Theists: how do you account for psychopaths?

[Amarok]

Good thing we really don't have to factor such people in morality ,

[Catholic_Lady]

True, but he's not being immoral, either. Though I guess if he were to secretly wish death on people, that would be immoral, but psychopath means you don't have empathy, not that you necessarily like it when people die or suffer.

The capacity to be moral is also the capacity to be immoral, so, no, a psychopath wouldn't have that capacity. To be a moral being is to have the feeling that one has a universal duty to behave in certain ways, as an immediate and direct part of imagining the behavior. A psychopath doesn't have such thoughts. Everything is essentially equal in the eyes of a psychopath.

Is a psychopath not made in the image of God? Is the law not written in their hearts? Do psychopaths have different souls than normal individuals? Isn't God responsible for the nature of our souls?

According to Neo and many traditional Christians, it is the fact of God's moral perfection that is the "cause" of the existence of objective morality. Yet with psychopaths, God's perfection is essentially inert. What does that say about the notion that God's moral perfection is responsible for morals? If God's moral perfection is not the cause of morals, then what part does He play?

I notice you claimed that most laws come from morals, ignoring my question about where such norms, laws, and morals would come from if we all were psychopaths. Apparently you chose not to consider the question. Will you consider it now?

From what I understand, psychopathy is a disorder where you lack the ability to feel empathy. Psychopaths still understand right from wrong, they just don't care, on an emotional level.

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.

[brewer]

Right, and this is the difference between laws and morality. I would judge a psychopath to be immoral if they were hurting someone, but I want them stopped anyway. Laws protect society, whereas morality is simply an assessment of “goodness” made by a particular observer.

Most laws tend to come from morality.

I disagree.

[Amarok]

From what I understand, psychopathy is a disorder where you lack the ability to feel empathy. Psychopaths still understand right from wrong, they just don't care, on an emotional level. 

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.

That simply does not follow

---

Most laws tend to come from morality.

Well that's definitely not true

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Other than Yahweh, who is the most obvious psychopath in the Bible?

[Minimalist]

Psychos usually find cover in religion.

[vulcanlogician]

Yes. If the natural world is just an accident without any sort of objective purpose or intention, there isn't much reason to think morality is grounded in anything greater. Which is why atheists typically don't think morality is objective, which makes sense.

Laws are an attempt to enforce basic morality in society. Some people might diagree saying: "We have laws against murder because otherwise society would plunge into chaos." This is only partly true. We need laws to maintain order, to be sure, but laws aim to do more than that. The law could permit parents to kill their own children if they so wished, so long as it was done before they reached the age of nine, and society could continue to function pretty well in these circumstances. But we don't allow parents to murder their children before a certain age. Why? As I said before, the law isn't just there to keep order--it is also a medium through which basic morality is enforced.

Let's say you go out for a drive in your RV, and you make a wrong turn somewhere. You find yourself in some strange land where murder is not against the law. It is some unstructured society consisting mostly of vagrants and vagabonds. There is no governmental body that enforces murder laws. But does this mean that murder isn't wrong? No! The fact that there is an enforcing agent is not what makes something right or wrong. Even if you find yourself in a strange land where there is no punishment for the crime of murder, this does not mean that murder becomes morally acceptable.

By analogy, even though we live in a natural world that is "just an accident without any sort of objective purpose or intention" that doesn't make murder right, even if it happens within the confines of such a world. The lack of a cosmic enforcer has no bearing on the moral dimension of our actions. Murder is wrong in a country with murder laws. Murder is wrong in a country without murder laws. Murder is wrong in a universe created by God. Murder is wrong in a Godless universe that seems to exist by pure accident.

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.

[robvalue]

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.

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".

[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.

[Catholic_Lady]

Yes. If the natural world is just an accident without any sort of objective purpose or intention, there isn't much reason to think morality is grounded in anything greater. Which is why atheists typically don't think morality is objective, which makes sense.

Laws are an attempt to enforce basic morality in society. Some people might diagree saying: "We have laws against murder because otherwise society would plunge into chaos." This is only partly true. We need laws to maintain order, to be sure, but laws aim to do more than that. The law could permit parents to kill their own children if they so wished, so long as it was done before they reached the age of nine, and society could continue to function pretty well in these circumstances. But we don't allow parents to murder their children before a certain age. Why? As I said before, the law isn't just there to keep order--it is also a medium through which basic morality is enforced.

I agree with this. As I said in my post #67: "most laws tend to come from morality"... or at least attempt to. It seems others have disagreed with that statement though...

Let's say you go out for a drive in your RV, and you make a wrong turn somewhere. You find yourself in some strange land where murder is not against the law. It is some unstructured society consisting mostly of vagrants and vagabonds. There is no governmental body that enforces murder laws. But does this mean that murder isn't wrong? No! The fact that there is an enforcing agent is not what makes something right or wrong. Even if you find yourself in a strange land where there is no punishment for the crime of murder, this does not mean that murder becomes morally acceptable.

I agree 100%. Morality is not subjective.

By analogy, even though we live in a natural world that is "just an accident without any sort of objective purpose or intention" that doesn't make murder right, even if it happens within the confines of such a world. The lack of a cosmic enforcer has no bearing on the moral dimension of our actions. Murder is wrong in a country with murder laws. Murder is wrong in a country without murder laws. Murder is wrong in a universe created by God. Murder is wrong in a Godless universe that seems to exist by pure accident.

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.

...Except I don't think murder is objectively wrong "just because God said so." That's a really simplistic way of putting it. Murder is objectively wrong because it is contrary to natural law. Since God created this natural world, natural law comes from God's nature. It reflects how He created this natural world to work. 

Here's from Wikipedia: 

"Natural law is a philosophy asserting that certain rights are inherent by virtue of human nature, endowed by nature - traditionally by God or a transcendent source - and that these can be understood universally through human reason. As determined by nature, the law of nature is implied to be universal, existing independently of the positive law of a given state, political order, legislature, or society at large. Historically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature to deduce binding rules of moral behavior from nature's or God's creation of reality and mankind.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law) "