In the Backseat

You may have come across this Pulitzer Prize-winning article about caring parents who carelessly leave their babies to die in their hot cars. The article rekindled my anger at the moralizing masses (likely the same people who make it impossible for state legislatures and prison wardens to end the counterproductive, torturous, and widespread practice of long-term solitary confinement) and sparked the following rants, culled from a couple of emails I wrote.

Most people's reactions to these cases ("frothing vitriol" in the author's words) -- like most people and their reactions to most bad things -- are unreasonable and disgusting. People need to be taught to reason about emotional issues. Why don't schools teach subjects such as personal finance and practical psychology (which, of course, has implications for personal finance)? I've long believed that understanding one's limitations is a significant step in freeing oneself from them. For example, I've fortunately always been disinclined to make the fundamental attribution error, but learning about it (in high school) -- about how demonstrably flawed most people's judgments are -- really hammered the point home. Unfortunately my psychology teacher didn't emphasize that the experiments we studied are revealing about how we are inclined to think and act in the real world. Although this observation is obvious to us -- it's the whole idea of experimental psychology -- that doesn't mean it shouldn't be underscored in the classroom. A little preaching can be a good thing.

Also, we should have trained, vetted, professional jurors.

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Basically, it's essential to think about one's own thinking -- to metacogitate -- and to not just react like so many people do. I think the main reason why we prosecute 60% of the parents who unintentionally leave their babies to die in their cars is because people think they could never do something like that, that it's something only a monster or a reckless person could do. That's not true, and prosecuting the parents is counterproductive -- it costs society resources that could be used to prosecute real criminals; it further ruins the lives of these parents and the rest of their families (including any other kids they have to care for); and it encourages a moralistic, as opposed to a practical, justice system. People often talk about being willing to leave certain matters "in God's hands." Well, this is precisely the kind of situation where the human justice system should lay off.