Lindsay Clancy and the Logic of Moral Responsibility

A Deductive Argument, the Prosecution’s Best Response, and Why I’m Still Not Convinced

Since publishing my article on the Lindsay Clancy case, I have received a tremendous amount of feedback. Some people strongly agree with me. Others think I have lost my mind.

Some objections have amounted to little more than:

“She killed her children. End of story.”

But others have been thoughtful and philosophically serious. Several friends have pressed me on questions concerning psychosis, rational agency, foreseeability, planning, and what philosophers call tracing responsibility.

Those objections have forced me to sharpen my thinking. I love it because that is exactly how reasoning together (Isaiah 1:18) is supposed to work.

Indeed, I have repeatedly said throughout this discussion that I am willing to change my mind. That's how I arrived at my present position in the first place. My initial emotional response to Lindsay Clancy was extraordinarily harsh. As I encountered more evidence, however, I became convinced that my initial judgment had been premature.

Now I want to take the next step.

Rather than trading intuitions about whether Lindsay was “crazy,” “evil,” “psychotic,” or “a monster,” let's formulate the underlying philosophical argument as clearly as possible.

If my reasoning is bad, identify the bad premise. If the argument is valid but does not apply to Lindsay Clancy, show me where the relevant factual premise fails. That's how rational disagreement should proceed.

The Argument from Rational Responsibility

Here is my argument in its simplest form:

P1. If a person is fully morally culpable for an action, then she possessed sufficient rational understanding and control regarding that action.

P2. If severe mental illness substantially deprived a person of sufficient rational understanding or control, then she was not fully morally culpable for actions attributable to that impairment—unless responsibility traces to an earlier culpable choice or omission.

P3. If the person did not culpably cause the impairment or permit its foreseeable consequences, but reasonably attempted to prevent those consequences, then responsibility does not trace to an earlier culpable choice or omission.

C. Therefore, if severe mental illness substantially deprived a person of sufficient rational understanding or control, and she neither culpably caused the impairment nor permitted its foreseeable consequences but reasonably attempted to prevent those consequences, she is not fully morally culpable for actions attributable to that impairment.

Notice what this argument does not say.

It does not say that mentally ill people are never responsible for any of their actions. It does not say that psychosis automatically eliminates all aspects of libertarian freedom. It does not say that anyone who hears voices gets a moral “get out of jail free” card. And it certainly does not establish, merely by stating the argument, that Lindsay Clancy satisfies its conditions.

The argument establishes a principle of moral responsibility.

Whether that principle applies to Lindsay is an evidential question.

What Do I Mean by “Rational Understanding and Control”?

Some interlocutors have rightly asked me to define my terms.

By full moral culpability, I mean the degree of moral blame appropriate to an agent who knowingly and freely commits the wrong in question without a responsibility-relevant impairment or excuse.

By rational understanding, I mean possessing a sufficient grasp of what one is doing and of the morally relevant reality in which one is acting.

By rational control, I mean that one's conduct is sufficiently governed by one's own reasons-responsive agency rather than by an involuntary process or sufficiently severe pathological impairment.

Neither requires perfect rationality. All of us possess incomplete information. All of us experience powerful emotions, temptations, irrational impulses, and distorted thinking from time to time. Those facts do not eliminate moral responsibility.

The question is whether an impairment becomes sufficiently severe that an agent no longer possesses the rational capacities necessary for full moral responsibility regarding that particular action.

This also means that libertarian freedom and full moral responsibility should not simply be identified with one another.

Suppose a severely psychotic man genuinely believes an innocent neighbor is an alien impostor who will eat his children unless he stops him. Perhaps the man still possesses some categorical alternative possibilities. Perhaps, in the narrow libertarian sense, he could refrain from pulling the trigger.

But that does not settle his degree of moral culpability. We still need to ask a very important question:

What did he believe he was doing?

His choice might be libertarianly free while his ability to rationally comprehend the morally relevant reality in which he is choosing is profoundly impaired. That is, he might possess freedom of choice while lacking sufficient rational access to reality.

That's an important distinction.

Enter Kevin Reddington

Now let's imagine Lindsay Clancy's defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, employing this philosophical framework (I wish more attorneys would argue like this).

He could argue something like this: Lindsay knew something was going terribly wrong with her mind.

She did not simply ignore it.

She sought psychiatric help. She disclosed disturbing thoughts. She underwent treatment. She took prescribed psychiatric medications. She sought hospitalization. Her family knew she was deteriorating. She repeatedly placed herself in the hands of medical professionals and also asked her family for help.

Then, according to the defense, her illness eventually progressed into severe psychosis.

If the defense's psychiatric account is correct, Lindsay's perception of reality and/or rational control had become sufficiently compromised by the time she killed her children that she lacked the capacities necessary for full responsibility.

If so, P2 becomes extremely important.

But that still leaves P3.

Perhaps Lindsay was severely impaired on the night of the murders—but was she responsible for allowing herself to reach that condition?

This is where the issue becomes philosophically fascinating.

The Prosecution Strikes Back

The prosecution need not reject my philosophical argument. In fact, suppose the prosecution says:

“Fine. We'll grant P1, P2, and P3 for the sake of argument.”

They can then attack whether the conditions actually apply to Lindsay.

First, they can point to the evidence of planning.

Lindsay sent her husband away. She selected an errand that would give her time alone with the children. She communicated coherently. She apparently calculated how long he would be gone. She killed the children sequentially.

These do not look like the actions of someone incapable of thought or purposeful behavior.

The prosecution could therefore argue:

Lindsay Clancy may have been mentally ill, but mental illness is not equivalent to lack of responsibility. Her planning and goal-directed behavior demonstrate that she retained sufficient rational capacities to be responsible for what she did.

That's a serious argument.

And there's another one.

Perhaps Her Responsibility Began Earlier

Several critics have pressed me here, and I think they are right to do so.

Suppose Lindsay eventually became so psychotic that her rational capacities were severely impaired. That alone doesn't necessarily absolve her.

Perhaps responsibility traces backward.

Imagine a man who freely drinks himself into a stupor and then kills someone while driving home. At the moment of impact, perhaps his rational capacities are profoundly impaired.

But we don't simply say:

“Well, he wasn't thinking rationally when he hit the pedestrian, so he's not responsible.”

Why?

Because he freely made earlier choices that foreseeably produced his impairment. As I like to say, he “used his freedom to surrender his freedom.”

The prosecution could apply something similar to Lindsay.

Perhaps she knew that she was becoming dangerous while she was still sufficiently rational. Perhaps she recognized the warning signs. Perhaps she understood that her children were in danger.

If she possessed that knowledge and nevertheless culpably failed to separate herself from her children, demand hospitalization, or take other reasonable measures proportionate to the danger she understood, then responsibility might trace backward to those earlier choices.

I think that's probably the strongest philosophical objection to my current position.

Reddington Responds: Planning Is Not Enough

But the defense has responses to both arguments.

Start with planning.

Planning demonstrates an ability to plan. It does not necessarily demonstrate an undistorted grasp of reality.

Return to our psychotic man. He believes his neighbor is an alien invader who intends to eat his children.

So he develops an elaborate plan. He waits until the neighbor is alone. He obtains a weapon. He disables the security camera (since the other aliens on the mother ship are surely monitoring everything). He kills the neighbor. He hides the weapon.

This man has demonstrated considerable instrumental rationality. He can reason: If I want X, I need to accomplish Y.

But the entire means-end calculation proceeds from a profoundly distorted conception of reality. Thus:

Planning ≠ accurate perception of reality.

Planning ≠ full moral comprehension.

Planning ≠ full moral culpability.

Planning is evidence relevant to those questions. It is not, by itself, the answer to them.

So Reddington can ask the jury to look deeper. Not merely: Could Lindsay formulate a plan? But: What did Lindsay believe she was doing? What reality did she believe herself to inhabit? Did she adequately comprehend the morally relevant significance of what she was doing? Did she possess sufficient rational control over her conduct?

Those are much harder questions.

What About Tracing Responsibility?

Now we arrive at what I think is the prosecution's strongest response.

If Lindsay knew she was becoming dangerous, why didn't she do more? Why didn't she separate herself from the children? Why didn't she insist upon continued hospitalization? Why didn't she refuse to be alone with them?

These are legitimate questions.

But Reddington has an important response:

She did seek help.

Indeed, this is what originally caused me to reconsider my initial harsh reaction to the case.

Lindsay recognized that something was wrong. She sought psychiatric care. She disclosed disturbing thoughts. She accepted treatment. She chose to be hospitalized. She relied upon medical professionals who were specifically trained to assess and treat people experiencing psychiatric crises.

This raises a crucial distinction: Knowing that something is seriously wrong with your mind is not identical to knowing that you are likely to murder your children.

People can experience horrifying intrusive thoughts precisely because they do not want to act upon them. Consequently, the relevant question isn't merely whether Lindsay knew she was mentally ill. The question is the following:

While Lindsay still possessed sufficient rational capacities, did she know—or should she reasonably have known—that she posed such a serious danger to her children that the professional intervention she was receiving was insufficient?

If the answer is yes, then the prosecution's tracing argument becomes much stronger.

If the answer is no—and if Lindsay disclosed what she was experiencing, sought appropriate professional intervention, sought and accepted hospitalization and treatment, and reasonably relied upon professionals who concluded that she could return home—then tracing responsibility backward becomes much more difficult.

We must be particularly careful about hindsight bias. We know what happened on January 24.

Lindsay didn't.

The question isn't: Knowing that Lindsay would eventually kill her children, what should she have done?

That's easy. She should never have been alone with them.

The relevant question is this: Given what Lindsay knew or reasonably should have known at the time, did she take measures proportionate to the danger she reasonably understood?

That is much harder.

This Is Why the Case Is Difficult

I don't think either of these common simplistic arguments works:

She planned the murders; therefore she was fully responsible.

Nor:

She was psychotic; therefore she wasn't responsible.

Both skip the central philosophical questions.

The prosecution needs to establish that Lindsay retained sufficient rational understanding and control—or that responsibility can be traced backward to an earlier culpable choice or omission. The defense needs to raise reasonable doubt about whether severe mental illness deprived Lindsay of the capacities required for criminal responsibility and whether her earlier conduct was culpable.

That is where the real debate lies.

And please notice something else: my conclusion remains conditional.

If evidence establishes that Lindsay understood the danger she posed while still sufficiently rational and nevertheless knowingly refused reasonable measures that could have protected her children, I will revise my assessment accordingly. Indeed, if that were the case, I'd say she would morally deserve the death penalty, irrespective of the fact that Massachusetts does not impose it. Likewise, if the evidence establishes that she wasn't psychotic and retained sufficient rational understanding and control when she killed them, my argument will not exonerate her.

But if the defense's account is substantially correct, something very different happened.

The drunk driver I discussed above recognizes the danger of impairment and nevertheless freely takes the actions that produce it.

He uses his freedom to destroy his freedom.

Lindsay Clancy apparently recognized that her mind was deteriorating and sought help. She went to family. She went to medical professionals. She accepted psychiatric treatment. She willingly admitted herself into a hospital.

And if, despite those efforts, severe mental illness eventually overwhelmed the rational capacities she had been struggling to preserve, then the moral trajectory runs in precisely the opposite direction.

She didn't use her freedom to surrender her freedom. No, she actually did the right thing…

She used her freedom to fight to keep it.

Lindsay eventually lost the fight. But losing a fight against something that overwhelms your rational agency is not the same thing as freely choosing to surrender to it.

Stay reasonable (James 3:17),

Dr. Tim Stratton