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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Schmaven]

The so often ascribed to children innocence, would see this clear as the day. It takes "nurture" (most cynical use I ever did of that word) to be able to confuse oneself over this.

I must be wrong, but I can't help but interpret that to mean that people who do evil things while feeling pleasure do not exist.

[dragdeler]

Nope it just means that is incredibly unlikely (taking psychopathy into account , else no qualifier for probability needed), that they were born this way.


Sure we're not born with the same energy levels, some kids will steamroll others and be way too hyped to even notice they did a thing... But what allways happens when things get out of hand and one kids cries unconsolably? The other offers to be hurt back, that is because intuitively we know we can't revert the past, but the least we could offer is to be hurt back, to make it even... Because through are mirrorneurons we perceive the pain and it's unbearable to us so the first thing that springs to mind is to offer to make amends... sure there is the cultural overlay: "dont tell mum" and that can never  be totally abstracted... But it's not the fear of punishment that hits us in the gut like that (else punishment would allways be a sufficient deterrent) it's the fact that we actually can not stand to see our siblings in distress. And if you push through it you're just going to developp ptsd or some other disorder.

[Strongpoint]

Some basic morals tied to empathy are wired into our brain by biological evolution and it is, was, and will be the basis for all of our morals but we went beyond that with the evolution of our culture.

Normal, kind, not-sociopathic people can be very happy seeing... let us say, seeing the stoning of an adulterer to death. Their empathy is satisfied seeing a harmful influence removed and not causing harm anymore.

[dragdeler]

Happy is quite a word...  satisfying emphaty must also be seen as a metaphoric circumscription....... But since we all seem to at least agree that there is no objective sense of justice at least I won't have to debase myself to say something like "soberly said, you probably meant sometbing like: they satiated their sense of justice"... Which in turn allows me to freely call  it out as entitlement, they felt entitled to judge and by throwing the stone they were granted satisfaction.


But yeah evil can be banal like that, it most often is.

[Schmaven]

It doesn't seem too far of a stretch then to equate psycopathy to evil.  It seems fitting.  Unless psycopathy is used as an argument for avoiding responsibility for one's actions.

[dragdeler]

It's very conducive to it... Still a psychopath could rationally decide to behave, just not on a feelings level.

[Strongpoint]

It's very conducive to it... Still a psychopath could rationally decide to behave, just not on a feelings level.

Not really, definition of psychopathy includes poor behavioral control

[McTraveller]

At the end of the day, "do to others, as you'd have them do to you" is a pretty reasonable fundamental starting point, regardless of its basis in neurobiology or the supernatural.

The flip side is, don't complain if people do to you, what you do to others.

[dragdeler]

Not really, definition of psychopathy includes poor behavioral control

Well,uninhibited behaviour is to be expected if you lack remorse. I'll admit I didn't read up on it, but allow me the question:

Wouldn't that be the definition of  a symptom according to the dsm? So the telltale signs the professionals agreed upon in order to enact their agenda which is first and foremost to run a health institute and second to provide good outcomes for the patients. It seems ungenerous when I say it like that but heed the acronym: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is a handbook of best practices, which practices are measured by statistical analysis. It serves as a guide, but also as legal cover... I sincerely doubt every diagnosed psychopath has had the priviledge to get his brain activity measured in order to confirm the diagnosis, because it is not unimaginable that you simply would be dealing with a giant asshole that can shut down his empathy as opposed to a psychopath who never had any to begin with. Next thing: why would a person with lack of remorse seek medical attention. You have to assume that those psychopaths who found themselves in a mental institution or in therapy, were admitted there because they were visibly pathological. That's another thing: you can probably manage an entire career as psychiatrist without ever actually meeting a schizophrenic person, why? Because procedure can make it such that once they get to them, these people are allready heavily drugged.

[Strongpoint]

"Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same."

Also, the Golden Rule quickly breaks apart as soon as your action impacts more than one person. By treating one person in a way you want to be treated, you will often deny such treatment to the other person.

Like "you want people taking your side in a conflict" but if you choose one side in a conflict you automatically deny the Golden Rule treatment for the other side.

[McTraveller]

I mean maybe you could rephrase the golden rule as "don't to do others, what you don't want done to you" and that would probably remove some of the "they may have different preferences than you" aspect.

Also rhetorical nonsense: How would you get in a conflict, if everyone was following the Golden Rule in the first place?

[Frumple]

It's... not like that's complicated? There's folks with by all appearances complete sincerity that say they'd want someone to beat corrective behavior into them, just as a single example among myriad. Some people have incredibly fucked up heuristics in regards to what they'd want others to do unto them.

Golden rule's definitely not a terrible starting point, mind -- for all I pretty regularly give christian scripture shit on the ethical side of things, it's mostly because its god is a fucking monster and its eschatology and metaphysics are kinda' grotesque; much of the brass tacks ethical instruction in the new testament (at least that's directly ascribed to jesus, some of the other folks in there can get pretty sketchy) is more or less okay -- but it's very, very far from sufficient on its own, and it'd cause a hell of a mess if you tried to implement it without a pretty significant amount of support.

I like "And it harm none, do what you will" more, personally, but even that requires a pretty damn robust conceptualization of harm that doesn't just spring from the aether.

Forget who said it (carlin probably said something similar at some point?), but there's some kind of paraphrase that basically boils down to "Don't be a shit, also stop trying to make this complicated" that's probably better than either of them, really.

[MaxTheFox]

Attempting to objectively define things like "harm" is like trying to cover a complicatedly-shaped object with a rigid sheet of plastic.

[McTraveller]

But that's easy. You just dip the object in molten plastic, then let it harden into a thin sheet.

"There's always a way!"™

[Schmaven]

Attempting to objectively define things like "harm" is like trying to cover a complicatedly-shaped object with a rigid sheet of plastic.

Physical harm is easy to define.  The challenge comes when mental harm is added to the definition.  I would much rather suffer any mental harm than lose a limb.  I can always change my mind and see things in different ways, but some physical injuries are permanent.  They are 2 totally distinct categories of harm.  And mental harm is almost entirely subjective, making its definition rather unique to each individual and their personal feelings.  A big jerk can go around being very mean to everyone, and while some just see the jerk as an idiot and don't give it a second thought, others can take it personally, and be deeply affected by their sharp insults.  Similar I suppose to how a strong person can be tackled by Rob Gronkowski and get right back up, but an unconditioned individual would require a stretcher to leave the field: harm does depend on the victim's response and how resilient they are.  But strictly speaking, physical harm is physical injury, especially that which is intentionally inflicted.  It is much harder to fake physical injury than it is to fake hurt feelings.