Are "Psychopaths" Evil?

[Frank Todd]

The WHO (world health organization) defines Pychopathy as:

 

"a person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc."

 

Now most people envision this as those serial killers who run all hicklety-picklety stabbing and murdering people "just cause"... Which is in fact more on the lines of sociopathic behavior, and is attributed to hollywoods vision of crazy.

 

Now I want to know what you guys think... Are "Psycopaths"/sociopaths evil? 

 

Which would beg the question, does this make those with mental health problems have the capacity of Evil?

 

I wanna know the standards that you guys attribute to this.

[Sketchy]

I mean, I would think the actions of a person dictate whether they are evil more than anything.

 

 

If the psychopath doesn't go around stabbing people, then no, assuming they aren't evil in some other way.

[Frank Todd]

I mean, I would think the actions of a person dictate whether they are evil more than anything.

 

 

If the psychopath doesn't go around stabbing people, then no, assuming they aren't evil in some other way.

Well that's under the assumptions of someone who has a concept of Morality. Psychopaths by definition have no concept of that (due to it being a man-made concept). So would someone who has no grasp of that be evil?

[Sketchy]

Well that's under the assumptions of someone who has a concept of Morality. Psychopaths by definition have no concept of that (due to it being a man-made concept). So would someone who has no grasp of that be evil?

 

I don't think it really matters. Either they aren't doing terrible things, in which case I don't care, or they are.

 

Psychopaths who commit crimes are like gangrenous limbs, you can't fix them so the best thing for the rest of the body, or in this case society, is to cut them off.

[SoS]

Well that's under the assumptions of someone who has a concept of Morality. Psychopaths by definition have no concept of that (due to it being a man-made concept). So would someone who has no grasp of that be evil?

Psychopaths do have a concept of morality. They're not oblivious to what's right and wrong. They don't have emotions or the social instinct that comes with emotions. They are instead purely rational and of course that leads to egocentric motives. With no love for anyone, no need of anyone (other than to use them), no fear, or anger - it's all business to them. Cost vs reward, risk and consequences. These are the basis of morality. Doing/not doing something by weighing risk/reward. And, they are more likely to be successful in every aspect of life, because they do exactly the same dirty stuff everyone else does but they do it better because they have no guilt eating at them. I think only an animal with an intact social instinct is capable of evil, through acting contradictory to that instinct. A psychopath cannot help but see other humans as objects, like anything else in this world. You might as well be a rock as far as they're concerned. A person that is incapable of caring about another person can't do anything evil, just like a lion eating a person can't be called evil.

 

A sociopath is totally different.

[Frank Todd]

Psychopaths do have a concept of morality. They're not oblivious to what's right and wrong. They don't have emotions or the social instinct that comes with emotions. They are instead purely rational and of course that leads to egocentric motives. With no love for anyone, no need of anyone (other than to use them), no fear, or anger - it's all business to them. Cost vs reward, risk and consequences. These are the basis of morality. Doing/not doing something by weighing risk/reward. And, they are more likely to be successful in every aspect of life, because they do exactly the same dirty stuff everyone else does but they do it better because they have no guilt eating at them. I think only an animal with an intact social instinct is capable of evil, through acting contradictory to that instinct. A psychopath cannot help but see other humans as objects, like anything else in this world. You might as well be a rock as far as they're concerned. A person that is incapable of caring about another person can't do anything evil, just like a lion eating a person can't be called evil.

 

A sociopath is totally different.

 

But wouldn't your "Just like a lion eating a person" example kinda give creedance to Psychopaths not having a sense of morality. You can't compare them to moral-less animals and then say they have morality. Or call them rocks either, Rocks don't have morals as well, and granted I'm splitting hairs.

 

My old job had me working with "psychopaths" and I can tell you first hand that their understanding of our morals is more-so them understanding what the word means in terms of a definition, but not knowing what the word truly means (if that makes sense). Like they know that the word means: "concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character." but they have no higher understanding of what IT IS to be right or wrong in the sense of good and bad. I've noticed the difference between the two is usually an understanding of social cue's. Idk, like Psychopaths understand what it is to be in a group (morals aside) and how to stay blending in, while sociopaths tend to not get any cues and could care less for the group dynamic.

 

And this isn't to say that all psychopaths are like this, just as there is shades of autism and so forth. 

[SoS]

Comparing them to moral-less animals is to say that you can't ascribe evilness to them.

 

I cannot imagine where you worked with psychopaths, unless it was a prison???

 

Yes, they have a cognitive understanding of morals. But, they have more than that. They experience good and bad, just like a human. They want to seek good and avoid bad, just like a human. Those motives are the entirety of morality. Morality is nothing more than that.

 

The "higher understanding" of morality is altruism. Altruism has been proven to be a self serving adaptation, tho.

[Big Brother]

What is evil? Does a universally accepted definition of evil exist? It seems to me that whether you judge something as evil or not depends on what you personally consider to be evil and if what is judged to be evil is dependent on subjective, personal judgment then claiming that something is evil is merely an expression of your own morality and your own disapproval of whatever it is that you consider to be evil in a moral sense.

 

I don't think there's such a thing as evil in the objective world, I think evil is just a constructed term people use to express disapproval of something judged by their own personal moral code to be bad. I believe psychopaths posses such a code but that because they are psychopaths their moral code could potentially be wildly different, placing emphasis and importance on entirely different things in order to judge what is good and bad when compared to the moral codes of "regular people".

[SoS]

Bad stimuli is evil. Excessive good stimuli that potentially leads to bad results is evil.

 

People like jesus have determined we live in a shit world. And, that the worm-brain morals aren't moral enough. You must deny yourself good stimuli, as well. You must detach from your worm-brain. The worm-brain became associated with evil.

 

I'm not sure if psychopaths are less than or more than emotion possessing humans. Emotions are an adaptation that helps humans obtain good and avoid bad. Psychopaths are masters of mimicking and utilizing emotions, while suffering none of the weaknesses or negative effects of having emotions. It's possible psychopathy is an evolutionary advantage.

 

Good and bad stimuli is relatively universal. Evil and morality is relatively universal. The ends are the same, only the means are different.

[Thalmor]

Are "Psycopaths"/sociopaths evil?

 

Not fundamentally, but their lack of empathy and their disregard for others does lead them to eventually harm others knowingly (possibly more so than normal people).

 

In my lineage, there was a lot of psychopaths on my mother's side of the family. In fact, both of my grandparents on my mother's side could be considered psychopaths. My mother broke that line, though. She's the sweetest, most generous person I know. I also wouldn't think of myself as one.

[Doktor Avalanche]

I dated several Psychopaths and evil is subjective.

[Frank Todd]

I dated several Psychopaths and evil is subjective.

I hear you there, and agree.

 

Evil is subjective.

ditto.

[WISD0MTREE]

I dated several Psychopaths and evil is subjective.

I dated one. She spit in my face and kicked me in the shin one day. I don't know why. 

[SoS]

I dated several Psychopaths and evil is subjective.

Maybe they were just Scorpios. You're more likely to find a woman who can multi-orgasm (5%) than a psychopath (1%)

 

Come to think of it - all the women I ever dated are evil psychopaths in hindsight.

[Thalmor]

Maybe they were just Scorpios. You're more likely to find a woman who can multi-orgasm (5%) than a psychopath (1%)

 

Come to think of it - all the women I ever dated are evil psychopaths in hindsight.

 

Astrology has absolutely nothing to do with it. My great-grandfather on my mother's side was extremely cruel to his wife and children, and he was a Capricorn. I'm a Capricorn as well, but I'm pretty cordial to everyone I come across and I'm very generous of a person.

[Ekejen Luish]

Saying all psychopaths are evil and that they don't have feelings or any morality is evil.

[Sailor Jerry]

I dated one. She spit in my face and kicked me in the shin one day. I don't know why. 

I can't believe you don't remember.......It was because you told her that her brother was hotter than she was!!!  Man, what funny weird day that was!

[SoS]

Astrology has absolutely nothing to do with it. My great-grandfather on my mother's side was extremely cruel to his wife and children, and he was a Capricorn. I'm a Capricorn as well, but I'm pretty cordial to everyone I come across and I'm very generous of a person.

How many left-handed people do you despise? How many normal people?

 

One case doesn't alter stereotypes.

[Doktor Avalanche]

How many left-handed people do you despise? How many normal people?

 

One case doesn't alter stereotypes.

Except Italians. Every Psychopath I dated happened to be Italian- well, okay, not true. I dated one Sicilian.

I ended up marrying a Daughter of a Founding Father.

[King Zog]

Actions are evil; as a rule, people are not. I didn't believe this until I took a test to identify psychopathology, scored surprisingly high, but then pointed out to the person administering the test that I'd never committed a crime, was honest in my dealings with people and so on. Turns out it's uncommon, but not particularly rare. (I have pointed a loaded weapon at someone with the intention of killing them, however. It didn't bother me then. It still doesn't. Take from that what you will.)

 

There are all sorts of 'high-functioning psychopaths' out there. And be grateful for it.

 

You're going to have a delicate surgical procedure done. Do you want your doctor to be a caring, loving professional or a driven borderline psychopath? I'll take Dr. Psychopath.