Be the “Lindsay Clancy Apologist”

Epistemic Carefulness, Moral Responsibility, and Why Both Sides Might Be Leading with Their Feelings

Well, this was certainly not on my 2026 bingo card.

Apparently, based upon my last two articles (see here and here), I have become the Lindsay Clancy apologist.

Trust me, this is the LAST thing I wanted!

When I first learned that Lindsay Clancy had killed her three young children, my initial reaction was probably similar to that of most conservatives. I was horrified. Three innocent children were dead at the hands of their mother. My instinct was simple: She murdered her children. Punish her.

Then I started studying the case.

The more I learned, the more complicated the picture became. I began thinking about Lindsay through the philosophical categories that have occupied much of my academic career: libertarian freedom, rational agency, epistemic rationality, moral responsibility, and the conditions required for a person to deserve blame (what philosophers refer to as "desert responsibility").

Eventually, I reached a conclusion I never expected to reach: If Lindsay's mental illness substantially deprived her of the rational understanding or control necessary for moral responsibility—and if her condition cannot be traced to an earlier culpable choice—then she may not have been fully morally culpable for killing her children.

Of course, whether those conditions actually obtained is precisely what must be determined from the evidence.

Recently, I was surprised to discover that Ben Shapiro has reached a similar conclusion from a very different direction.

That's interesting to me.

Shapiro graduated from Harvard Law School. His expertise leads him to approach the Clancy case through questions of law, evidence, burdens of proof, and criminal responsibility.

My expertise is different. My academic work has focused extensively on the philosophy of freedom, rationality, and rational/moral responsibility. I approached Lindsay's case by asking what conditions must obtain before an agent can properly be held morally responsible for an action.

Two different disciplines. Two different routes. Same conclusion.

And yet, many of my fellow conservatives vehemently disagree with both of us.

Meanwhile, something else rather amusing has happened. As I've publicly made my case regarding Lindsay Clancy, many very liberal women seem to be surrounding me.

Suddenly, I'm their guy!

People who typically disagree with me about theology, abortion, sexuality, politics, gender, and who knows what else seem delighted that this conservative Christian philosopher—who voted for Trump three times—is arguing on Lindsay's behalf.

I guess I'm happy to have the company. But the philosopher in me is about to ruin the party.

Because I suspect that many people on both sides are arriving at their conclusions for the wrong reasons.

And that brings us to epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge).

You Can Be Right for the Wrong Reasons

Suppose someone believes: E = mc².

That belief is true.

But now suppose I ask why he believes it, and he replies:

“I saw it scratched into the side of a bathroom stall. I liked the way it looked, so I figured it must be true.”

He has a true belief. But does he know that E = mc²?

Surely not. Not on that basis.

Traditionally, philosophers have analyzed knowledge in terms of justified true belief. At the very least, these seem to identify three necessary ingredients for knowledge: a person must believe a proposition, the proposition must be true, and the person must possess adequate justification for believing it.

But the famous Gettier problem demonstrates that even justified true belief is not always sufficient for knowledge. Sometimes something more is needed. My friend and fellow philosopher Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton has emphasized what she calls the carefulness condition: roughly, the belief must be formed in an appropriately careful manner rather than arriving at the truth through epistemic luck.

The details can become technical, but the basic idea is intuitive.

If we are going to claim knowledge—particularly concerning complicated matters—we ought to form our beliefs carefully. We should responsibly examine the available evidence, consider all the relevant defeaters, avoid allowing emotion to substitute for argument, and exercise appropriate intellectual due diligence.

This is where I think something fascinating is happening in the Clancy debate.

Some of the liberal women surrounding me may have reached the same conclusion I have.

But have they arrived there carefully?

Perhaps some have. But many others seem to begin with tremendous compassion mixed in with some "Toxic Empathy," for a mother suffering from postpartum mental illness. They identify with Lindsay. They know something about postpartum depression. Perhaps they have personally experienced terrifying changes in their own minds after childbirth. They see a woman who desperately needed help, and their hearts break for her.

I get it.

Indeed, compassion might motivate someone to investigate the case more carefully.

But compassion is not an argument. Empathy is not evidence.

If your reasoning amounts to:

Lindsay was a mother suffering from postpartum mental illness; I feel tremendous compassion for her; therefore, she wasn't morally responsible—

you haven't done enough epistemic work.

You might possess a true belief.

But like the guy who learned physics from the bathroom wall, you might have the right answer for insufficient reasons.

Before my conservative friends start cheering, however, I've got some bad news.

Many of you appear to be doing exactly the same thing in the opposite direction.

Outrage Isn't an Argument Either

Conservatives look at three dead children.

We are all horrified. We should be. What happened to Cora, Dawson, and Callan was objectively horrific. Nothing I have written about Lindsay diminishes the value of their lives or the objective evil of what happened to them.

But horror at an action does not automatically establish the degree of culpability possessed by the agent who performed it.

For the past decade, I have used the Bucky Barnes analogy from Captain America: Civil War to help illuminate this point. The Avengers were split. The audience was split. Were you Team Cap or Team Iron Man?

Tony Stark held Bucky Barnes responsible for murdering his parents. Yes, Bucky's hands killed Tony's parents. Yes, Bucky even admitted that he remembered doing it.

But as most audience members recognized—and as Tony himself eventually seemed to recognize—Bucky did not possess sufficient rational control to be held morally culpable for the murders of Howard and Maria Stark.

HYDRA had manipulated Bucky's mind against his will. Importantly, Bucky resisted. He fought against HYDRA. He attempted to preserve control over his own rational faculties.

But, sadly, he was overpowered and eventually lost the fight.

We look at that situation and intuitively recognize an important moral distinction:

Bucky's body performed the actions, but Bucky had not freely surrendered control of his rational agency. In fact, he had done the opposite. He used the freedom and control he still possessed to fight to keep his freedom and control.

That's precisely why we don't trace responsibility backward and blame Bucky for allowing himself to become the Winter Soldier.

And this is where the fictional case becomes relevant to the very real—and infinitely more tragic—case of Lindsay Clancy. The evidence I've examined gives me reason to think that something importantly analogous may have happened with Lindsay.

Obviously, Lindsay wasn't captured and brainwashed by HYDRA. But she appears to have recognized that something was happening to her mind and used the rational freedom and control she still possessed to fight against losing them.

HYDRA is an example of moral evil.

Postpartum psychosis is an example of natural evil.

The causal sources are radically different, but the morally relevant question is the same:

Did the agent freely surrender her rational agency, or did something she did not choose overwhelm the rational capacities she was actively fighting to preserve?

Bucky fought against the moral evil that was attacking his rational agency. Lindsay appears to have fought against the natural evil that was attacking hers.

Bucky lost the fight. The evidence gives me reason to believe Lindsay may have lost hers too.

She sought help. She sought treatment. She tried to preserve her rational faculties.

And if severe mental illness ultimately overwhelmed those faculties despite her efforts to preserve them, then the morally relevant structure begins to look strikingly similar:

She used her freedom to fight to keep her freedom—and lost the fight.

If you were “Team Cap” ten years ago, and the evidence supports this account of Lindsay, then intellectual consistency might require you to join a team you never imagined joining:

Team Lindsay.

Some conservatives seem to reason like this:

She killed her three children. That's unimaginably evil. Therefore, she deserves the maximum possible punishment.

There's an enormous philosophical step missing from that argument.

The objective wrongness of an action and the subjective culpability of the agent performing it are not identical questions.

So, conservatives, I want to apply the same carefulness condition to us.

Have we carefully examined the facts of Lindsay's psychiatric deterioration? Have we studied the competing expert testimony? Have we considered what severe psychosis can do to a person's perception of reality?

More fundamentally, have we thought carefully about the necessary conditions for both rational and moral responsibility?

If not, then conservatives who accuse liberals of being driven by emotion may simply be committing the mirror-image error.

One side leads with empathy.

The other leads with outrage.

Neither emotion constitutes epistemic justification. And this is exactly why I have striven to stay reasonable and formulate an actual philosophical argument.

Rational Responsibility

My case rests upon three basic philosophical pillars:

1. Rational Responsibility: Full moral culpability requires sufficient rational understanding and control.

2. Rational Impairment: Severe impairment of either capacity can diminish or eliminate direct moral culpability.

3. Tracing: Even when those capacities are impaired at the time of an action, responsibility may remain if the impairment—or its foreseeable consequences—can be traced to an earlier culpable choice made while the agent possessed sufficient rational understanding and control.

That does not mean a person must possess perfect rationality to be morally responsible. We make morally significant decisions while tired, hungry, depressed, angry, frightened, or emotionally overwhelmed all the time. The relevant question is whether we retain sufficient rational capacities.

Nor am I claiming that mental illness automatically eliminates all libertarian freedom. A person might retain the ability to freely choose otherwise regarding some things while nevertheless suffering severe impairment in the rational capacities necessary for full moral responsibility.

This distinction is extremely important.

I have found it helpful to distinguish at least three components:

Libertarian freedom: Could the agent genuinely choose otherwise?

Epistemic rationality: Did the agent sufficiently apprehend the reality in which she was making the choice?

Moral comprehension: Could the agent sufficiently appreciate the morally relevant significance of the choice?

For clarification, please consider a thought experiment:

Suppose a man suffering from severe psychosis genuinely believes that his next-door neighbor is an alien from another planet who intends to kill and eat his children.

The man formulates an elaborate plan. He purchases a weapon (he was free to choose between multiple alternative weapons). He waits until the neighbor is alone. He chooses the optimal moment. He intentionally pulls the trigger (and remembers doing so).

Notice how much rational-looking behavior is present.

He planned. He considered alternatives. He exercised means-end reasoning. He acted intentionally. Perhaps he even possessed libertarian freedom at the moment he pulled the trigger. He could have refrained.

But what did he understand himself to be choosing between?

He did not perceive the choice this way:

A: Murder my innocent neighbor.

B: Don't murder my innocent neighbor.

He perceived it this way:

A: Stop an alien from killing and eating my children.

B: Allow an alien to kill and eat my children.

Indeed, if he were right that his neighbor was actually an alien intent on killing and eating his children, then his moral reasoning might be perfectly appropriate!

But he's profoundly wrong about the real world.

His moral compass is functioning properly. His perception of reality is not.

That's the crucial distinction. He may possess libertarian freedom. He may even possess the ability to reason morally from the facts as he perceives them. What he lacks is sufficient epistemic rationality regarding the reality in which he is making his choice.

His ability to plan therefore does not establish that he adequately apprehended the morally relevant reality in which he was acting.

Instrumental rationality is not the same thing as epistemic rationality.

That distinction matters tremendously when evaluating claims that Lindsay's planning proves that she must have been rational.

But another objection immediately arises.

What about the drunk driver?

The Drunk Driver and the Tracing Principle

Suppose a man freely drinks himself into a stupor and then gets behind the wheel.

While severely intoxicated, his rational capacities are substantially diminished. He drives through an intersection and kills a family.

Someone might object:

“If impaired rational capacities diminish responsibility, doesn't your argument excuse the drunk driver too?”

Absolutely not!

And the reason is something philosophers call tracing.

Although the driver's rational capacities were diminished at the moment of the crash, we can grant something even stronger for the sake of argument: suppose that, at the moment of impact, he possessed no libertarian freedom to think or act otherwise. Suppose he had no rational control over his thoughts or physical movements whatsoever.

Even then, we can trace his moral responsibility backward to an earlier point at which he possessed sufficient rational understanding and control—and freely chose to become intoxicated and drive despite the foreseeable risk of eventually losing that control.

His lack of freedom at the moment of impact does not eliminate responsibility because his earlier exercise of freedom culpably explains why he lacked freedom at the moment of impact.

While rational, he freely chose to become intoxicated and drive despite knowing—or reasonably being expected to know—the foreseeable danger.

His responsibility at t₂ can therefore be traced to his culpable exercise of freedom at t₁.

This is precisely why I've been so interested in Lindsay's behavior before the killings.

Where is her equivalent of freely choosing to get drunk and drive?

If someone can show me that while Lindsay still possessed sufficient rational capacities she recognized that she presented a serious danger to her children, understood what reasonable measures were necessary to prevent that danger, and nevertheless freely and culpably rejected those measures, then we may have located a legitimate tracing point.

That would affect my conclusion.

Likewise, if it were objectively established that Lindsay deliberately fabricated her symptoms, constructed a psychiatric paper trail to manufacture an insanity defense, and possessed sufficient rational understanding and control when she deliberately murdered her children, my argument would not exonerate her.

Indeed, if that were established, my moral judgment of her would be extraordinarily severe.

But that is NOT the picture I currently see emerging from the evidence.

I see something strikingly different from the drunk driver.

She Used Her Freedom to Fight to Keep It

This has become perhaps the most important feature of the entire case for me.

Lindsay did not choose to begin experiencing psychiatric deterioration. Something was happening to her. It seems to be the result of what philosophers refer to as natural evil.

She recognized that something was going wrong with her mind.

And while she still possessed the rational freedom and control necessary to respond, what did she do with it?

She sought help. She sought professional treatment. She took prescribed psychiatric medications. She reported problems. She sought emergency assistance. She freely chose to be hospitalized.

Compare the two cases.

The drunk driver uses his freedom in a manner that foreseeably compromises his rational control.

Lindsay appears to have used the freedom and rational control she still possessed to fight to preserve her freedom and rational control.

That is not a minor distinction.

It may be the morally decisive one.

She didn't use her freedom to surrender her freedom. She used her freedom to fight to keep it. And she apparently lost the fight.

Losing a fight against something that overwhelms your rational agency is not morally equivalent to freely choosing to surrender that agency (as we learned with Bucky Barnes above).

Imagine someone diagnosed with cancer (natural evil).

She goes to specialists. She follows medical advice. She accepts treatments carrying serious side effects. One treatment fails, so doctors try another. Some treatments may even make her temporarily sicker.

If the cancer ultimately kills her, we don't say, “Well, she chose chemotherapy. Therefore, she chose what happened to her.”

Treatment was an attempt to defeat an evil already attacking her.

If Lindsay's psychiatric deterioration was likewise something she did not choose—and if she reasonably used her remaining rational capacities to fight against it—then merely accepting psychiatric treatment carrying risks does not establish culpability for eventually losing that fight.

This is why tracing matters.

What Would Change My Mind?

This question is important because free thinkers should always be able to identify what evidence would falsify or defeat their conclusions.

My position is not: “Lindsay had postpartum mental illness; therefore, Lindsay isn't responsible.” No, that's far too simplistic. My position is conditional.

If Lindsay possessed sufficient rational understanding and control when she killed her children, then my argument does not excuse her.

If she deliberately fabricated her psychiatric symptoms, that matters enormously.

Indeed, if the prosecution's interpretation of the evidence better explains the total facts than the defense's account, I should and would change my mind.

That's what careful reasoning requires.

But the reverse obligation applies to my critics.

If no amount of evidence concerning psychosis, delusion, impaired rationality, help-seeking, hospitalization, or attempts to preserve rational control could possibly alter your conclusion, then I'm not sure you're reasoning toward your conclusion at all.

You may simply be defending an initial intuition.

Strange Bedfellows

And that brings me back to Ben Shapiro, my conservative critics, and the liberal women who suddenly seem to be surrounding the “Lindsay Clancy apologist.”

Political tribes are strange things. Two people can agree about a conclusion for radically different reasons. Two people can disagree because each is responding to a different intuition. And sometimes people who disagree about almost everything else discover that careful reasoning brings them to the same place on one particular question.

I am not claiming that Ben Shapiro's agreement proves that I'm right. That would be a fallacious appeal to authority.

I am not claiming that his Harvard law degree magically settles the matter either.

What interests me is that two people approaching the case through substantially different intellectual disciplines—law on his side, philosophy of rational freedom and moral responsibility on mine—have independently found serious reasons to resist the simplistic conclusion that she killed them, therefore maximum culpability follows.

Meanwhile, some liberals may be arriving at a similar destination primarily through empathy. And some conservatives may be arriving at the opposite destination primarily through outrage.

That should make everyone involved a little more epistemically humble.

Empathy Does Not Establish Innocence. Outrage Does Not Establish Culpability.

Two simple statements increasingly summarize my thinking about this entire debate:

Empathy does not establish innocence. Outrage does not establish culpability.

Feelings matter. Compassion, sympathy, and proper empathy can motivate us to investigate injustice. Moral outrage can alert us to genuine evil.

But feelings are not substitutes for arguments. We need evidence. We need logic. We need epistemic carefulness. And when evaluating moral responsibility, we need an adequate philosophy of the rational agent.

Perhaps Lindsay Clancy was fully morally responsible for murdering her children. If the evidence establishes that, I will follow it there and then demand the death penalty (although that's not an option in the State of Massachusetts).

Perhaps she wasn't.

If severe mental illness due to natural evil overwhelmed the rational capacities necessary for moral responsibility despite her reasonable attempts to preserve those capacities, then justice requires us to acknowledge that—even when acknowledging it feels emotionally unbearable.

Justice does not mean imposing the harshest possible punishment whenever an act horrifies us.

Justice means giving people what they actually deserve.

And determining what someone deserves requires determining what she was morally responsible for.

So apparently I've become the “Lindsay Clancy apologist.”

Again, this was the LAST thing I wanted to add to my résumé.

That means I refuse to be a “position-first apologist” (even when it comes to Christianity)—someone who begins with the conclusion he wants to defend and then goes searching for arguments to support it.

I have committed my life to being a truth-first apologist. I want to examine the evidence carefully, follow the logic, and allow the argument to take me wherever it leads (which is exactly why I am a Christian)—even when it takes me somewhere I never wanted to go.

And believe me, becoming the “Lindsay Clancy apologist” is a pretty good example of ending up somewhere I never expected to be or never wanted to become.

And that means I don't want the liberal answer. I don't want the conservative answer. I just want the justified answer. But, that requires something increasingly rare in our political discourse: Carefulness.

So, study the evidence. Understand the relevant philosophy. Test your intuitions.

Look for defeaters. Ask yourself what evidence would change your mind. And then follow the argument wherever it leads. That's what it means to be a FreeThinker.

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Dr. Tim Stratton