Thanks! If more people had a better understanding understanding of psychopathy, a lot less of the current insanity would have been accepted and perhaps more psychopaths in government would either have been prevented from getting there or bunged out/arrested for their crimes.
It could have been very different, all along if we, generally, could have recognised psychopaths and keep them out of public offices/positions of influence, or have had them removed as soon as indications of callousness/psychopathy/corruption/ showed, and been able to do this all along.
I would like to ask a super noob question, if I may, please.
But first, thank you for the interview and its transcription.
My question is about this passage:
"
We can place theories of human evil on something of a continuum. On one extreme you have the complete denial of human evil. Here we find a couple varieties, from the naive idea that everyone is good at heart (“underneath it all”) to the moral relativist belief that simply denies the category of evil altogether.
Somewhere in the middle we find an acknowledgment of the reality of human evil, but the causes range from social determinism to strict heredity. Social determinism is compatible with the “good at heart” theory, positing that people only “break bad” because of poor childhoods or other environmental influences—the basic substratum of all humans is presumed to be similar with no substantial qualitative variations. Strict heredity denies social influence altogether, and may be paired with class- or race-based arguments that posit, for example, the inherent superiority of a hereditary aristocracy.
At another extreme I would place the supernatural theories, which may be paired with any number of the previous ones. For instance, evil may be ascribed to demonic possession in a manner similar to social determinism. Alternately, strict heredity may hide a supernatural taint of the bloodline.
Lobaczewski’s perspective is based on a realistic acceptance of human variation, and a multi-pathway genesis of human evil. He posits variations on the genetic, qualitative level, as well as “environmental” pathways that can cause reversible or irreversible changes to a person’s personality and character. He calls the genetic causes “psychopathies” and the environmental causes “characteropathies” (the result of certain brain injuries and “bad childhoods”).
"
And so, it's about sorting out variables, fitting some complexity of various variables such as psychopathy, normal people and characteropathies - and the quote highlights the idea of an objective world view (or at least what is not one).
My mind is quite limited and I wasn't able to exactly pinpoint if the above means that the most objective world view was located "at the other end of the spectrum" - namely at the level of "supernatural theories" - or if it would be located as the last paragraph states it, something akin to "those are complex & tangled waters etc etc", meaning that it's more a in the middle.
Still, I am not that sure that the latter case is the one you tried to convey, as being the correct world view, because a bit later in the interview, you state:
"
Personally, I think a metaphysics of evil is necessary for the same reason I think metaphysics itself is necessary. Like the psychological worldview, bad metaphysics cannot provide a proper map for navigating reality.
"
This places the emphasis of a world view insisting on metaphysic evil - and as the first quote highlighted a bold emphasis on evil ("supernatural evil"), I was wondering if you meant that the supernatural evil's end of the spectrum would be the more objective view.
I hope that my question is clear! Thank you for any answer if possible, please!
I wasn’t thinking in terms of objective and not, but looking back on it, I suppose that is a good way of looking at it. You have a spectrum from denying evil (false) to scientific acceptance (better) to metaphysical acceptance (best).
Thanks! If more people had a better understanding understanding of psychopathy, a lot less of the current insanity would have been accepted and perhaps more psychopaths in government would either have been prevented from getting there or bunged out/arrested for their crimes.
It could have been very different, all along if we, generally, could have recognised psychopaths and keep them out of public offices/positions of influence, or have had them removed as soon as indications of callousness/psychopathy/corruption/ showed, and been able to do this all along.
I've been saying for some time we need to do an MRI scan of every public servant's brain to screen for psychopathy.
AI should make this easy.
>In before muh false positives: It's better to keep a hundred good men out of government than let in even one psychopath.
Hello,
I would like to ask a super noob question, if I may, please.
But first, thank you for the interview and its transcription.
My question is about this passage:
"
We can place theories of human evil on something of a continuum. On one extreme you have the complete denial of human evil. Here we find a couple varieties, from the naive idea that everyone is good at heart (“underneath it all”) to the moral relativist belief that simply denies the category of evil altogether.
Somewhere in the middle we find an acknowledgment of the reality of human evil, but the causes range from social determinism to strict heredity. Social determinism is compatible with the “good at heart” theory, positing that people only “break bad” because of poor childhoods or other environmental influences—the basic substratum of all humans is presumed to be similar with no substantial qualitative variations. Strict heredity denies social influence altogether, and may be paired with class- or race-based arguments that posit, for example, the inherent superiority of a hereditary aristocracy.
At another extreme I would place the supernatural theories, which may be paired with any number of the previous ones. For instance, evil may be ascribed to demonic possession in a manner similar to social determinism. Alternately, strict heredity may hide a supernatural taint of the bloodline.
Lobaczewski’s perspective is based on a realistic acceptance of human variation, and a multi-pathway genesis of human evil. He posits variations on the genetic, qualitative level, as well as “environmental” pathways that can cause reversible or irreversible changes to a person’s personality and character. He calls the genetic causes “psychopathies” and the environmental causes “characteropathies” (the result of certain brain injuries and “bad childhoods”).
"
And so, it's about sorting out variables, fitting some complexity of various variables such as psychopathy, normal people and characteropathies - and the quote highlights the idea of an objective world view (or at least what is not one).
My mind is quite limited and I wasn't able to exactly pinpoint if the above means that the most objective world view was located "at the other end of the spectrum" - namely at the level of "supernatural theories" - or if it would be located as the last paragraph states it, something akin to "those are complex & tangled waters etc etc", meaning that it's more a in the middle.
Still, I am not that sure that the latter case is the one you tried to convey, as being the correct world view, because a bit later in the interview, you state:
"
Personally, I think a metaphysics of evil is necessary for the same reason I think metaphysics itself is necessary. Like the psychological worldview, bad metaphysics cannot provide a proper map for navigating reality.
"
This places the emphasis of a world view insisting on metaphysic evil - and as the first quote highlighted a bold emphasis on evil ("supernatural evil"), I was wondering if you meant that the supernatural evil's end of the spectrum would be the more objective view.
I hope that my question is clear! Thank you for any answer if possible, please!
I wasn’t thinking in terms of objective and not, but looking back on it, I suppose that is a good way of looking at it. You have a spectrum from denying evil (false) to scientific acceptance (better) to metaphysical acceptance (best).
Thank you much for your answer which (sorry!) answers my question
If I may ask a sub-sequent one, please:
You said:
"
Like the psychological worldview, bad metaphysics cannot provide a proper map for navigating reality.
"
I am not sure, but it would mean that Lobaczewski's model is the "psychological world view" you refer to
(which would be even less exhaustive than a world view more focusing on metaphysical evil)
Thank you!