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

[smokyeyes.livejournal.com]

I do not have a conscience.
Because of that, I don't think that anything is wrong. I just think that people have preference, there are likes and dislikes, I would not like to be raped, but that doesn't make it wrong.
The world is too large with too many opinions for one universal inherent set of wrongs and rights I think.

another factor; how I adore people.

[basement.livejournal.com]

knowing right from wrong doesn't mean you agree with it. so if you know to murder is wrong, yet feel no shame, remorse or empathy because you do not agree with it, and commit it anyway, you've no conscience.
if you know to murder is wrong, yet feel no shame, etc, yet do not know if you agree with it, but feel you must because the majority does... .   I don't like pain, and would not like someone to inflict pain on me. so someone would not like me to inflict pain upon them. so it is wrong. how could I not agree with that, I must.

I should think about this after my 3 pieces of major assessment are done.

[vwip.livejournal.com]

I've just stumbled on this article, some of which might be interesting.

Hello.

[atiffairytale.livejournal.com]

Hi. This is Tiffany @erutanie.com. Instead of emailing (again), I just wanted to write a quick not here, mentioning that I really like your personal site and blah, blah, blah....

Do you ever get sick of hearing that? Heh.

Have a lovely day.

=)
Tiff

[stopworth.livejournal.com]

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.

--stop.

lovlie as always

[(Anonymous)]

Pardon... I was just allowing your discussion to brighten my dreary little day, and thought I'd contribute (or de-tribute... is there a word for a gift that can make someone worse off? there should be.)

Anywhoosit... I wanted to toss in a couple thoughts on murder. Like everything else (so it seems), it's all about entitlement and theft: taking what you do not deserve. So, it's only wrong if you subscribe to a non-anarchist ideology that holds that people generally deserve their lives more than you do. Yes, it (and other property rights) do tend to maintain the status quo, but that does not defeat the concept of a universal standard of right and wrong. The problem is that people get altogether too hung up on trying to define a moral state by what actions fit into it, much as one might try to define a God by It's followers. When they can't come up with a "bright line" formula for judging a person's actions, they conclude that right and wrong must not be absolute, just conveniences or necessities of society.

My theory is that right and wrong are certainly absolute concepts: it is our actions that are muddled (see Plato's Theory of the Forms). Right and wrong exist regardless of our awareness of them, and it is that awareness that is imperfect.

So, do right and wrong exist for those who aren't aware of them? At the risk of sparking a "tree falling in the forest" debate, I would have to say yes. How do I know this? I just do. How can I prove it? I just can't. I just believe that feelings like joy and remorse are real, and driven by considerations greater than neurotransmitters.

That's it, yo'... hopefully no one out there feels 'stupider' for having been subjected to this. Be well.



Also, please don't think that just because I speak in certainties that I'm sure all my ideas are right... I have always held that if you're not willing to speak with conviction, you shouldn't say anything.





BTW, Jess- sweet site. I have come to rely on it for my daily dose of unreality.

[(Anonymous)]

Nice site, killer *solen* graphics :)

[ericaamericka.livejournal.com]

No, a psychopath, or sociopath, does not know which is which. They commit murders because it's what's fun for them, and they don't realize that it has conequences. They don't choose to do something because it's wrong or choose not do something because it's right, they choose to do whatever works best for them because they don't realize that there's a difference between the two.

get the fuck out the kitchen, eh?

[(Anonymous)]

(you're burning the salad.)

http://www.absintheliquor.com/

(swedish essence ..a bit more pleasant than steep.)

right on your face:

[(Anonymous)]

Right Turn
~Alice In Chains

Inside
Always trying to get back
Inside

(But it's so hard to penetrate pig-thick skin.)

I'm 'bout as low as I can get
I'd leave but I can't forget
Still I wonder why it ain't right,
Mmm, it ain't right.

Bout as low as she can get
She'll leave me but she won't forget
And she wonders why she ain't right,
She ain't right.

Now we're as low as we can get
Can't leave and can't forget
We ain't right
Not right.

Well it's hard to believe
Somebody tricked you
When you can see you were only high
It's all up to you
So you gamble
Right on your face and into the fire.

--`-/--@

(I'll always love you. Would have rather you stabbed me in the ass than go sleep with that kid from the cafe.)

But, then.. we're all prone to madness, given the right circumstances.
Wish you ..weren't so proud.

btw

[(Anonymous)]

i've been able to access your website for months, so it's
pretty pointless to keep blocking and banning me.

(the fact is i never go there. not interested.)

these little mails you've been getting from me lately are, simply, what you could call ..closing statements, i guess?

i'm done stressing over you. you're a backstabbing ho, jess.
any way you look at it. Pretty.......Pointless.

i do love you, though. like no other.

:)

[aluminumdreams.livejournal.com]

i attract and am attracted to psychopaths.



how about yourself?

poopface.

[(Anonymous)]

!

you still know it's wrong, huh?

[(Anonymous)]

i'll still make a cartoon with you :)

unless i meet a girl with horses

[(Anonymous)]

.

i dream about you all the time..

[(Anonymous)]

:(