Theists: how do you account for psychopaths?

[The Grand Nudger]

Random extra comment:

I don't consider a dog who kills a cat to be immoral. Of course, if I was in the place of the dog and I killed the cat, I would consider myself immoral. But I'm not the dog. This is a similar situation. The morality of the action is my personal assessment. Everyone makes their own. Some people may consider the dog to be immoral. If I want to change that person's mind, or they want to change mine, then we need to present arguments. Announcing ourselves to be correct, or saying our opinion just happens to line up with "objective morality" is not going to change anyone's mind. I'm not, of course, disputing the fact that the dog killed the cat.

You;ve got two contradictory trains of thought running in the sentiment above..theyre subtle, neither is wrong in a vacuum, but only one can be accurate in relation to the other.   

This judgement, like all judgements, is one of utility. I find no utiliy in considering a dog to be immoral for killing a cat. I still, however, want to protect cats from harm. That is a separate matter as far as I'm concerned. I'm not trying to protect them from "immoral acts".

Is it that you find no utility, or is there some reason that you don;t think a dog is a moral agent whereas you are?  Utility doesn;t depend on there being any difference between you...nor, from a utilitarian perspective...would it matter if there were. If declaring a dog to be immoral had utilitarian purpose you would not have to demonstrate that the dog -was- a moral agent or that it was immoral..you'd only need to demonstrate the utilitarian purpose.

Purportedly divine moralities fall into this pit with regularity. Theres no need..you see, to show -why- some thing x is wrong, only to reassert the value of the assessment as a way to eternal reward. Believers, for their part, want the credibility of the title "objective morality" but they don;t do the required work..instead presenting a subjective utilitarian scheme in place of an objective moral schema.

Non believers, otoh, responding to this "objective morality" as described by religious people misrepresent their own as "not that"..and call their commonly objective moral schemas subjective or utilitarian, ironically. If you base your moral schema on some fact of the matter x, you are presenting the very definition of an objective morality.