Submitted by Charles Knighton
I have noticed of late the extra effort being made by the staff of Dodds to sensitize the public to the necessity, and perhaps the moral obligation, of providing a second chance to offenders who have completed their terms of incarceration. It makes little sense to provide programs of rehabilitation intended to reintegrate released prisoners back into society if opportunities necessary for such reintegration are withheld. If one listens closely however, it becomes readily apparent that much of the public regards those who have served time in prison not as individuals who displayed lapses in judgment but instead as individuals with flawed characters, a judgment much more difficult to overcome. A recent contributor to a radio call-in program described inmates at Dodds as “prisoners of their own character, destined for Dodds.” As I continued my journey home, I was led to ponder whether character is destiny, as well as whether the caller realized just how richly ambiguous her statement was.
First of all, is the suggestion that character is fixed, or that the course of future events is fixed by character? These are two different things: we might possess set characters yet be free to choose between different, open futures; or we may be free to shape our own characters, but in doing so determine our course through life.
This may sound a little abstract but it points to an important practical truth. Real life is not a clockwork mechanism but a fluid, complex, dynamic system. We are parts of this system so it doesn’t help to think of ourselves as absolute slaves or masters of it. Nothing is completely fixed or free because everything is affected by what surrounds it. We should simply change what we can, knowing that we can’t control everything.
A second ambiguity in her statement concerns “character”, often taken to be synonymous with “personality”. But whereas we tend to think of personality non-judgmentally, as a set of reasonably settled traits, character often has a moral dimension. We talk of someone being of good or bad, upright or depraved character.
If we think of this as being the product of a kind of destiny, we risk stripping away all sense of responsibility. If the good and the bad are just made that way, what’s the point of praise or blame? However, even if you believe personality is relatively fixed, there is no reason to think moral character must also be so. An impulsive person may be more vulnerable to crimes of passion, for example, but that does not mean he has no control over his actions.
If, on the other hand, we think of character as shaping destiny, and character is something we can in turn shape for ourselves, then we can see how by cultivating good character we have a real effect on the quality of our future choices and relationships. In that sense, character may be a kind of destiny, even though it is not predestined.
The inmates and rehabilitation personnel at Dodds have worked to build individual character, which to me means taking responsibility for their own lives. They should be allowed every opportunity to do so.
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