I’ve previously written about social predators, people whose primary mode of life consists, not of creating value, but of transferring value created by other people to themselves—
Great post! Though, I think your point about therapy misses some nuance. People do sometimes get attached to video game NPC, just like they get attached to book or movie characters. So it wouldn't surprise me if someone was receptive to therapy from one. Also, some people find therapy from AI chatbots helpful, and those are much like NPCs.
I don't expect this to work on psychopaths, though. You have to be receptive to therapy for it to work, but psychopaths don't want to stop being psychopaths.
I think the animal example falls flat. Maybe the utilitarian calculus says buying meat at the supermarket and murdering someone yourself are the same, but they are completely different experiences, murdering someone being something requiring an unusual mentality that being a meat eater simply does not. You can't understand anything about being a killer simply by eating meat.
Now, if you slay the animal yourself, that would be closer.
I think pointing out the wild leap from eating meat, where you are uncertain about where it comes from or do know it is factory farmed, to murdering someone like Ted Bundy did was needed. They are not analogous. Same reason as actually murdering someone and being an accomplice are different cases.
While meat eating is tangential to this article, I do find it interesting. I think we have to start with the base case for a prey animal. It lives out in the wild where it will die from sickness, old age, and being killed and eaten by a predator. Perhaps a combination of some or all three. That base case has an amount of suffering and fear. I think any ethical person wants to maximize well being and reduce suffering for any living creature.
The base case and premise allows us to judge various scenarios:
I believe any rational and honest person would conclude factory farming is unethical and should be abolished. The hard part is “how?”. We can leave that to a different conversation.
Next is regular farming. Farmers raising animals that graze freely, live in open ranges, and what a lot of people would picture as a “real farm”. Often coined ethical farming. From the farms I have seen and read about, it seems these animal have a better well being than the base case. Basically farmers take good care of them until a swift and minimal suffering death is given.
Last would be a hunter who kills their own animal for food. This seems to match the base case at worst and potentially be slightly better by providing a quick death. Hunters are usually concerned with how they kill the animal and try to minimize fear and suffering. An arrow or bullet would seem preferable to being eaten alive.
Killing animals for fun or to torture them and then kill them seems to be the early indications and hallmarks of serial killers and psychopaths. Therefore I don’t see that as a scenario worth going through since it’s an aberration.
There is the fascinating case of David Wood, who was a diagnosed sociopath who nearly killed his dad, but has since become a Christian apologist (mostly against Muslims). I think he’s is a rare case of a rehabilitated sociopath.
I think he’s the perfect anti-Muslim apologist because the Muslims online are unhinged, and he doesn’t really experience emotions much so it probably doesn’t bother him.
Are we justified in giving retributive punishments to sociopaths? If it doesn't appear to them that the pain of others is bad, then they aren't justified in thinking that causing pain is wrong. Isn't this like punishing an animal that has no ability to tell right from wrong?
If we aren't justified in retributively punishing sociopaths then deterrence is the only justification for such punishment. Should we punish sociopaths less than we punish normal people? We should punish normal people proportionally to their wrongdoing and the necessity of deterrence but with sociopaths there is only the latter consideration.
I don't know about retribution, but I think we have to keep them locked up pretty much for life, and I think this is generally how they're viewed in the criminal justice system. It's almost impossible to rehabilitate them.
Could be that retributive punishment is actually never justified, and only instrumental punishment can ever be morally legitimate, so for both psychopaths and normal people the only consideration should be deterrence
Great post! Though, I think your point about therapy misses some nuance. People do sometimes get attached to video game NPC, just like they get attached to book or movie characters. So it wouldn't surprise me if someone was receptive to therapy from one. Also, some people find therapy from AI chatbots helpful, and those are much like NPCs.
I don't expect this to work on psychopaths, though. You have to be receptive to therapy for it to work, but psychopaths don't want to stop being psychopaths.
What percentage of politicians and journalists do you think are predators?
I think the animal example falls flat. Maybe the utilitarian calculus says buying meat at the supermarket and murdering someone yourself are the same, but they are completely different experiences, murdering someone being something requiring an unusual mentality that being a meat eater simply does not. You can't understand anything about being a killer simply by eating meat.
Now, if you slay the animal yourself, that would be closer.
I think pointing out the wild leap from eating meat, where you are uncertain about where it comes from or do know it is factory farmed, to murdering someone like Ted Bundy did was needed. They are not analogous. Same reason as actually murdering someone and being an accomplice are different cases.
While meat eating is tangential to this article, I do find it interesting. I think we have to start with the base case for a prey animal. It lives out in the wild where it will die from sickness, old age, and being killed and eaten by a predator. Perhaps a combination of some or all three. That base case has an amount of suffering and fear. I think any ethical person wants to maximize well being and reduce suffering for any living creature.
The base case and premise allows us to judge various scenarios:
I believe any rational and honest person would conclude factory farming is unethical and should be abolished. The hard part is “how?”. We can leave that to a different conversation.
Next is regular farming. Farmers raising animals that graze freely, live in open ranges, and what a lot of people would picture as a “real farm”. Often coined ethical farming. From the farms I have seen and read about, it seems these animal have a better well being than the base case. Basically farmers take good care of them until a swift and minimal suffering death is given.
Last would be a hunter who kills their own animal for food. This seems to match the base case at worst and potentially be slightly better by providing a quick death. Hunters are usually concerned with how they kill the animal and try to minimize fear and suffering. An arrow or bullet would seem preferable to being eaten alive.
Killing animals for fun or to torture them and then kill them seems to be the early indications and hallmarks of serial killers and psychopaths. Therefore I don’t see that as a scenario worth going through since it’s an aberration.
There is the fascinating case of David Wood, who was a diagnosed sociopath who nearly killed his dad, but has since become a Christian apologist (mostly against Muslims). I think he’s is a rare case of a rehabilitated sociopath.
I think he’s the perfect anti-Muslim apologist because the Muslims online are unhinged, and he doesn’t really experience emotions much so it probably doesn’t bother him.
https://youtu.be/jb2ggj9mKM0?si=212jb_eUjfR1C-co
Are we justified in giving retributive punishments to sociopaths? If it doesn't appear to them that the pain of others is bad, then they aren't justified in thinking that causing pain is wrong. Isn't this like punishing an animal that has no ability to tell right from wrong?
If we aren't justified in retributively punishing sociopaths then deterrence is the only justification for such punishment. Should we punish sociopaths less than we punish normal people? We should punish normal people proportionally to their wrongdoing and the necessity of deterrence but with sociopaths there is only the latter consideration.
I don't know about retribution, but I think we have to keep them locked up pretty much for life, and I think this is generally how they're viewed in the criminal justice system. It's almost impossible to rehabilitate them.
Could be that retributive punishment is actually never justified, and only instrumental punishment can ever be morally legitimate, so for both psychopaths and normal people the only consideration should be deterrence