By “not fully responsible” I was trying to sidestep a free will debate. My point was that “bad” people might just have “bad” brains; perhaps they were exposed to too much serotonin while in the womb or inherited a bad set of genes, and that plus some trauma early in life might have damaged them in such a way that they were willing to commit unspeakable acts that “normal” people would not. I think it’s not unlikely that whatever makes a serial killer a serial killer will eventually be identified, screened for and cured. But what to do with existing serial killers is different problem.
By “not fully responsible” I was trying to sidestep a free will debate. My point was that “bad” people might just have “bad” brains; perhaps they were exposed to too much serotonin while in the womb or inherited a bad set of genes, and that plus some trauma early in life might have damaged them in such a way that they were willing to commit unspeakable acts that “normal” people would not. I think it’s not unlikely that whatever makes a serial killer a serial killer will eventually be identified, screened for and cured. But what to do with existing serial killers is different problem.