these lines you draw use broad, broad strokes. no act exists in a vacuum, the context defines the act as much as the intrinsic qualities of the act. that sounds like roundabout bs, but it's not.
murder is not murder if it's war. outright murder can be an ethical and moral act if it saves lives.
conscience and consciencelessness are not like opposites. some people blame themselves for a lot of things. others accept almost no blame. the article refereed to below admits the topic is "hotly debated," but psychology is still somewhat pseudo-scientific, and Tim Watkin's definition of psychopathy as "a personality disorder characterised by... ...things of that sort" does not ring of airtight double-blind reproducible fact.
IMHO, Tim Watkin's a nut who thinks he's right and has stopped allowing for the possibility that he's not. One thing's for certain--it's not science. no one can know that murder is wrong, because murder's not wrong. it's only wrong in certain cases. in most cases it is wrong, so we say "it's wrong to murder."
some people truly believe that murder is always wrong, but that requires a logical fallacy at some point, which also demonstrates the fact that right and wrong are not switches flipped. if someone is forced to choose between killing one person or killing two people--if both acts are wrong, which path is chosen? the one which is less wrong, and thus more right.
so etc, etc, right and wrong are contextually defined, people who commit murder remorselessly are just exercising self-lying muscles the way everyone can when necessary. logical fallacies make it possible to survive, but everything's double-edged.
right and wrong certainly exist. the knowledge of right and wrong do not encompass conscience, like you said. instead, the conscience is the voice that says you should act based on your knowledge or right and wrong. the volume of that voice is now as conscientiousness, or scrupulousness. there are other bases for action, such as "how it will affect others," or consideration, "how it will affect me," or self-interest. it's hard to rank them.
that may be incoherent and rambling, but man, it's fun to think hard.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-09-29 11:04 am (UTC)murder is not murder if it's war. outright murder can be an ethical and moral act if it saves lives.
conscience and consciencelessness are not like opposites. some people blame themselves for a lot of things. others accept almost no blame. the article refereed to below admits the topic is "hotly debated," but psychology is still somewhat pseudo-scientific, and Tim Watkin's definition of psychopathy as "a personality disorder characterised by... ...things of that sort" does not ring of airtight double-blind reproducible fact.
IMHO, Tim Watkin's a nut who thinks he's right and has stopped allowing for the possibility that he's not. One thing's for certain--it's not science. no one can know that murder is wrong, because murder's not wrong. it's only wrong in certain cases. in most cases it is wrong, so we say "it's wrong to murder."
some people truly believe that murder is always wrong, but that requires a logical fallacy at some point, which also demonstrates the fact that right and wrong are not switches flipped. if someone is forced to choose between killing one person or killing two people--if both acts are wrong, which path is chosen? the one which is less wrong, and thus more right.
so etc, etc, right and wrong are contextually defined, people who commit murder remorselessly are just exercising self-lying muscles the way everyone can when necessary. logical fallacies make it possible to survive, but everything's double-edged.
right and wrong certainly exist. the knowledge of right and wrong do not encompass conscience, like you said. instead, the conscience is the voice that says you should act based on your knowledge or right and wrong. the volume of that voice is now as conscientiousness, or scrupulousness. there are other bases for action, such as "how it will affect others," or consideration, "how it will affect me," or self-interest. it's hard to rank them.
that may be incoherent and rambling, but man, it's fun to think hard.
--stop.