Look, if you're a person who enjoys harming others, is incredibly lazy and chooses theft or destruction over actively working in your community when you have the opportunity to do so then you're more of a scumbag in my book.
That's easy to claim online talking about abstract scenarios, but if you saw a man beat his wife in public I think you'd be more than willing to make a snap judgement about that man's moral character, and wouldn't stop to think "well maybe he's not a scumbag because..."
Things like that should only really be a factor in choosing sentencing and rehabilitation.
That's not my logic.
If you have a disease that causes an involuntary action, that removes choice.
I could extend that - the more something slides towards coercion, the less choice there is. Rather than a complete removal, a person's punishment should be evaluated in light of the circumstances in which they act.
>Things like that should only really be a factor in choosing sentencing and rehabilitation.
That's kinda what I'm talking about - a sentence of being known as a scumbag.
The difference, of course, is I'm not actually talking about what you did, I'm talking about what makes you a scumbag. I don't think people can really be unintentional scumbags - intent is required.
There are marginal cases for sure, but let's not pretend that true scumbags don't exist just because the demarcation line is subjective; that's like pretending there's no such thing as a ripe banana because the green fades gradually into yellow with no clear line between them. Look beyond the marginal cases and it becomes clear that the difference really does exist. There are people in this country with numerous DUIs and domestic violence convictions, obviously such people are scumbags.