“Do Pedophiles Deserve Sympathy?” Psychologist James Cantor of the University of Toronto reviewed the neurobiology of pedophilia. The wrong mix of genes, endocrine abnormalities in fetal life, and childhood head injury all increase the likelihood. Does this raise the possibility that a neurobiological die is cast, that some people are destined to be this way? Precisely. Cantor concludes correctly, “One cannot choose to not be a pedophile.” But then he does an Olympian leap across the Grand Canyon–size false dichotomy of compatibilism. Does any of that biology lessen the condemnation and
...more

