Just read the fic Reformed Without Consent which got me thinking about the reform spell Twilight wanted to use in Keep Calm and Flutter On.

Let's assume that there are several different reform spells that have been used over the years (with the older ones being rather crude and possibly barbaric to use by modern standards (something like a lobotomy or brainwashing that only serves to "make the criminal stop breaking the law"). However, more modern reform spells could have safeguards in place or act more subtly to deal with unwanted behavior without causing damage to the person being reformed.

Soo... let's see what a proper refroms spell would look like.

What would such a spell be used for?

I figure that a reform spell would ideally be used as a quick way of "permanently" dealing with evil behavior (or rather behavior a given society doesn't approve of) without having to kill or unnecessarily punish the person who displays that behavior. Basically, it would be a spell you zap bad guys with that makes them stop acting so bad. Sort of like a Care Bear Stare or those spells that blast "evil energy" out of the person they are in.

To ponies, everyone has some good in them, but there are plenty of creatures that have some bad in them and this spell is used to quickly zap the bad out. Hell, such a spell might work just fine for exorcising mind-controlling spirits or spells. Its just that care must be used when dealing with a persons natural personality.

What constitutes evil behavior?

This is probably the biggest question to ask with a spell that alters behavior. One could easily make a list of things that ancient societies didn't approve of and would love nothing more than a spell that made them go away, but to make a proper reform spell would likely require a more concise list, such as:

1. Murder or violent assault
2. Theft
3. Lying, committing slander, or giving false testimony in a court of law.
4. Displaying a lack of empathy for the plight of others.
5. Self-Destructive behavior

What if the target doesn't display these problems?

Ideally, the spell wouldn't do anything to change them and might even send back an "error message" to the caster letting them know that.

What if the target is being mind controlled?

Ideally, the spell would check for mind control and either purge the thing controlling the target or let the caster know what was going on.

How would the spell cause these changes?

And here is the big question since having a spell unfeelingly rewrite someones personality would be a pretty scary thing. I think the best solution (from a narrative standpoint) would be something like what the Sorting Hat does in Methods of Rationality. It reads the subjects mind and engages them in conversation to steer them towards finding out what they really want and in this case letting them know why what they are doing is wrong.

Or Belkar's vision in Order of the Stick.

Or if the spell is cast at an unfriendly AI, it re-writes their goals to be more in line with what ponies would want.

Thoughts?

I think you're making the classical mistake of assuming a mind is a single unitary entity in perfect control of itself. In practice, what we think of as a mind is the sum total of a lot of very complex processes and mechanisms that take place within their brain.

In crude terms, a personality exists separately from the drives that motivate it. Essentially you may think with your fore brain, but you feel with your hind brain. To control someone with minimal effort, or alter them to some specification, you don't touch their mind. It does you no good. What you do is rewire their wants. Somewhat like altering motherboard BIOS settings (via a FLASH upgrade) can radically affect computer behavior even though it doesn't change the operating system.

For humans that pretty means targeting the amygdala, which essentially determines how you feel about things, including your own thoughts. In pony terms you'd target whatever their equivalent is, and stamp it with a default 'harmony' template.

For 'innocent' ponies this would have no effect. Sadists overly callous individuals would not change their behavior, but without the former joy and/or lack of guilt, they'd have no motivation to continue their former behavior, and incentive to avoid it. There would be a period of adjustment, during which they'd have the emotional stability of a teenager, and could still be quite dangerous.

It seems to me that stopping bad behavior would be a lot easier than encouraging (or forcing) good behavior. Simply blocking anger (blood chemistry control might be seen as less invasive than direct mind control, also) would eliminate most violent crime.

A secondary control scheme might work efficiently and seem more ethical to those who impose it as well: When the impulse to violence (or theft, or lying, etc.) occurs, there is a strong negative feedback: Pain, as in the case of an anti-bark collar, or nausea as in the case of the conditioning in A Clockwork Orange. No ethically dubious mind control involved... at least directly.

Neither of these approaches is perfect, of course. "Cold-blooded" killers and pathological liars would circumvent them. The only sure way of controlling an anti-social criminal is to directly prevent them from doing harm, no matter what their mental state. Such as... oh, I don't know... turning them to stone?

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A benign approach to reform spells could be stuff like "Aggresive empathy", where the receiver of the spell feels what the others feel whether he likes to or not. Another possibility could have been like a mind switch, so Discord could have known what it feels to not be all powerful.