Interesting interview on the US radio programme Fresh Air with criminal psychologist Adrian Raine who has written a book called The Anatomy of Violence. Apparently, this discusses the brains of violent criminals. In his research, he has found that the pre-frontal cortex of impulsive killers is not operating correctly and the amygdala of psychopaths, where empathy is generated, is shrunken. So does this mean that killers aren’t really responsible for being killers? They are biologically disposed to have problems with human interaction. And if their responsibility is diminished, and they don’t have full free will, what does this say about any of us? We are all just a stew of chemicals. How responsible are we for our shortcomings or our talents? One for Pete1950 for the weekend….
And old hypothesis. Researched to death and seems to have been proven. However, a predisposition to not have empathy doesnt excuse the ability to know right from wrong. If a brain ailment affects your ability to rationalise right from wrong thats a toughie, but the stuff I've seen (love a bit of mind & behaviour stuff as a hobby) that also tends to be so severe the risk of taking a gun, knowing how to use it and having the drive and desire to muder a load of peolpe is almost non existent
OK, try this: I exceed the speed limit on occasion (er...). I know that it's "wrong" but it doesn't seem wrong to me (where I do it). The thing is, I don't care. I just worry about being caught. How genuinely remorseful do I feel when I fall into a speed trap? A psychopath may know that killing people is "wrong" but lacks the empathy to care or really feel that it is "wrong". Hence their lack of remorse. So, fully responsible? Or only partly responsible? Empathy is essential. I don't steal, because I empathise with those from whom I would be stealing. I don't want people to steal from me. But if I had no empathy at all, maybe I would. I wouldn't see anything profoundly wrong with it.
Wrong in both counts. I think where you are going is degrees of wrong; does a psycho think jumping a red light is on the same level as killing a hundred people. No. think about how drink driving attitudes have changed. Used to be acceptable, now you're as morally bankrupt as a Banker if you do it. But unless other receptors dont work, a psycho could still tell the difference
Or if you had 'cognitive' empathy indeed Glid... it's the empathy linked with compassion or emotion that you are talking about obviously. An effective car salesman can have cognitive empathy i.e. - the ability to know what the car buyer wants to hear but without caring as to whether he is selling him a 'pup'.
Those that speed know they shouldn't and don't care until they get caught and then moan about how whoever it was hiding and out to make money the gun is calibrated wrongly, can they prove it was me etc etc A psychopath I presume doesn't take into account what he has done till it's done and then again finds all the excuses to why he did shouldnt have done it Why do any of us do these things? I guess its because we know we shouldn't and we do it until we get caught and even then some go on to continue doing it
But we dont. Most peolpe have a moral compass of some form, speeding ok, murder no for example, and even if they dont 'feel' the pain of their actions they understand why its unacceptable and the impact. Would anyone say a suicide bomber was a psycho? Then add a French SB who walks into a WWII base amd blows up a few Nazis? However, contradiction time ;-) , a person with mental health issues who hears voices and they say 'stab the woman at the bus stop or she will stab you' needs help not the death penalty. glad I'm not a law maker, enforcer or judicary as cant be easy to descern one type of psycho from another
Psychopaths are highly manipulative - they can be very charming. They probably know what they are doing but don't care. They are likely to find all sorts of excuses, but it's just manipulation. They will cheerfully carry on doing it if they can get away with it. The only way you can prevent them is to remove them from society permanently because they can't be trusted. But what is interesting (for me) in this debate is to what extent we are just chemical machines and to what extent we truly have free will. Some people are happy drunks. Others are violent and abusive under the influence. Is people's character when drunk really part of them, or something separate for which they are not fully responsible? Who are we all anyway and are we really responsible for who we are? Does it even matter? If someone is "bad" should we really care why they are?
But do they know what they are doing because empathy is an ability to share a feeling putting yourself in someone else shoes and if you felt that then surely you wouldn't be a psychopath Perhaps it should be sympathy as that implies a feeling of recognition in how someone may be feeling So they may feel they know how it feels but can't empathise because they havnt felt how it feels
Is the description 'empathy' being liked to a hard coded feeling, i.e. its a natural reaction, or a developed behaviour which we know to be 'right' through upbringing, laws, education and standard around us? Does this translate from country to country and race to race? Is someone categorised as psycho in UK under same classification in Spain, or Turkey, or Ethiopia?
Indeed. Young people ask "who are we ?", but as we get older the question becomes "what are we ?". At which point does a 'complex object' capable of replication become self aware and what is self awareness. At a large scale Newton's Laws, with a little help from Einstein, describes the universe but at the molecular level quantum physics with all of its paradoxes and uncertainties takes over. WTF are we ?
Whether free will is real or an illusion is one of the great questions of philosophy. But if it is an illusion, how can individuals be held morally responsible for anything? Suitably developed, the argument against moral responsibility seems very strong. But in many human beings, the experience of choice gives rise to a conviction of absolute responsibility that is untouched by philosophical arguments. This conviction is the deep and inexhaustible source of the free will problem: powerful arguments that seem to show that we cannot be morally responsible in the ultimate way that we suppose keep coming up against equally powerful psychological reasons why we continue to believe that we are ultimately morally responsible. The above is based on the work of Prof Galen Strawson. Incidentally in 1970 when Galen was a teenager he had an Ariel Arrow motorbike and I once helped him fix a problem with the points, in the garage of his dad (Prof Peter Strawson) who was a philosopher before him.
Indeed. The cinema cliché of a psychopath as a raving, axe-wielding lunatic is a long way from the truth. More often psychopaths are, as you say, charming, devious, manipulative and wholly unscrupulous. They can typically be found in positions like the CEOs of major corporations, where they feel no guilt about what they do.
Think if a proper debate some baselining needs to be done. The difference between axe wielding maniac and boardroom bully is considerable in most (for Loz that one ) eyes. A crime of chasing pound notes is not the the same as beheading prostitutes and eating cornflakes from their skull
Good question. Speaking only for myself, "empathy" is a developed behaviour which has taken many years of intensive study and a lot of continuing hard work to reproduce. Perhaps some people find it comes to them effortlessly - if so, lucky them.
