@adam-l

Ah, yes, FMRI studies. Perhaps we can get one which identifies the region of the brain associated with the tendency to be easily impressed with trumped-up FMRI studies.

But, if we assume this MIGHT be true, and speculate, it's worth noting that sensitivity to DISGUST is/was a precursor to national socialism at its most basic level.

There's a reason why Hitler bathed at least twice a day, why one of the first things the nazis did when they came to power was fumigate all the factories, why nazi rhetoric likens the aryan state to a body, and undesirables such as the jews to parasites, diseases, or poisons infecting that body.

And there is a reason why the specific gas used to murder jews, gypsies, etc, was a pesticide.

Nazism isn't a COLLAPSE of civilization, order, or morality. It is a disorder of TOO MUCH morality. It is "morality" (tribalism) taken to its furthest extreme... absolute solidarity and cooperation with the ingroup, absolute hostility to outsiders.

A psychopath is, in some ways, the opposite of a nazi. He has no identification with an in-group, and no solidarity with one. This makes him more dangerous in some ways. But he also has no identification of out-groups, and no baked in hostility towards them. This makes him less dangerous in others.

A psychopath will stab an individual jew while robbing his jewelry store, but he will never organize a program to systematically gas all the jews... because his brain doesn't work that way.

You can describe a psychopath as "amoral", but if we view that statement through the lens of my argument that morality is actually tribalism, then this means that a psychopath is actually "atribal". He has no in-group and no out-group. He feels no instinctive solidarity with the one, and no instinctive hostility towards the other.

Why not? No empathy. The function of morality/tribalism is to dial up empathy towards certain targets, and dial up antipathy (reverse empathy) towards others. But the psychopath's empathy for (almost) everyone is neither positive nor negative. It's zero.

@RedPirate751

perhaps psychopaths don't entirely lack morality

ME Thomas, tested at 99% psychopath, explicitly states that she cannot grasp "the heart of morality". She cognitively recognizes its usefulness, though, so she latches onto religion as, as she puts it, "my prosthetic morality".

this psychologist who wrote a book called "The Wisdom of Psychopaths".

The book was a drag, couldn't finish it.

It turns out that this guy had a psychopath father, whom he never managed to de-pedestalize. It's interesting, because his book has a try-hard prose that totally lacks charisma. It's painfully obvious that he admires the "vitality" of the psychopath (he sometimes "wax poetically" about them), in a blind effort to reclaim that which was stollen from him: his own vitality. He can't see how having a psychopath father turned him into a dry drone.

@Whisper

OK so we agree that morality is a thing, a construct, that psychopaths, for better or worse, lack. We also agree that it can be "loaded" with either good or bad things.

Up to now, though, we are still in blank-slatism.

The problem with that is that, as evolutionary psychologists put it, cognitive structures are "content rich". They are not blank slates.

So morality actually comes pre-programmed, to a degree, even if this program is enriched later by society - or even overriden, for that matter.

Then I can make an argument against post-modern ultra-relativism, i.e. in favor of pro-social initial programming in that genetic morality program, which is exactly what the psychopaths lack. But I'll leave it at that, it would take the discussion a bit too far for our space in this medium.

Only one more point. There are people in all societies that can connect with and implement our generic pro-sociality. It if weren't for them, psychopaths would have a strong point. But they always existed...

@adam-l

Try a different worldview.

Imagine, for a moment, that right and wrong are not engraved in tiny letters on the surface of every proton and neutron. Imagine that they are a matter of fiat. Imagine that they are opinion writ large, even if what they are written on is sometimes DNA.

Now imagine that systems of morality do not serve the function of discerning what "is" right and wrong, but that they serve the function of "convincing a whole bunch of people to behave the same way".

That "way to behave" can be anything. It can be "don't stab your neighbors". It can be "mind your own business". It can be "beat drums at the rising of Nomo". It can be "eliminate the jews from society". It can be "place all production assets under the control of some politicians".

If you imagine this, you are able to picture a world where nazism and communism aren't "against morality". They ARE systems of morality. They are only against OTHER systems of morality, of which there can be an infinite number.

Genocidal moralities like nazism and communism, then, would not be artifacts of the psychopathic mind. Quite the opposite. Genocidal ideologies invent moral excuses for murder.

And psychopaths don't NEED to do that. They are able to murder without excuse.

If a psychopath wishes to rob a jew, he does not need to first convince himself that jews are a cancer, a parasite infecting the body of the pure aryan society. He simply says to himself, "I want what he has". He has no need of a genocidal rationalization to turn off his empathy for the jew, so that he may rob and murder him. The psychopath's empathy is already turned off.

A psychopath does not need communism, because communism is an excuse for robbery and murder, and the psychopath is perfectly willing to admit to himself that he robs and murders for no higher calling than his own personal benefit.

History's greatest atrocities are NOT committed by psychopaths. They are committed by people who believe, truly believe, that there good guys and bad guys, and they are the good guys.

Psychopaths don't believe in good guys and bad guys. They just believe there are a bunch of guys.

It is, however, quite possible for a psychopath to spread, or even invent, systems of moral belief, but he himself will secretly not believe in them. However, he does not spread or invent genocidal ideologies with any more enthusiasm or efficiency than non-psychopaths.

In other words, within a system of morality that advocates seizing the means of production, non-psychopaths murder entrepreneurs with just as much vigor, enthusiasm, and dedication as psychopaths, if not more. Probably more.

In conclusion, psychopath does not mean "person who does stuff Adam-I thinks to be bad". It means "person who is unable to feel the emotions of others".