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.
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.
So your previous statement was that a specific (unstated) way of defining Good and Evil, while paired with our typical modern worldview implied that Good and Evil didn’t exist? I suppose you’re almost certainly correct if that’s the case, but I don’t find that to be a very interesting statement. The only other way I can interpret this is as a claim that there is exactly one definition of Good and Evil, and anyone who uses a different definition is wrong, but that strikes me as an utterly foolish position.
I wasn’t aware of Hume’s account of definition, but it strikes me as extremely straightforward.
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
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.
That’s one way to see it. Another is that empathy is all that’s needed for good, but ideology can be used to manipulate people such that their empathy for a certain group is suppressed.
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?”
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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Good and evil is ideology. Matter has no ideology, no good, no evil.
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.
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Correct.
So your previous statement was that a specific (unstated) way of defining Good and Evil, while paired with our typical modern worldview implied that Good and Evil didn’t exist? I suppose you’re almost certainly correct if that’s the case, but I don’t find that to be a very interesting statement. The only other way I can interpret this is as a claim that there is exactly one definition of Good and Evil, and anyone who uses a different definition is wrong, but that strikes me as an utterly foolish position.
I wasn’t aware of Hume’s account of definition, but it strikes me as extremely straightforward.
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
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.
Great, now I don’t know if I can feel empathy. Better take a 2 min facebook quiz to find out.q
Excellent point.
That’s one way to see it. Another is that empathy is all that’s needed for good, but ideology can be used to manipulate people such that their empathy for a certain group is suppressed.
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.
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.
Was it Why Does Evil Exist??
Pseudoscience bullshit. Might as well talk phrenology or body language science.
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.
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?
Found the evil one.