Theists: how do you account for psychopaths?

[robvalue]

I'll just throw more of my brainstorm in here. This partly addresses what you said earlier Khem. Our ideas about morality are so different that I feel we're not discussing the same thing. This is not a criticism, just an observation.

My personal method of assessing morality, which I totally own as mine and don't claim is correct or better than anyone else's, is the following:

I rate behaviour I observe on a scale of what I could reasonably expect from whatever thing took an action. This then influences my attitude towards the agent after the event, and maybe any action I take in return. This is why I don't consider a dog attacking a cat a moral matter. I take into account as many factors as possible when making this assessment. It's only useful to me, or perhaps to someone else if they want my opinion. That's as far as it goes. I'm forever evolving my moral judgement systems.

On the flip side, I set my own goals, which I try to achieve pre-emptively and actively. For example, I want my dog to be safe, so I walk her on a lead (she's mental).

If she ran into the road and someone ran her over deliberately, I'd probably consider them to be immoral, pending further information. If they did it by accident, I wouldn't consider it a moral matter. However, if I see a car coming towards my dog, I'll try and get her out of the way whatever the morality may be of something running into her.

So to sum up: don't run my dog over.