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moody 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?
September 28 2003, 15:56:50 UTC 8 years ago
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.
September 28 2003, 17:47:00 UTC 8 years ago
if you would not like to be raped, yet are despite, then that would be wrong, if only to you. if everyone in the world would not like to be raped, but were despite, then that would be universally and perhaps inherently wrong.
not that everyone in the world would not like to be raped, but since we're quite sure the majority would not, it is far easier to say "rape is wrong;" since nothing is 100% universal and/or definite.
or, another way:
even if you personally do not think anything is wrong, i'm sure you can see (or at least are aware) how those with consciences, thus the majority, do. thus, even if you do not think anything is right or wrong, you know what is considered right and what is considered wrong.
you can regard the entirety of the above, and everything I ever say, a question. although an answer isn't required, only desperately longed for. :)
September 28 2003, 18:09:16 UTC 8 years ago
September 29 2003, 07:36:05 UTC 8 years ago
or: do we have to interrogate the way in which the fifty million discourses running through our brains operate to construct and maintain identity hierarchies through the reification of natural or pre-inscriptive and embodied practices? and, specifically, does the division of activities into the categories of 'right' and 'wrong' only serve to create a class of deviant practices against which the normal practices of the centre are constructed and legitimated?
and who stole my cigarettes?
8 years ago
8 years ago
8 years ago
September 28 2003, 17:56:24 UTC 8 years ago
another factor; how I adore people.
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.
September 29 2003, 02:44:23 UTC 8 years ago
September 29 2003, 04:01:43 UTC 8 years ago
that was interesting.. think i'll cite it :)
September 29 2003, 02:57:09 UTC 8 years ago
Hello.
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
September 29 2003, 11:04:04 UTC 8 years ago
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.
September 29 2003, 19:41:00 UTC 8 years ago
when I say murder, I don't mean war, the common good vs the individual, euthanasia, manslaughter, self defence or anything else that could be given any non-synonymous name other than "murder" (except maybe genocide and dozens of others I haven't thought of) or possibly be adequately justified, because if can be justified it isn't wrong. thus, when I say "murder is wrong," i'm not generalising to all killing, rather am talking about murder that is, in fact, wrong. I apologise for not elaborating on that little facet.
anyone who attempts to divide nature into oversimplified categories is somewhat a nut. rest assured that I believe everything I read, and for everything written there is a contradiction written somewhere else. the very idea that a personality can be disordered is absurd; that it is considered an element of science, whether that sience is "soft" or "social" or not, is !! (words lacking)
I think that someone with a conscience will think (as well as know) that murder is wrong, whereas one without will "know" it's wrong, but not think. how much difference there is between not murdering because you a) think it's wrong, or b) know people will think it's wrong (your knowledge of right and wrong).. but now i'm just talking to myself. i've also realised it's possibly at least partially socially constructed. if you took 20 newborns and kept them in isolation for 22 years, then stuck them in a lab to see how many behaved as if they'd no conscience: how many would possess a voice whispering "it's wrong to murder" (in words lacking or otherwise), whether they based their behaviour on it or not?
and thankyou! my conceptions are expanding at 10million miles a second.
Anonymous
September 30 2003, 09:42:39 UTC 8 years ago
lovlie as always
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.
September 30 2003, 18:30:31 UTC 8 years ago
if society proclaimed that murder was absolutely right, and you believed, for example, your own the only true consciousness, thus murder would be tantamount to crumpling a piece of paper, you would likely still question and/or doubt that idea.. that's the nature of the curse of intelligence. thus neither can I believe that right and wrong are entirely relatively constructed.
ah. your theory is imporrible to argue. :)
Anonymous
8 years ago
8 years ago
Anonymous
October 12 2003, 03:11:50 UTC 8 years ago
October 17 2003, 20:43:47 UTC 8 years ago
October 18 2003, 06:32:54 UTC 8 years ago
since you so bluntly declared No:
I tend to think that they do realise murder, as anything, has consequences. they just don't care. that they do realise there is a difference between right and wrong, they just don't care.
perhaps if they were not surrounded by people telling them, in various ways, the difference between right and wrong, they would not realise/know there was a difference. but you could then argue that in this they may not differ from everyone else; that neither would anyone be aware of that difference, because it is impossible to test.
hope that made sense; i'm not at my most lucid.
November 2 2003, 06:22:47 UTC 8 years ago
Anonymous
October 19 2003, 22:17:28 UTC 8 years ago
get the fuck out the kitchen, eh?
(you're burning the salad.)http://www.absintheliquor.com/
(swedish essence ..a bit more pleasant than steep.)
Anonymous
October 19 2003, 22:41:15 UTC 8 years ago
right on your face:
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.
Anonymous
October 20 2003, 13:51:00 UTC 8 years ago
btw
i've been able to access your website for months, so it'spretty 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.
:)
October 25 2003, 20:37:38 UTC 8 years ago
i attract and am attracted to psychopaths.
how about yourself?
October 27 2003, 05:05:11 UTC 8 years ago
I am just terribly interested in most minds, and triple so the unusual.
and people attracted to the unusual.
Anonymous
November 1 2003, 19:00:15 UTC 8 years ago
poopface.
!Anonymous
November 2 2003, 21:21:55 UTC 8 years ago
you still know it's wrong, huh?
i'll still make a cartoon with you :)Anonymous
November 2 2003, 21:25:05 UTC 8 years ago
unless i meet a girl with horses
.Anonymous
November 3 2003, 02:32:17 UTC 8 years ago
i dream about you all the time..
:(