know it's wrong

[overocea]

whilst researching my criminology essay I frequently come across:
psychopathy, the term forensic psychology uses to refer to something almost the equivalent to antisocial personality disorder; put simply, someone with no remorse, empathy or conscience.

conscience!
1. The awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one's conduct together with the urge to prefer right over wrong.
2. A source of moral or ethical judgment or pronouncement.
3. Conformity to one's own sense of right conduct.

definitions of words thoroughly confuse me, because words seem far more than their literal meanings. my dictionary would have at least two pages per word.

conscience. of course it is difficult in a world of a thousand various forms of parent per person to not have grown up to know the difference between right and wrong, the consequences of them both and the collective one's preference between the two. thus when choosing between right and wrong, justifications aside, one almost invariably knows which is which!
the knowledge alone can't be conscience, as psychopaths know what is wrong, they just choose wrong anyway.

are remorse, guilt, shame, pity, empathy, moral outrage! self-disgust/reproach, et cetera part of conscience?
if you know to murder is wrong, yet feel no shame, remorse or empathy and commit it anyway, you've no conscience. obvious.
if you know murder is wrong, yet would feel shame, remorse or empathy and commit it anyway... your conscience is a pussy and your id reigns supreme.

if you know murder is wrong, yet would feel no shame, remorse or empathy, yet do not commit it because you know it's wrong?

Comments

Imporrible

[(Anonymous)]

EXactly... it's a chicken-egg debate, without the insights of biology. Do we humans, as we grow in experience of the myriad possible actions we are capable of, evaluate those possible acts rationally and emotionally, and then use our evaluations to build a "right/wrong" concept? Or, does that right/wrong concept simply exist, and we humans, as we grow in our experience of possible actions, tend to catagorize those actions according to our feelings, which are deriving for our muddled awareness of the pure right/wrong?

I don't believe it can be proven either way (audible sigh from the rafters). The problem for me lies in the popular (and to my mind, inaccurate) classification of morality as only applying to behavior. Without allowing yourself to complete a mental image of yourself committing an act, are you able to first feel malevolent towards someone, and then guilty for feeling that way, even though you have committed no act, and contemplated no specific behavior? Opponents might argue that even without imagining the behavior, you are associating the feeling with immoral acts, which is in turn driving your emotional response. But what if you knew... KNEW that you were completely restrained from ever committing any immoral act against a particular person... do you still think you'd be capable of guilt? Or is it just that your id isn't registering the impossibility of action, and is feeling pre-emptive guilt anyway?

Never you mind... I won't rock the boat. We'll discuss morality as applying to behaviors, if only because any oither discourse would be IMPORRIBLE (I super-love that word)... and ultimately self-defeating. The fact is, we'll never know. What remains are two arguments for universal morality: faith, and practicality. I won't waste time on faith, because it can't be argued for or against.

Practicality on the other hand, has its points to make. If moral relativists have truly hit the nail on the head, then moral codes are a function of learned behaviors as to what is acceptable and what is not. The nasty thing is the "pass the buck" effect - someone else can always be blamed for your upbringing.

Moral absolutists have no "pass the buck" effect... they feel bound to their higher values, and responsible only for their own actions. Their limitations lie in the sticky wicket of morality as applying to specific behavior, which may change from time to time. They would find themselves unable to adapt to new ideas. Actually, the evidence supports that most people (over 20) act as if they're in this category - unable to accept new social behaviors that they didn't accept as children.

Utilitarianists split the decision - they essentially measure morality by the greater good, reasoning that the only absolute moral code is to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Very democratic, but it has been the reaonsing behind many of the more well-publicized atrocities throughout history.

So, ramblerambleramble i go, and come finally back to practicality. Absolute morality is easiest. When someone commits an act, you don't have to mitigate by their upbringing, or their knowledge, or the fact that no one told them it was wrong... you just judge their actions. So what does this do to our definition of murder? Nothing. We just pigeonhole our definition to exclude those acts we find appropriate (self defenSe, etc.), and go from there. Simple, practical, and clean... a morality you can take to the bank.

(OK, did I really type all that? Sorry... I'm seeing this the next day, and can't believe that I put down all this. Still, it's definitely an idea... maybe.)

[basement.livejournal.com]

it only makes sense to apply morality to behaviour, for you have perfect control over it. it's much more difficult to exert such control over thought, or the emotion that leads to thought. to say that to feel lust or envy is immoral, why it's stupid. of course people do feel guilt over such feelings, but they're stupid (go on, argue with that). everyone has or will at some point feel both lust and envy. of course i'm still quite confused about envy, so maybe not that. the point being that everyone has experienced "immoral" thoughts or feelings, hence, based on that idea, immorality is innate. now for the part I can never adequately express, even my gemini twin didn't understand: if every person is immoral, then immorality, at least in that context, ceases to exist.

can't resist attempting the.. uh, imporrible.

regarding the universal/relative morality debate, i'll faithfully assume you didn't simply side with universal because it's easier! it's also easy to blame behaviour on genetics, but when the conscienceless take the stand to claim, "genes made me do it," that will be just as difficult as "my parents made me." it's parallel to all nature/nurture debates that will continue to be pointlessly argued until our downfall, and i've essays to write. :

mmm, that analogy doesn't quite fit.
punishment to fit the crime as opposed to the criminal may be easier, but it's surely not as fair.