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Every adult, no matter how unfortunate a childhood he had or how habit ridden he may be, is free to make choices about his life.  To say of Hitler, to say of the criminal, that he did not choose to be bad but was a victim of his upbringing is to make all morality, all discussion of right and wrong, impossible.  It leaves unanswered the question of why people in similar circumstances did not all become Hitlers.  But worse, to say “It is not his fault; he was not free to choose” is to rob a person of his humanity, and reduce him to the level of an animal who is bound by instinct. - Harold S. Kushner

Reader’s Digest, May, 1996, page 153, 154