The Philosophical Psychopath

Hudson4ever

The philosophical psychopath

Recently a few friends and I were discussing correlations between aspects of philosophy and psychology. It was an interesting, occasionally ridiculous discussion. However, there was one point which I found particularly alluring. It was suggested that if one was to make a serious commitment to certain philosophical positions, their outlook on life would be such that they could easily end up living their life as a psychopath. At first I thought this was a ridiculous idea, but the more consideration I gave the notion, the more it made sense. Consider this:

The follow are the characteristics of a psychopath:



• 1. Superficial charm and above average intelligence.
• 2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking.
• 3. Absence of nervousness or neurotic manifestations.
• 4. Unreliability.
• 5. Untruthfulness and insincerity.
• 6. Lack of remorse or shame.
• 7. Antisocial behaviour without apparent compunction.
• 8. Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience.
9. Pathological egocentricity and incapacity to love.
• 10. General poverty in major affective reactions.
• 11. Specific loss of insight.
• 12. Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations.
• 13. Fantastic and uninviting behaviour with drink, and sometimes without.
• 14. Suicide threats rarely carried out.
• 15. Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated.
• 16. Failure to follow any life plan.



With the above in mind, the next question is this; is it possible that holding certain philosophical views could cause an individual to exhibit similar characteristics. For example, a determinist may lack remorse and shame because he or she believes that all things occur as a result of a constant chain of causality and that no individual is ultimately to blame for their actions. This could also result in a lack of nervousness or fear. I must say I find this an interesting point of information. Any opinions or examples of other philosophical positions which may lead to this behaviour? Anyone familiar with the Loeb and Leopold case will know this is not as ridiculous as it may seem...

rahim

Hudson4ever wrote:

• 16. Failure to follow any life plan.

Never posted in the Philosophy forum before and to be honest I don't really know too much about the area, but, I would have thought a philosophy was very similar to, if not exactly that, a life plan. So to follow a certain philosophy in your life would be following a particular plan in some way.
This depends on your definition of a 'life plan' but if you were to rule out certain people goals, aspirations etc you would effectively be rendering them unworthy of the title 'life plan' and bringing that to its conclusion you would have to then render all goals, aspirations etc of anyone but yourself unworthy, in which case everyone and no-one could tick that box (16) in the list of characteristics of a psychopath.

I'm not even sure any of that makes sense, sorry if it doesn't. It's been a long day.

Red Hand

Lack of, or at least, a greatly diminished sense of empathy is thought to be one of the major traits a pyschopath displays, apparantly. Most religions and philosophies adhere to the golden rule, and I can't see how a "normal person" could keep their empathy switched off all the time, and not feel regret or shame at least once (no matter how they tried to hide it). There is some thought that the social contract is built into most humans (a sense of "right" and "wrong"), with pyschopaths lacking the empathy required to adhere to the social contract.

I guess you could look at Nazism as a "philosophy"? Were all concentration camp guards inate pyschopaths, or did they deliberately shut off their empathy and view their charges as just animals?

FionnMatthew

I would think you are equivocating "philosophy" and "ideology" a little. As in: holding a philosophy isn't so much like keeping to a regimen of behaviour, or ethical commitments.

It'd be more like just thinking about a certain type of solution to a certain variety of problems.

And it's possible to humour two quite different philosophies at the same time.

Someone who cleaves strictly to one set of values, and one system of ethical commitments, who conducts their behaviour strictly in one particular way in accordance with such a system, and does not submit their own convictions on that matter to their own commonly rehearsed, better judgement; that person has left the path of philosophy.