Yeah, some people are genuinely natural born killers. I was watching a documentary by Morgan Freeman (yes, god himself) on religion and the problem of evil. He interviewed a murderer who is sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. And the killer knows he did wrong but just doesn’t feel bad about it at all. CT scan of his brain showed that part of the brain linked to empathy is not active on him. So yes, unfortunately some people are just evil.
i think religious indoctrination plays a part too,I find it quite revealing when someone asks an atheist: “well if hell doesnt exist why dont you just go around killing and raping whoever you want?”
Not having empathy isn’t enough to be evil. Just like having empathy isn’t enough to be good. You need ideology.
For example, the guy who lacks empathy could use basic libertarian or anarchist ideology for why we shouldn’t hurt people using logic instead of empathy.
Another example would be if you use fascist ideology you can turn empathy into a weapon for evil. The us vs them ideology requires empathy. The idea is that they are going to hurt the people you love just by existing is what dehumanizes them enough for a normal person to attack them.
If we have a utility function, we are capable of assigning any arbitrary physically possible sequence of local world states to a unique real number. We can then designate a discriminant (if the utility function is capable of producing negative outputs, this would typically be 0). We can designate inputs that give outputs higher than the discriminant as “good” and lower as “evil”.
This example has flaws, but demonstrates that the terms good and evil can be well-defined in a useful way that reasonably conforms to platonic ideals of the terms.
No; compassion and naive morality is usually sufficient. A well-developed ethical system is good, and typically out-performs the former, but avoiding being outright evil without outside influence is easy.
I might have a broader definition of ideology than you because morality and ethical systems are ideology. Look how many different moral and ethical systems we have. Just choosing between what exists requires ideology first.
“Naive” in the context of philosophy means a position or notation that is not deeply thought about or is otherwise not developed. I am comparing well-developed ethics (ideology) with compassion (bare emotional functions that people possess without intervention). Any definition of “ideology” that includes basic cognitive functions is not one that I regard as useful.
Ideology is one of those words that has become almost useless due to how many different (and contradictory) definitions people have for it. If you have to define a word for someone (and they already knew that word beforehand) then the word isn’t conveying enough meaning!
Exactly, I have a loved one who struggles with empathy, but she believes in justice and she has logic and so she winds up with extremely pro social beliefs and behavior. She just can be a bit rough around the edges sometimes when she thinks you’re not making sense
Beware the (only) highly empathetic too, while you’re at it.
Get the right (wrong) combination and you have:
Someone who can understand and read the changes they are engendering in others, adjust manipulation in real time, feel terrible about it, but be able to justify it to themselves as improving the lot of others if they genuinely lack the intelligence to comprehend the whole “you can lead a horse to water but not make it drink” adage.
Self-awareness is tragically never a guarantee; much less using it to take responsibility for shortcomings.
There’s something in rhetoric that we call the principal of charity. When arguing with someone, we try to figure out what was meant based on what was said, and arguing against our best guess at what someone’s best argument is instead of assuming that everyone always means what they say and never makes a mistake in communication.
It is possible that the person you replied to does not understand the difference between Cat, Pet, and fMRI. This is in fact a very easy mistake to make for anyone who doesn’t work in medicine. So reconsider their comment with that in mind. If we substitute CT scan for fMRI, does that change your response?
I think our brain is more complex than just if a particular area lights up in a scan but to call it all bullshit at the same level of phrenology is just ignoring the hard work of really smart people.
I agree. Unfortunately, I keep seeing people trying to argue that people are never born in a particular way, which is just such an ableist way of viewing the world. Like, how can anyone argue that someone’s psychology isn’t genetically influenced? Do they think everyone with congenital cognitive disabilities is just pretending?
You can, infact, use certain facts about someone’s genome to inform predictions about their behavior. If you mean to say that you can’t perfectly predict someone’s behavior, then of course you can’t; I don’t recall ever meeting someone who argued otherwise.
Empathy isn’t a behavior, it’s a basic cognitive function.
I have yet to see evidence of
Have you taken any psychology or neurology classes? I have. It’s not my field of specialty, but I got As in each where applicable. If you’re going to hold such a strong opinion on this, you should at least put in the effort to do some basic research, or better yet, get some education on the subject.
These people are called “sociopaths”. Most sociopaths aren’t killers, though. They will often go into a field where their lack of empathy is rewarded, such as business management.
Yeah, some people are genuinely natural born killers. I was watching a documentary by Morgan Freeman (yes, god himself) on religion and the problem of evil. He interviewed a murderer who is sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. And the killer knows he did wrong but just doesn’t feel bad about it at all. CT scan of his brain showed that part of the brain linked to empathy is not active on him. So yes, unfortunately some people are just evil.
Was it Why Does Evil Exist??
i think religious indoctrination plays a part too,I find it quite revealing when someone asks an atheist: “well if hell doesnt exist why dont you just go around killing and raping whoever you want?”
Like bruh, because I am not a monster.
Not having empathy isn’t enough to be evil. Just like having empathy isn’t enough to be good. You need ideology.
For example, the guy who lacks empathy could use basic libertarian or anarchist ideology for why we shouldn’t hurt people using logic instead of empathy.
Another example would be if you use fascist ideology you can turn empathy into a weapon for evil. The us vs them ideology requires empathy. The idea is that they are going to hurt the people you love just by existing is what dehumanizes them enough for a normal person to attack them.
Removed by mod
If we have a utility function, we are capable of assigning any arbitrary physically possible sequence of local world states to a unique real number. We can then designate a discriminant (if the utility function is capable of producing negative outputs, this would typically be 0). We can designate inputs that give outputs higher than the discriminant as “good” and lower as “evil”.
This example has flaws, but demonstrates that the terms good and evil can be well-defined in a useful way that reasonably conforms to platonic ideals of the terms.
It’s too early for math
The best part of waking up is immediately using math to dismiss a naive philosophical statement.
Removed by mod
Good and evil is ideology. Matter has no ideology, no good, no evil.
No; compassion and naive morality is usually sufficient. A well-developed ethical system is good, and typically out-performs the former, but avoiding being outright evil without outside influence is easy.
I might have a broader definition of ideology than you because morality and ethical systems are ideology. Look how many different moral and ethical systems we have. Just choosing between what exists requires ideology first.
“Naive” in the context of philosophy means a position or notation that is not deeply thought about or is otherwise not developed. I am comparing well-developed ethics (ideology) with compassion (bare emotional functions that people possess without intervention). Any definition of “ideology” that includes basic cognitive functions is not one that I regard as useful.
Ideology is one of those words that has become almost useless due to how many different (and contradictory) definitions people have for it. If you have to define a word for someone (and they already knew that word beforehand) then the word isn’t conveying enough meaning!
Exactly, I have a loved one who struggles with empathy, but she believes in justice and she has logic and so she winds up with extremely pro social beliefs and behavior. She just can be a bit rough around the edges sometimes when she thinks you’re not making sense
Does us vs them really require empathy? I always saw it as a lack of empathy - the empathy in tribalism seems to end at the tribe
Excellent point.
Beware the (only) highly empathetic too, while you’re at it.
Get the right (wrong) combination and you have:
Someone who can understand and read the changes they are engendering in others, adjust manipulation in real time, feel terrible about it, but be able to justify it to themselves as improving the lot of others if they genuinely lack the intelligence to comprehend the whole “you can lead a horse to water but not make it drink” adage.
Self-awareness is tragically never a guarantee; much less using it to take responsibility for shortcomings.
Pseudoscience bullshit. Might as well talk phrenology or body language science.
Found the evil one.
Why do you believe that?
Cat scans aren’t used for measuring brain activity.
There’s something in rhetoric that we call the principal of charity. When arguing with someone, we try to figure out what was meant based on what was said, and arguing against our best guess at what someone’s best argument is instead of assuming that everyone always means what they say and never makes a mistake in communication.
It is possible that the person you replied to does not understand the difference between Cat, Pet, and fMRI. This is in fact a very easy mistake to make for anyone who doesn’t work in medicine. So reconsider their comment with that in mind. If we substitute CT scan for fMRI, does that change your response?
No
Alright, same question as before: why do you believe that?
:Not OP:
I think our brain is more complex than just if a particular area lights up in a scan but to call it all bullshit at the same level of phrenology is just ignoring the hard work of really smart people.
I agree. Unfortunately, I keep seeing people trying to argue that people are never born in a particular way, which is just such an ableist way of viewing the world. Like, how can anyone argue that someone’s psychology isn’t genetically influenced? Do they think everyone with congenital cognitive disabilities is just pretending?
Sure genetics exist but let’s not pretend that we can predict someone’s behavior with it. All you have is correlations.
You can, infact, use certain facts about someone’s genome to inform predictions about their behavior. If you mean to say that you can’t perfectly predict someone’s behavior, then of course you can’t; I don’t recall ever meeting someone who argued otherwise.
I have yet to see evidence of brain activity predicting a lack of “empathy”
Empathy isn’t a behavior, it’s a basic cognitive function.
Have you taken any psychology or neurology classes? I have. It’s not my field of specialty, but I got As in each where applicable. If you’re going to hold such a strong opinion on this, you should at least put in the effort to do some basic research, or better yet, get some education on the subject.
These people are called “sociopaths”. Most sociopaths aren’t killers, though. They will often go into a field where their lack of empathy is rewarded, such as business management.