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Good and evil is an interesting discussion all by itself. However, philosophy aside, certain things are suggestive of biological/genetic factors involved in mur

Good and evil is an interesting discussion all by itself. However, philosophy aside, certain things are suggestive of biological/genetic factors involved in murder. Start with the fact that murder is committed by males at a much higher rate than females. Furthermore, human violence has always been predominately a male trait. Until you can explain why males engage in murder and all violence at a much higher rate than females, I don't think you can convince me learned behavior is the sole factor involved in anti-social behavior. I am convinced biology/genetics create a huge predisposition to violence.

keernan 2y ago
By way of expanding upon my comment above...let's try to remove ethics and morality from the discussion. All animals that live in groups have 'rules' that protect the group from behaviors that threaten the group's existence. A group member who behaves in an way that threatens the group itself, is shunned, ostracized, or killed. Human society is no different. During relatively modern times, we have adopted written rules of behavior with procedures to judge and punish violators to the extreme of imprisonment and even death. And prison populations throughout the world are overwhelmingly male. Further evidence that there is almost certainly a biological/genetic factor causing males to behave in a manner resulting in society imprisoning males at a much higher rates than females. To be clear, it is also very true that only a small percentage of males are ever charged with criminal (anti-social) behavior. So, there are obviously other factors involved beyond just being male. However, that doesn't change my point that genetic traits almost certainly play a role. There is a huge body of science that has been studying human anti-social behavior for centuries.
zzo38computer 2y ago
I mostly agree; however, biological/genetic factors do not control everything. They may be involved in such traits as aggressiveness etc, but I would think that even these traits are not certain and can be changed (by many things, including your own ideas, but also many kind of external factors), and this does not include such things as "evil" and does not directly include "murder" (although it can be included indirectly, since it is related to things which are more directly affected by genetic factors, which can end up with such things). There is the question of exactly which things the biological/genetic factors affect and how much, and scientific experiments may be able to figure out some of these such things. Regardless of that, it does not mean that no murderers can ever changes (although some might not change as easily), that genetics can predict if you are a murderer with 99% accuracy, that sex or gender can predict it with 99% accuracy, etc. But, it does mean that it can have a statistical effect.

keernan 2y ago

By way of expanding upon my comment above...let's try to remove ethics and morality from the discussion. All animals that live in groups have 'rules' that protect the group from behaviors that threaten the group's existence. A group member who behaves in an way that threatens the group itself, is shunned, ostracized, or killed. Human society is no different. During relatively modern times, we have adopted written rules of behavior with procedures to judge and punish violators to the extreme of imprisonment and even death. And prison populations throughout the world are overwhelmingly male. Further evidence that there is almost certainly a biological/genetic factor causing males to behave in a manner resulting in society imprisoning males at a much higher rates than females. To be clear, it is also very true that only a small percentage of males are ever charged with criminal (anti-social) behavior. So, there are obviously other factors involved beyond just being male. However, that doesn't change my point that genetic traits almost certainly play a role. There is a huge body of science that has been studying human anti-social behavior for centuries.

zzo38computer 2y ago

I mostly agree; however, biological/genetic factors do not control everything. They may be involved in such traits as aggressiveness etc, but I would think that even these traits are not certain and can be changed (by many things, including your own ideas, but also many kind of external factors), and this does not include such things as "evil" and does not directly include "murder" (although it can be included indirectly, since it is related to things which are more directly affected by genetic factors, which can end up with such things). There is the question of exactly which things the biological/genetic factors affect and how much, and scientific experiments may be able to figure out some of these such things. Regardless of that, it does not mean that no murderers can ever changes (although some might not change as easily), that genetics can predict if you are a murderer with 99% accuracy, that sex or gender can predict it with 99% accuracy, etc. But, it does mean that it can have a statistical effect.