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Consider this question: what about cultures throughout history which callously divided people into classes and treated the lower ones horribly? Like slavery. O

Consider this question: what about cultures throughout history which callously divided people into classes and treated the lower ones horribly? Like slavery. Or the French aristocracy. Etc. You could say "everyone", including people widely considered to be decent, were still participating in treating the lower classes horribly. It was perfectly acceptable to do so. So the vast majority in those cultures found some way to "turn off" or become desensitized to feelings of remorse. Were they all psychopaths?

justinator 11y ago
Well, there's the idea that you can't judge a past culture (or even a different culture) using the same values as your own. Consider perhaps coming from a culture that is 100% vegan, then being transported to the US, where eating meat is not only accepted, but celebrated. Would you call those people psychopaths that have been somehow desensitized? Certainly, there's justification to the actions (I'm hungry! Meat tastes good!), but perhaps the jump that all meat eaters are pyscopathic murderers sounds a bit suspect. I mean, I don't know: I'm in the US, and I eat meat . Perhaps take a human rights issue. Is being homophobic psychopathic? What about owning people as property?
- jessaustin 11y ago
  If all this really is a matter of perspective, then TFA is basically correct that people can learn to behave so far outside the norms of any given society as to inspire a specious label like "psychopath".
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  I say we consider defining it by what most innately do with minimal coaching. Every kid experiences being wronged or hurt to some degree. A certain amount of that is unrealistic expectations and learning to tell the difference. A subset of it that most share is what we consider unethical acts. That our most primitive minds have a way to derive that suggests, at least for humans, there's a baseline that's somewhat objective. That's the nature part. There's exceptions to it clearly. Then, nature and nurture work together from there with nurture having more an impact. You gave good examples of that.
barry-cotter 11y ago
No. The widened circle of evolutionary concern that we display is due to a great deal of socialisation and enculturation. Most people, in most places throughout history have not treated members of the outgroup as having rights or worth. There are some wonderful parts of The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker, but one of my favourites was him taking the piss out of Richard Dawkins for thinking Saddam Hussein was uniquely and especially evil, worthy of individual study. Saddam's morality is vastly closer to the historical norm than that of educated elite Westerners. Where psychopaths differ from non-psychopaths is not in how they treat the outgroup, but in how they treat the ingroup.
- charlieflowers 11y ago
  > Where psychopaths differ from non-psychopaths is not in how they treat the outgroup, but in how they treat the ingroup. That distinction makes sense. My real point was that many of the descriptions I've read of the symptoms or the definition of psychopathy do not make any such distinction (granted, many of these were in the press, not the most authoritative sources).
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  I totally agree. In discussions on race and gender discrimination, I often argue that these are evidence of human nature's trend to (a) group together + support those similar to oneself; (b) compete with or mistreat those outside the group. It's a nice abstraction on top of all the forms I've seen of this that gets to the real issue. Now, the specific forms of it certainly develop their own mental baggage and reinforcements on top of this. Yet, without being a sociology/psych major, I think this is a normal thing that should be recognized and hit head on by any reformists. That it's a weakness in human nature must be understood before it can be beaten. Otherwise, strawmen and red herrings abound.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I certainly believe you can learn to do this. Yet, any cases where it starts in childhood and without people pushing it would seem to indicate an innate ability. Where did the kid learn compulsive, remorseless violence? I'll add that people believe that we can start with many initial states from the palette of what we see in people. Our genetics push us in a certain direction from the get go. The traits of a psychopath can't be among them? It... always... has to be learned? It would be a strange exception to make without evidence.
vonklaus 11y ago
> So the vast majority in those cultures found some way to "turn off" or become desensitized to feelings of remorse. Not correct. If we accept that most felt nothing for those outside of their groups(which is a leap) this has precedent as humans were tribal and social. They worked together in small bands and communities while clashing with other bands and communities. However, I would suspect that if their family member died they would feel remorse. Your example seems to be more about sociological conditioning than biologically being unable to feel empathy for another person.
- charlieflowers 11y ago
  So perhaps psychopathy could be thought of as a disorder where no one in considered "in tribe," as opposed to a disorder of complete lack of remorse? Regardless, a proper definition of psychopathy needs to distinguish between these 2 cases of "lack of empathy," and many of the definitions floating around don't.

justinator 11y ago

Well, there's the idea that you can't judge a past culture (or even a different culture) using the same values as your own. Consider perhaps coming from a culture that is 100% vegan, then being transported to the US, where eating meat is not only accepted, but celebrated. Would you call those people psychopaths that have been somehow desensitized? Certainly, there's justification to the actions (I'm hungry! Meat tastes good!), but perhaps the jump that all meat eaters are pyscopathic murderers sounds a bit suspect. I mean, I don't know: I'm in the US, and I eat meat . Perhaps take a human rights issue. Is being homophobic psychopathic? What about owning people as property?

jessaustin 11y ago
If all this really is a matter of perspective, then TFA is basically correct that people can learn to behave so far outside the norms of any given society as to inspire a specious label like "psychopath".
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I say we consider defining it by what most innately do with minimal coaching. Every kid experiences being wronged or hurt to some degree. A certain amount of that is unrealistic expectations and learning to tell the difference. A subset of it that most share is what we consider unethical acts. That our most primitive minds have a way to derive that suggests, at least for humans, there's a baseline that's somewhat objective. That's the nature part. There's exceptions to it clearly. Then, nature and nurture work together from there with nurture having more an impact. You gave good examples of that.

barry-cotter 11y ago

No. The widened circle of evolutionary concern that we display is due to a great deal of socialisation and enculturation. Most people, in most places throughout history have not treated members of the outgroup as having rights or worth. There are some wonderful parts of The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker, but one of my favourites was him taking the piss out of Richard Dawkins for thinking Saddam Hussein was uniquely and especially evil, worthy of individual study. Saddam's morality is vastly closer to the historical norm than that of educated elite Westerners. Where psychopaths differ from non-psychopaths is not in how they treat the outgroup, but in how they treat the ingroup.

charlieflowers 11y ago
> Where psychopaths differ from non-psychopaths is not in how they treat the outgroup, but in how they treat the ingroup. That distinction makes sense. My real point was that many of the descriptions I've read of the symptoms or the definition of psychopathy do not make any such distinction (granted, many of these were in the press, not the most authoritative sources).
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I totally agree. In discussions on race and gender discrimination, I often argue that these are evidence of human nature's trend to (a) group together + support those similar to oneself; (b) compete with or mistreat those outside the group. It's a nice abstraction on top of all the forms I've seen of this that gets to the real issue. Now, the specific forms of it certainly develop their own mental baggage and reinforcements on top of this. Yet, without being a sociology/psych major, I think this is a normal thing that should be recognized and hit head on by any reformists. That it's a weakness in human nature must be understood before it can be beaten. Otherwise, strawmen and red herrings abound.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

I certainly believe you can learn to do this. Yet, any cases where it starts in childhood and without people pushing it would seem to indicate an innate ability. Where did the kid learn compulsive, remorseless violence? I'll add that people believe that we can start with many initial states from the palette of what we see in people. Our genetics push us in a certain direction from the get go. The traits of a psychopath can't be among them? It... always... has to be learned? It would be a strange exception to make without evidence.

vonklaus 11y ago

> So the vast majority in those cultures found some way to "turn off" or become desensitized to feelings of remorse. Not correct. If we accept that most felt nothing for those outside of their groups(which is a leap) this has precedent as humans were tribal and social. They worked together in small bands and communities while clashing with other bands and communities. However, I would suspect that if their family member died they would feel remorse. Your example seems to be more about sociological conditioning than biologically being unable to feel empathy for another person.

charlieflowers 11y ago
So perhaps psychopathy could be thought of as a disorder where no one in considered "in tribe," as opposed to a disorder of complete lack of remorse? Regardless, a proper definition of psychopathy needs to distinguish between these 2 cases of "lack of empathy," and many of the definitions floating around don't.