Theists: how do you account for psychopaths?

[Catholic_Lady]

As distasteful as it may be to a lot of people to try and compare themselves to someone who willingly set themselves to the task of destroying an alarmingly large group of people, and managed to go a good portion of the way in the span of less than 3 1/2 years, to just treat it with a little "there but for the grace of God go I," but I've come to realise that, if you want to try and stop evil, othering it is the worst thing you can possibly do. A film released the same year De-Nur gave his testimony concluded "If he and all of the other defendants had been degraded perverts, if all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters and maniacs, then these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake, or any other natural catastrophe."

You dismiss that idea, you fail to understand evil. You fail to understand evil, it becomes a Hell of a lot harder to take it on.

I read Rudolf Höss's autobiography. It is very interesting to get inside the mind-set of the person who orchestrated the logistics of it all. It was a nothing more than logistical problem to him, albeit a major logistical challenge. It made me realise more than anything else just how common people like him actually are. There have been several people who I have got to know since reading that book that I think could have done exactly the same thing given a completely different environment. This made me realise how evil doesn't come about because of a few people but because we collectively allow others to be dehumanised.

And dare I say it, I am most certainly reminded of this when speaking to theists who argue that it is only an external objective morality that has is stopping them from doing the same. It can make me glad that they have religion if that's the kind of people they are. But I also know that it would be given a different society, that same religion could be encouraging them to carry out such atrocities. And that worries me.

Who here has said they would dehumanize people if they didn't believe in God? From what I'm seeing, it seems most of us are saying we simply wouldn't believe morality was objective if we didn't believe in God - which is the stance most atheists take, so we would be no different.

[Edwardo Piet]

They have the ability to choose to behave morally even if they don't care or have empathy towards others.

People never have the ability to choose what they don't care about. Choosing to do something already implies that they care about what they choose in some way. Caring about not getting caught isn't caring about not doing the wrong thing. The latter is something psychopaths can never choose.

[robvalue]

Hmm, we have 3/6 votes saying morality doesn't come from God, but I don't know how many of those are theists! I know at least one isn't I haven't voted on it for the record, but I'd obviously pick that option.

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They have the ability to choose to behave morally even if they don't care or have empathy towards others.

People never have the ability to choose what they don't care about. Choosing to do something already implies that they care about what they choose in some way. Caring about not getting caught isn't caring about not doing the wrong thing. The latter is something psychopaths can never choose.

They have the ability to behave in a way other people tell them is moral, but it is a meaningless request to them. It would be like a character in a computer game telling me to stop hitting civilians. I just don't care what they have to say. The only reason I wouldn't do something I wanted to do was because the consequences weren't worth it, in a game, or as a psychopath.

To me CL is saying psychopaths aren't really psychopaths.

[The Grand Nudger]

Failpoll, no fuck all polls option. 

[Edwardo Piet]

I imagine that one could chip away at one's morality over time, or be massively abused or brainwashed, and end up similar to a psychopath. But I expect nothing short of some sort of brain surgery could alter a psychopath.

This is one of the differences between sociopaths and psychopaths. Someone can become a sociopath through an abusive upbringing, brainwashing, conditioning, trauma, etc. Sociopathy is the most extreme and violent of all personality disorders. Psychopathy, on the other hand, is a neuropathological condition. It's more than just a personality disorder. Psychopaths are born psychopaths, sociopaths are not born sociopaths.

Another difference is sociopaths tend to be low functioning whereas psychopaths tend to be high functioning. It's natural for a psychopath to be psychopathic... but sociopaths are people who have had a fucked up life and have had to repress their compassion and morals due to trauma and extreme stress. Whereas psychopaths have always been psychopaths, and they don't know what it's like to not be a psychopath. Many of them may even wonder if everyone else is the same way, and doubt that others really care as much as they claim to. Maybe they think it's all the supposed non-psychopaths who are brainwashed and deluded into thinking they care more than they actually do. Like people have been conditioned to believe that they care, by society, when deep down deep down we're all egoists.

Our conscience is, perhaps, as alien and as hard to believe to the psychopath as their lack of conscience is as alien and hard to believe to us.

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Since I think morality is an objective reality that exists in the world around us, I believe it would still exist independent of what people thought or if they were all psychopaths.

True but God is absurd to expect psychopaths to ever be capable of choosing to do the right thing for the right reasons when he's created them with the very inability to choose any such thing for any such right reasons. It's like he's created a triangle amongst a bunch of squares and told the triangle "Have four sides. But don't change your shape, please."

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There are two ways to look at Divine Law (assuming such a thing exists):

1. Murder is wrong just because God says so.
or
2. Murder is wrong independently of what God says, but he forbids it because he is loving and just.

Your assertion that morality can only be objective in a universe created purposefully by God, seems to indicate that you fall into the first camp. But I don't think you do. I think you accept #2. But as a thought experiment, let's follow conclusion #1 to its logical end. Let's say that God comes before you and tells you that (if you want to) you can murder your neighbor's wife. If you do this, you won't have to ask for forgiveness, there is no threat of eternal damnation--none of that. God has said that it is okay.

The question is: would you kill your neighbor's wife if God allowed it? If God allowed it, would that make it morally right? If the answer is no: why not? 

Maybe it's because killing this woman would deprive her husband of a wife, and her two children of a mother. Maybe it's because it is her life, and you don't have the right to take it from her. Maybe it's because she is a human being with dreams and aspirations, and your desire to kill her is superseded by her right to live. But if God gave you permission, would any of these reasons that murder is wrong change?

Morality can neither hinge solely on the utterances of God, nor is it in any way impacted by God's purposes in creating the universe. Otherwise, murdering someone would be somehow become morally right just because God allows it (even though, by any other metric, it is the exact same deed). And (assuming there is a God overseeing this universe) it would become morally right to commit murder in an exact carbon copy of this universe if said universe were to come about by happenstance.

No, there is a third way to look at this. 

3. Murder is wrong because God forbids it. God forbids it because it runs contrary to his nature ('nature' as in cannot be separated from the whole of God and so definitionally all of God's commands must be consistent with his nature). Not only is God's nature good, it is the paradigm of goodness (as the greatest conceivable being).  Therefore murder is objectively wrong ultimately because God's unchanging nature has determined it to be so. Additionally, you don't have to actually know that God forbids it--he wrote basic morality on the hearts/minds of all normally-functioning people.

This response just makes God redundant. As this nature of goodness can be good for exactly the same reasons, without the "Oh and by the way a supernatural being exists that asserts that this goodness is indeed good" part. Either there are good reasons for the goodness to indeed be goodness or there isn't. If there is, we don't need God. If there isn't, God won't make a difference.

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I just don't see how inherent universal moral laws would exist in the first place without the existence of a law giver.

The same way the laws of physics exist without a law giver.

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I think it's funny when theists say that they can't understand the idea of objective morality being possible without God. Because the reality is that whatever objective morality is it doesn't come down to "because I say so", whether it's an omniscient being saying so or not. If goodness is identical to God's nature then that just makes God redundant as the objective goodness is objectively good for the exact same reasons. God's saying so doesn't magically make something not objectively good become objectively good at all. That makes no sense at all. Either an action is moral or not. Either a motive is moral or not. Either something is wrong or right. God saying so is just a red herring.

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May I answer this question as well?

Of course, Ed!

Murder is objectively wrong because it leads to suffering and it deprives people of happiness.

[SteveII]

No, there is a third way to look at this. 

3. Murder is wrong because God forbids it. God forbids it because it runs contrary to his nature ('nature' as in cannot be separated from the whole of God and so definitionally all of God's commands must be consistent with his nature). Not only is God's nature good, it is the paradigm of goodness (as the greatest conceivable being).  Therefore murder is objectively wrong ultimately because God's unchanging nature has determined it to be so. Additionally, you don't have to actually know that God forbids it--he wrote basic morality on the hearts/minds of all normally-functioning people.

This response just makes God redundant. As this nature of goodness can be good for exactly the same reasons, without the "Oh and by the way a supernatural being exists that asserts that this goodness is indeed good" part. Either there are good reasons for the goodness to indeed be goodness or there isn't. If there is, we don't need God. If there isn't, God won't make a difference.

Sure there are reasons to assign "good" to something. But what makes those reasons good? You end up with a infinite regress of 'why's' if you can't find a stopping place that provides some objectivity. Note below...

Murder is objectively wrong because it leads to suffering and it deprives people of happiness.

Why is suffering and depriving others of happiness wrong? Murder might increase my security, alleviate my suffering, or create some happiness for me!

[Edwardo Piet]

Sure there are reasons to assign "good" to something. But what makes those reasons good? You end up with a infinite regress of 'why's' if you can't find a stopping place that provides some objectivity. Note below...

What do you mean "what makes those reasons good"? Reasons are valid or invalid, logical or not logical. The reasons themselves aren't 'good' the reasons are what support the fact that something is good (or bad).

Why is suffering and depriving others of happiness wrong?

Because that is what is meant by wrong and right. A universe without any conscious beings capable of suffering, a universe entirely made of rocks, for instance, would be an amoral universe.

Murder might increase my security, alleviate my suffering, or create some happiness for me!

Yes but using yourself as a special pleading case is precisely the opposite of being objective or rational. This is why the veil of ignorance thought experiment is so helpful.

If it's objectively wrong when needless suffering happens then it makes absolutely no sense to say that it only matters when you suffer but not for others. If it's wrong it's wrong period.

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, Infinite regress junkies can;t cogently comment on their own chosen subject...and resort to bitching about an infinite regress that, were we to take it seriously, they can;t escape themselves in any case.

Meanwhile, infinite regress isn;t a problem for objective morality...so..who cares?

[Amarok]

 - which is the stance most atheists take, so we would be no different.

Really you did a study on the did you?

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The thing is that if an all-powerful deity exists there's no reason for all of the victims to be real people.  He could make them imaginary to see how the real people react to the apparent misfortunes of others.  With a real deity you could be in the "Matrix" living an imaginary life because he could do anything.  So if you think that what you are experiencing is actually real then it's best to toss the idea of an all-powerful deity that interacts with you.

Nope the people would still be victims .It's just that the matrix would be reality .

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To a degree yes but i was talking about something more direct . But i was more talking about the fact that a god could literally have prevented the death of millions but does not .

God invented the fact that death can happen (and rape, torture, violence, illnesses, natural disasters, etc). That makes him responsible, in my opinion, since he didn't need to do that. (Or if he did, due to some incredibly convenient rule binding God to behave like a cock, then that just opens up way more questions than it answers.) Doings things via nature is just a buffer of responsibility, like me blaming the bat I smack you in the balls with.

There is that too.

[Catholic_Lady]

They have the ability to choose to behave morally even if they don't care or have empathy towards others.

People never have the ability to choose what they don't care about. Choosing to do something already implies that they care about what they choose in some way. Caring about not getting caught isn't caring about not doing the wrong thing. The latter is something psychopaths can never choose.

Right, I was talking about behavior. They may not care about morality for its own sake or care about other people, but they can still choose to behave morally. ...Presumably as not to jeopardise their own well being.

What exactly is the argument again?