It's basically saying that you're responsible for what you yourself do. You choose to smoke cigarettes, you choose to drink beer [as evidenced in the comment below by the Duke], you choose to have sex with someone who is of your same gender. We are all accountable for our own actions, not our parents, not their parents, and so on.
From a legal standpoint, the whole "genes made me do it" argument is crap. Our genes may make us predisposed towards a certain behavior, but every legal (and moral/ethical) system is operating on the assumption that, whatever the circumstances, we have a choice at some point. I do think however that, in a certain situation, influencing factors have to be taken into account, and genes could be amongst those (though I dont think this cigarette case would be a legitimate use of that kind of argument). But even from a scientific perspective, genes only predispose us towards certain behavior, they dont remove choice. Im my father was an alcholic, I am more likely to be one myself, even if I never met my father in my life, because I am predisposed to become an alchoholic genetically. But not all people with genes that predispose them to be alchoholics are alchoholics, so clearly one has a choice in the matter. Maybe you have to make the choice to never drink anyting in the first place, maybe you have to work a lot harder to quit drinking,
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Well, I dont believe we are biological robots in the first place. I was just saying that, even if we were, it probably wouldnt be good to have people who acknowledge that fact as judges. Ultimately, who does what for whatever reason is meaningless in that context, since stuff just is in that scenario, and value judgments are rendered meaningless for the most part, but from the perspective of my values, it would be bad.
I AGREE FOR ONCE!! Well except for those genetic diseases such as Alzheimers or Down Syndrome, which completely render you clueless about what you are doing. Oh, throw in Tourette's with that, too. Smoking, drinking, and having sex are not genetic diseases nor are they proven to be a direct result of a genetic defect. There are only patterns that occur showing alcoholics often come from alcoholic parents. That's just another nature v nurture argument.
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