2008-04-21 - Yeah, I'm okay wit dat ...

[BloodHenge]

So basically, all this boils down to "evil people do evil things"?

No, it's "evil is a form of insanity". That is, that being disposed to judge bad things as good is comparable to being disposed to judge false things as true, and insanity is any such disposition toward incorrect judgements. Of course, insanity comes in degrees, so if we want to label people into dual categories of "sane" and "insane", only those who are quite strongly disposed thusly will get the "insane" label, and the rest of us who are only slightly disposed toward such misjudgements get to call ourselves sane, even though we're all a little crazy sometimes.

But here you've introduced the concept of "moral insanity", which is completely different from "cognitive insanity" which is how the term "insanity" is generally used. The same way that you introduced "moral crime" as being distinct from "legislative crime". You can't be wrong because your thesis is a definition-- "Those who commit moral crimes are morally insane." And as far as I can tell, it's not really a definition that tells us anything.

[runic]

i've seen insanity defined as being structures in a person that are so inflexible as to be immobile. what that means is that the person behaves the way that they do without basing it upon observations or even their own thought processes.

so really it has nothing to do with:

ethics: a branch of philosophy encompassing right conduct and good life

or

morals: the learning process of distinguishing between virtues and vices.

[Tiamat]

Moral relativism is easily confounded.

Actually, I take issue with that as a core principle. There is no moral rectitude. I have seen too much evil perpetrated by the morally [in]correct. Remember, Hitler didn't think he was an evil man and even thought that he was doing good in the world. No, spare me the morally righteous. So, if you are going to say that there is no moral relativism then you are going to have to prove it.

Alright. I should be studying for my microeconomic theory exam, but I'm tired of doing that and this really is a good exercise for the paper I have due on Tuesday in my global ethics class.

Moral relativism's basic premise is that morality is subject to the whims of the society of the area you're in. To use your example of Nazi Germany (spare me Godwin's Law, please), according to moral relativism, in Germany in 194x it was morally acceptable to kill Jews, mentally deficient individuals, homosexuals, and to a lesser extent the physically disabled. This is because Hitler was able to make the German society believe that this was so. Furthermore, it was morally wrong for this to occur anywhere else on the planet, and at any other point in time at that same location. It was also morally wrong for us to stop it, because that means we're forcing our own moral judgments on another society.

Most people see something instinctively wrong with that, but most people used to see something instinctively wrong with the earth being round so that's a pretty bad basis on which to determine the truth of a statement.

So, deconstruction time! The first major problem I've got with moral relativism is that it makes morality completely arbitrary and based on your geological location. Through propaganda campaigns, governments can sway public opinion on a matter so that they may act with moral impunity - make people think torturing prisoners isn't so bad and suddenly torture is, in actuality, morally acceptable. Moral change exists, but moral progress doesn't. So we aren't better people for having gotten rid of slavery - we're just different. Furthermore it is impossible to judge anyone except by the standards they live under.

I feel that the biggest problem, however, is that society is very poorly defined. So moral relativism has to be either based on a geological location, which is totally arbitrary (and 'totally arbitrary' is synonymous with 'bad', in this context), or the alternative - that you call a society a group of people who share a similar set of beliefs. But since all the people in a country don't share the same set of beliefs, you either have to go with a 'majority rules' version of morality (where you can have a situation where 51% of the population thinks that X is immoral (thus making it so) and the other 49% have been and still are practicing X, making that 49% suddenly immoral even if they weren't 5 years ago.) or you figure out what everyone shares in common (often nothing) or you break groups down until you reach a level where unanimity is achieved (which usually happens when you make it to the level of one or two people per group, thus making every action performed by everyone moral because they believe it is. Cue moral anarchy).

And that's the rough argument without a hojillion examples. Now, back to economics.

P.S. If I'm one of the one's Viking was referring to earlier, then sorry - I don't intend any hostility at all, I'm just going fast and don't have time to check back over and re-word things. I tend to be rather short with my sentences when I'm in a hurry, and that comes off as being terse, which comes off as being hostile, I guess.

P.P.S. This is the only post on which I have ever used forum a smiley. Ever.

[Forrest]

But here you've introduced the concept of "moral insanity", which is completely different from "cognitive insanity" which is how the term "insanity" is generally used. The same way that you introduced "moral crime" as being distinct from "legislative crime". You can't be wrong because your thesis is a definition-- "Those who commit moral crimes are morally insane." And as far as I can tell, it's not really a definition that tells us anything.

Sociopathy is a mental disorder, a form of "insanity" (which really isn't a clinically used term these days). Sociopathy is not a failure to correctly process information, but a failure to care about something people should care about - namely, other people. Therefore, sociopathy is not a cognitive (information-processing) malfunction but a behavioral or volitional one. Sociopaths do not have defective beliefs - they are often quite rational and intelligent, cognitively speaking - but they have defective desires or motivations.

I didn't invent the diagnosis of sociopathy, therefore I did not introduce the notion of behavioral, rather than cognitive, mental illness ("insanity"). I'm merely noting that such a category exists, and that any other such malformed motivation (where this idea of "malformed motivations" depends on some notion of what people should or should not [want to] do -- that is, ethics or morals) logically falls into that category.

[BloodHenge]

But you did introduce the concept of "moral insanity", or else you would have just called it "behavioral insanity". You also don't seem to have demonstrated that "behavioral insanity" must necessarily include a moral dimension. And you appear to take for granted the fact that all immoral or amoral behavior is the result of "moral insanity", rather than a conscious decision of a rational person who just thinks he can get away with something.

[Forrest]

But you did introduce the concept of "moral insanity", or else you would have just called it "behavioral insanity".

I did call it behavioral insanity.

You also don't seem to have demonstrated that "behavioral insanity" must necessarily include a moral dimension.

Behavioral insanity is by definition a disposition to behave (rather than think) in the wrong ways; being inclined to do things you shouldn't, or not having inclinations that you should. Morality is about what you should or shouldn't do. Ergo, behavioral insanity necessarily has a moral dimension.

And you appear to take for granted the fact that all immoral or amoral behavior is the result of "moral insanity"

That is the logical consequence of the above. If you are doing something wrong, you are either cognitively misguided, wrongly believing that what you are doing will bring about good, in which case you're just making a mistake or error, unintentionally; or you are volitionally, behaviorally, morally misguided -- perfectly clear about what it is you are doing, doing what you intend to do, but having malformed intentions. The sociopathic murderer knows what he is doing and just fails to care about things he should. Logically, the same can be said about any other intentional bad act.

[Tiamat]

And you appear to take for granted the fact that all immoral or amoral behavior is the result of "moral insanity"

That is the logical consequence of the above. If you are doing something wrong, you are either cognitively misguided, wrongly believing that what you are doing will bring about good, in which case you're just making a mistake or error, unintentionally; or you are volitionally, behaviorally, morally misguided -- perfectly clear about what it is you are doing, doing what you intend to do, but having malformed intentions. The sociopathic murderer knows what he is doing and just fails to care about things he should. Logically, the same can be said about any other intentional bad act.

This is where I have a problem, right here. Sociopaths don't just 'not care' - they are incapable of caring about anyone other than themselves and a close circle of friends. That's not the same as someone who is perfectly able to differentiate and care about right and wrong willingly chosing to do something wrong. It seems to me that you want to put everyone who willingly does bad things into the same camp of 'behavioral insanity' (a term that I can't find in any psych journal, although it has put the forums in the #1 slot on Google), which is... well, honestly I think it's kind of absurd. I don't think you can put the two into the same group at all.

Would you also put people who are naturally trusting and people with Dependent Personality Disorder, which gives them a pathological need to trust others (so that they won't leave and because they feel they need someone there to help them make even the most basic decisions), into the same group?

[BloodHenge]

But you did introduce the concept of "moral insanity", or else you would have just called it "behavioral insanity".

I did call it behavioral insanity.

I must have missed the part where you equated the two.

So, is "moral insanity" a subcategory of "behavioral insanity" (or vice versa), or are they one and the same?

And is "crime" a subcategory of "moral insanity" (or vice versa), or are they one and the same?

You also don't seem to have demonstrated that "behavioral insanity" must necessarily include a moral dimension.

Behavioral insanity is by definition a disposition to behave (rather than think) in the wrong ways; being inclined to do things you shouldn't, or not having inclinations that you should. Morality is about what you should or shouldn't do. Ergo, behavioral insanity necessarily has a moral dimension.

I think you're conflating two different meanings of the word "should". The insane do things the shouldn't do, in the sense that they do things they are not expected to do. The immoral do things they shouldn't do, in the sense that they do things they are obligated not to do. (And they fail to do things they should do in the same respective senses.)

And you appear to take for granted the fact that all immoral or amoral behavior is the result of "moral insanity"

That is the logical consequence of the above. If you are doing something wrong, you are either cognitively misguided, wrongly believing that what you are doing will bring about good, in which case you're just making a mistake or error, unintentionally; or you are volitionally, behaviorally, morally misguided -- perfectly clear about what it is you are doing, doing what you intend to do, but having malformed intentions. The sociopathic murderer knows what he is doing and just fails to care about things he should. Logically, the same can be said about any other intentional bad act.

And the fact that you've listed two different methods of arriving at the same behavior ought to imply that all criminal behavior (by whatever definition of "criminal you care to use) need not necessarily spring from the same root cause.

[Forrest]

I must have missed the part where you equated the two.

AFAIK I never used the term "moral insanity" at all. Also (to Tiamat), my use of the term "behavioral insanity" is not meant to be in a technical sense like you would find in a psych journal, as "insanity" is not generally used at all in modern psychology, but people were arguing over whether Ian was insane, so I kept that language.

My point was simply to distinguish between mental disorders which are cognitive and those which are behavioral; cognitive disorders being those whereby people fail to process information correctly (which sometimes, though not necessarily, leads to improper behavior as a result), and behavioral disorders being those whereby people fail to be motivated properly (feeling like doing things they shouldn't, or not feeling like doing things they should). I'm sure you'll find the phrases "cognitive disorder" "behavioral disorder" in a psych journal somewhere.

And is "crime" a subcategory of "moral insanity" (or vice versa), or are they one and the same?

"Crime", unqualified, is just doing something the law says you shouldn't, and is completely unrelated to sanity, insanity, morality or immorality. (Unless you're a moral relativist, in which case you'll think that popular laws are identical with moral obligations).

My claim is that if you are doing something which is actually wrong (not just against the law), then one of two things are happening. In the first case, perhaps you are mistaken about the facts, and only accidentally doing something wrong, e.g. you think you are defending yourself and so you attack someone (which, let us grant, would be a morally justified act), but in fact they were no threat to you so you just mistakenly assaulted an innocent (which, let us grant, is a morally unjustified act). Alternatively, you are mis-motivated: you intend to do something, and, fully informed of the facts, you do exactly as you intend, but what it is that you intend to do is not good.

This thesis is somewhat of an extension of Plato's old and well-disputed claim that people act wrongly only out of ignorance, except I've modified it such that people act wrongly only out of ignorance or inconsideration. If you're doing something wrong, it's either because you don't know, or you don't care. There is another dimension to this as well; sometimes, you don't know something just because you didn't have that information available to you; and sometimes, you don't care about something just because it hadn't occurred to you to consider things from this or that angle. Neither of these are "insanity" or mental disorders.

But if your mind is such that, when presented with information, you fail to recognize it and process it, and you continue to hold incorrect beliefs despite clear evidence to the contrary, then you have some sort of cognitive disorder; you are out of touch with reality. Likewise, if your mind is such that, when asked to consider this or that important thing that you had not considered before (e.g. how someone else would be affected by something you're doing), and you do consider them, but you still don't care about them like you should, then you have a behavioral disorder; you are out of touch with morality.

Of course there is the caveat of who's to say what's real and what's not, what's moral and what's not? I think this is the big point of confusion here: I know perfectly well that people often do things they they know are socially disapproved of, and maybe some part of them might agree, but if they go through and do it anyway then the part of them which was behind that action clearly felt that that was the best thing to do at the time. What I'm saying is: nobody ever intentionally does something when they felt through and through that they shouldn't be doing it. I acknowledge that people have conflicted motivations, just as people often have conflicting beliefs; all I'm saying is, if the part of you that's motivated to do bad things is regularly winning out over the part of you that's motivated to do good, then something is wrong with your head. It may be temporary, there may be a sympathetic story behind it like Ian here has, or it may be a biological lifelong condition, but so long as you're in that condition you're not right in the head.

Nobody ever thinks, in the first person, that they're the bad guy. People sometimes look at themselves in the third person, back across their history at their general tendencies and behaviors, and conclude, in a saner state of mind, that they are a bad person overall. I know that feeling perfectly well; I often feel like I'm a horrible scumbag. But when I'm in a rage being a horrible scumbag, I feel righteous, I feel like I'm doing things well within my rights and giving people what they deserve. But right now, in a saner state of mind, I look back and say that when I get like that, I'm going crazy.

Alternately, people can do things which they know are "bad" in quotes, the same way that we might call a sexy girl doing "naughty" things a "bad girl". We don't actually mean, literally, bad... otherwise we wouldn't like "bad girls". (I'm gonna assume that I've got a bunch of fellow pervs here who do like "bad girls"). We're using "bad" in quotes... those girls whom people call "bad". Likewise, someone might know full well that he is a "bad guy", a person whom people consider bad, but if he doesn't take that to heart and behave differently, then he obviously doesn't consider himself truly bad.

I think you're conflating two different meanings of the word "should". The insane do things the shouldn't do, in the sense that they do things they are not expected to do. The immoral do things they shouldn't do, in the sense that they do things they are obligated not to do. (And they fail to do things they should do in the same respective senses.)

Actually that was the very thing I was disputing at the start - "insane" (or "mentally disordered" to be more technical) does not mean "atypical". Now, I'll be honest here and admit that the psychological community has not come to consensus about what exactly they count as a disorder, and there are plenty of things in there which are classified as disorders, e.g. most of the paraphilias, which are harmless even to the perpetrator and yet still included in the DSM. Part of what I'm arguing here is that those "disorders" shouldn't actually count as disorders, for what does it matter whether a behavior is typical or not, if they're not harming anyone? Typicality is a question for sociologists, not psychologists. Maybe you're likewise arguing that behavioral disorders shouldn't count as mental disorders, for what does it matter whether or not someone cares about x, y and z if they're processing the information available to them correctly, that's a matter for courts, churches or ethicists, not psychologists.

And the fact that you've listed two different methods of arriving at the same behavior ought to imply that all criminal behavior (by whatever definition of "criminal you care to use) need not necessarily spring from the same root cause.

I'm not saying that all behavior springs from the same root cause. I'm saying that the causes of all acts committed intentionally, while well-informed and in your right mind cognitively, may be categorized as being not in your right mind behaviorally. It's simple:

Every action (that is, an intentional body movement, not a reflex or any such thing) stems from a belief, perception, or other cognitive state, plus a desire, want, will, "moral belief", or other volitional state; call these beliefs and desires for short, but know that there's a big philosophical argument that I don't want to summarize here which shows those terms to be not quite accurate. Anyway...

If you perform action A, it is because you desire objective O and believe that you can achieve O by performing A.

If it turns out that "A" is a wrong action, then at least one of two things must be the case:

(1) You were incorrect about A causing O, and instead A caused something else, something bad, which you did not desire.

OR

(2) You were perfectly correct that A would cause O, but O was something bad to begin with, and yet you still desired it.

Thus, in all circumstances where you perform some bad act A and (1) is not the case, (2) is the case.

And I'm claiming that inasmuch as you desire bad things, you have some kind of mental problem, and that "mental problem" does not mean "cognitive problem" but includes purely behavioral, motivational problems in people who are perfectly able to process information rationally, e.g. sociopaths. It may be a temporary problem, it may be environmentally caused rather than biologically caused, but something is not right with the way you are forming your desires and intentions.

This means that when someone flies into an unjustified rage and wrongly kills someone, that is always a case of temporary insanity. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be held liable for the crime (and let me temporarily assume just laws here, so crime = morally prohibited act for the purposes of this paragraph). I think the whole notion of saying "oh ok, you're just a crazy murderer, not an evil murderer, so we'll let you go then" is nuts. Which is kind of my whole point: there's no difference between crazy (in this non-cognitive sense) and evil. They're the same thing. This also ties into my philosophy on punishment; retributive punishment is nonsense, punishment should serve only the purposes of restitution (for the victims) or rehabilitation (for the perpetrators). For accidental crimes, you need only restitution; only for crazy people do you need rehabilitation.

Although... looking back at the top of this post now, I realize that there really ought to be subdivisions of my propositions (1) and (2) above, and that "accidentally" and "intentionally" wrong acts do not correspond to (1) and (2), but to their respective subcategories. If your beliefs about the consequences of your actions are false or incorrect, then (1) is true, but that does not imply that you have a cognitive disorder, you may simple have been ignorant or misinformed. Likewise, if you desire a bad objective, it may not be because you have a behavioral disorder, but because you had failed to consider some of the impact and implications of your objective. But if an epistemically reasonable person would have realized the consequences of their actions given the information available to you, yet you didn't, you've got some kind of cognitive problem; and if an ethically reasonable person would not have desired that objective given the degree of consideration you gave it, yet you still desired it, then you've got some kind of behavioral problem.

[BloodHenge]

I must have missed the part where you equated the two.

AFAIK I never used the term "moral insanity" at all.

And I figured out where I got the impression that you did-- When you said that someone who performs "morally criminal" acts is insane. Somehow, I combined the two terms.

My claim is that if you are doing something which is actually wrong (not just against the law), then one of two things are happening. In the first case, perhaps you are mistaken about the facts, and only accidentally doing something wrong, e.g. you think you are defending yourself and so you attack someone (which, let us grant, would be a morally justified act), but in fact they were no threat to you so you just mistakenly assaulted an innocent (which, let us grant, is a morally unjustified act). Alternatively, you are mis-motivated: you intend to do something, and, fully informed of the facts, you do exactly as you intend, but what it is that you intend to do is not good.

This thesis is somewhat of an extension of Plato's old and well-disputed claim that people act wrongly only out of ignorance, except I've modified it such that people act wrongly only out of ignorance or inconsideration. If you're doing something wrong, it's either because you don't know, or you don't care. There is another dimension to this as well; sometimes, you don't know something just because you didn't have that information available to you; and sometimes, you don't care about something just because it hadn't occurred to you to consider things from this or that angle. Neither of these are "insanity" or mental disorders.

This is a claim I can agree with. However, I don't believe that such mis-motivation is necessarily indicative of some form of behavioral disorder.

Furthermore, to actually get back to discussing the comic, I don't think Ian is mis-motivated. Elves kill Half-Elves. Ian and everyone he's ever loved is a Half-Elf. So, in self defense, he kills Elves.

I think you're conflating two different meanings of the word "should". The insane do things the shouldn't do, in the sense that they do things they are not expected to do. The immoral do things they shouldn't do, in the sense that they do things they are obligated not to do. (And they fail to do things they should do in the same respective senses.)

Actually that was the very thing I was disputing at the start - "insane" (or "mentally disordered" to be more technical) does not mean "atypical". Now, I'll be honest here and admit that the psychological community has not come to consensus about what exactly they count as a disorder, and there are plenty of things in there which are classified as disorders, e.g. most of the paraphilias, which are harmless even to the perpetrator and yet still included in the DSM. Part of what I'm arguing here is that those "disorders" shouldn't actually count as disorders, for what does it matter whether a behavior is typical or not, if they're not harming anyone? Typicality is a question for sociologists, not psychologists. Maybe you're likewise arguing that behavioral disorders shouldn't count as mental disorders, for what does it matter whether or not someone cares about x, y and z if they're processing the information available to them correctly, that's a matter for courts, churches or ethicists, not psychologists.

I'd argue that a mental disorder is a specific variety of atypical cognition or behavior. Not all atypical behavior or cognition is (or should be) considered a disorder. However, I'm not aware of too many mental disorders that are typical. (Clinical depression probably comes close, simply by the sheer number of people who experience it, but in many individuals it is a temporary condition that persists for less than a majority of the individual's lifetime.)

Still, you say that some disorders shouldn't qualify as disorders, particularly if they don't actually hurt anyone. Then, in your opinion, someone with such a miscategorized disorder "should" understand or behave in that manner-- Such understanding or behavior conforms both to the person's obligations and to your expectations of how people behave and understand. I was referring specifically to people who behave in ways that they "shouldn't".

And the fact that you've listed two different methods of arriving at the same behavior ought to imply that all criminal behavior (by whatever definition of "criminal you care to use) need not necessarily spring from the same root cause.

I'm not saying that all behavior springs from the same root cause. I'm saying that the causes of all acts committed intentionally, while well-informed and in your right mind cognitively, may be categorized as being not in your right mind behaviorally. It's simple:

Every action (that is, an intentional body movement, not a reflex or any such thing) stems from a belief, perception, or other cognitive state, plus a desire, want, will, "moral belief", or other volitional state; call these beliefs and desires for short, but know that there's a big philosophical argument that I don't want to summarize here which shows those terms to be not quite accurate. Anyway...

If you perform action A, it is because you desire objective O and believe that you can achieve O by performing A.

If it turns out that "A" is a wrong action, then at least one of two things must be the case:

(1) You were incorrect about A causing O, and instead A caused something else, something bad, which you did not desire.

OR

(2) You were perfectly correct that A would cause O, but O was something bad to begin with, and yet you still desired it.

Thus, in all circumstances where you perform some bad act A and (1) is not the case, (2) is the case.

And I'm claiming that inasmuch as you desire bad things, you have some kind of mental problem, and that "mental problem" does not mean "cognitive problem" but includes purely behavioral, motivational problems in people who are perfectly able to process information rationally, e.g. sociopaths. It may be a temporary problem, it may be environmentally caused rather than biologically caused, but something is not right with the way you are forming your desires and intentions.

Or it may be because Human beings are physically incapable of considering all the consequences of their actions. And I don't just mean things we phsically aren't capable of predicting even if we try; I'm also referring to our tendency to marginalize people we've never met and places we've never been. But then, that might be an extension of imperfect information rather than imperfect understanding, and I'm not sure I want to get into that.

This means that when someone flies into an unjustified rage and wrongly kills someone, that is always a case of temporary insanity. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be held liable for the crime (and let me temporarily assume just laws here, so crime = morally prohibited act for the purposes of this paragraph). I think the whole notion of saying "oh ok, you're just a crazy murderer, not an evil murderer, so we'll let you go then" is nuts. Which is kind of my whole point: there's no difference between crazy (in this non-cognitive sense) and evil. They're the same thing. This also ties into my philosophy on punishment; retributive punishment is nonsense, punishment should serve only the purposes of restitution (for the victims) or rehabilitation (for the perpetrators). For accidental crimes, you need only restitution; only for crazy people do you need rehabilitation.

I agree with your conclusion about punishment, but not your choice of terms in voicing your logic at arriving at it. I agree that rehabiiltation and restitution are the two most important purposes of punishment. However, I don't believe that every act that necessitates rehabilitation stems from a form of insanity.

Although... looking back at the top of this post now, I realize that there really ought to be subdivisions of my propositions (1) and (2) above, and that "accidentally" and "intentionally" wrong acts do not correspond to (1) and (2), but to their respective subcategories. If your beliefs about the consequences of your actions are false or incorrect, then (1) is true, but that does not imply that you have a cognitive disorder, you may simple have been ignorant or misinformed. Likewise, if you desire a bad objective, it may not be because you have a behavioral disorder, but because you had failed to consider some of the impact and implications of your objective. But if an epistemically reasonable person would have realized the consequences of their actions given the information available to you, yet you didn't, you've got some kind of cognitive problem; and if an ethically reasonable person would not have desired that objective given the degree of consideration you gave it, yet you still desired it, then you've got some kind of behavioral problem.

Now that last bit: "If an ethically reasonable person would not have desired that objective given the degree of consideration you gave it". What about people who desire an immoral objective because of an insufficient degree of consideration? That may imply a lack of wisdom or patience, but not necessarily a behavioral disorder.