Assignment task:
Examine the following real case and respond to the prompts in your initial post. In 2003, 18-year-old Devin Moore was arrested and brought to a police station under auto theft suspicion. While in custody, Moore acquired a police officer's gun and killed that officer by shooting him several times, including a fatal shot to the head. Moore then shot and killed a second police officer with yet another fatal shot to the head. Finally, Moore walked down the hall and shot and killed an emergency dispatcher. After committing the three murders, Moore stole a police cruiser and drove off. In less than one minute, Moore had murdered three people. His lawyer's defense was that the video game Grand Theft Auto (GTA) made him do it. It turns out that Moore had been playing GTA day and night for months, and his lawyers argued that Moore was not guilty because of a mental defect arising, in part, from playing GTA for hours upon hours. According to Moore's lawyer, Jack Thompson: "What we're saying is that Devin Moore was, in effect, trained to do what he did. He was given a murder simulator. He bought it as a minor. He played it for hundreds of hours, which is primarily a cop-killing game. It's our theory, which we think we can prove to a jury in Alabama, that, but for the video-game training, he would not have done what he did." Upon Moore's arrest, he stated, "life is a video game; everybody has to die sometime." An Alabama jury concluded that Moore was to blame for the murders, not the creators of GTA. Neuroscience tells us that a person's prefrontal cortex, which is the brain region responsible for important functions such as conscience, emotions, and reasoning to conclude, is not completely developed until a person is in their early to mid-'20s. Moore was 18 when he committed these crimes. Should Moore carry all of the responsibility for his actions, or should GTA creators share some of the responsibility? Explain which ethical theory justifies your answer and why. What role do habituated thoughts and activities play in our personal formation and willingness to undertake specific actions?