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Cassius

I call shenanigans. I don't buy this for a second.

In fact later on you qualify your statement by saying "at a very early age" which is hardly "are born without an ability". Which is it?

All people are born without an ability to care about how their actions affect other people -- it's called infancy. I don't know of a single infant who gives thought to the consequences of their actions. They just eat, cry, sleep, and crap their diapers without any thought to the consequences.

Learning to "care about how your actions affect other people" is something that is taught. Whether it's taught directly by their parents or indirectly by observing the actions of their parents and other adults they come in contact with, children learn to "care" or "not care".

I don't see how genetics has anything to do with it. Are you saying morals are genetic? Because that's what this comes down to -- the moral notion that "doing whatever you want selfishly is harmful to the common good of society". Without the social contract, anarchy would teach us only selfishness, and in a big way. If kids learn this selfish behavior despite growing up in a modern society, somehow the problem is congenital and not the parents' fault?

Shenanigans.

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Buzzby

They are born without the ability to empathize but this is not evident until they are old enough to act independently.


Morals aren't genetic. The fact that humans (along with wolves, prairie dogs, dolphins, and cows) are social animals is genetic. If these species didn't have an intrinsic drive to work cooperatively with their fellows they wouldn't be able to operate in that mode.


Prehistoric humans and all the other social species functioned in that mode long before there was language. Do wolves have a "social contract" or are they born with a drive to function cooperatively?

Out of curiosity, which version of "shenanigans" are you accusing me of perpetrating? Am I purposefully trying to deceive people or were my statements a playful or mischievous act? While I certainly might be wrong, that would not fit into either of those definitions.

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Cassius

The intrinsic or instinctive drive to work cooperatively, to be a social creature, is necessary for social function but it is not sufficient.

Of course there is a genetic instinctual drive for social interaction among social animals. I still don't see what this genetics has to do with the issue at hand.

Are suggesting some people are born without instincts?

Buzzby

I'm saying that some people are born without the ability to empathize with others, which is a necessary instinctive basis for cooperative social interaction.

Cassius

So you ARE saying some people are born without certain instincts.

I don't buy that.

Let's take a common instinct -- the instict to retract your hand when you touch a hot stove, for instance. Now let's say that someone, from infancy through childhood through puberty through adulthood, has never encountered a hot stove, or any similarly hot object, and so this "instinct" has never been actualized, never been nurtured, never been reinforced.

The first time he touches a hot stove, he may burn himself severely because he may not pull his hand back as quickly as most of us would upon beginning to feel a burning sensation.

Does that mean he doesn't have the instinct? Or that his instinct is still immature, because it has never been reinforced through experience?

You're right in that humans, like wolves, are social creatures.

Take a wolf, raise him in isolation, then release him into the wild. Will he be as good at socializing as other wolves, at running with the pack? Will he be able to socialize at all? Will he even survive, or he will he die hungry in the snow?

I would agree that there are some humans whose empathic abilities are still in their infancy. But I don't believe that some people are just naturally "bad apples" who are born without the empathic instinct whatsoever. Of course, I'm not referring to extreme exceptions -- I similarly would state that I don't believe that some people are just naturally born without two arms, because I'm not referring to exceptions such as conjoined twins.

Oh yeah, I forgot to answer your question about my use of "shenanigans". I was using it in the context of "an answer that sounds right, that sounds natural, would be easily accepted because it makes sense, but is a cop-out and is ultimately false". It's a nicer way of saying "I call bull****", because I wasn't trying to intone that you were intentionally trying to deceive. I just think it's a copout that some people these days (usually Americans) say, "Oh, you'll have to forgive my kids screaming in Wal-mart, they're just born naturally without the ability to empathize with others. What's this toy for? Oh I'm buying it to shut them up."

 

Buzzby

That's not an instinct. It's a reflex. Instincts have to do with more complex behaviors.

If you believe that instincts are determined by genetics, why is it so hard for you to believe that certain individuals have faulty genetics (due to recessives or mutation) that would cause an absence of an instinct? If people can be born with autism or Down syndrome, why couldn't they be born with APD?

TheNewGuy

Isn't that still like saying that everyone who breaks a law (a law being an invention of man) has faulty genetics? Or a person who simply decides to ignore the plight of another person so that they can make a profit or gain is somehow genetically different from everyone else? I still think its a combination of genes and (more importantly) thier environment that influence thier actions, rather than people just being born without the ability to even empathize with other people. I don't understand what the "bad apple" gene would look like, or what chemical reaction in the brain it would effect to make it harder for a person to empathize with another person.

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"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

Cassius

Like I said when I talked about exceptions, I do believe that this can occur, just like a conjoined twin might not have two arms whereas most people do.

What is hard for me to believe is that the number of instances of this occurring is statistically significant enough to be used as a relevant explanation for a general behavior.

The way you said this, it didn't sound like you were referring to a statistically insignificant portion of the population. The way you used the coin phrase "bad seeds" made it seem (to me) like you were saying in every bunch of apples there's a bad one that spoils it... one that is "genetically unable to empathize"... an event that, although I admit it does occur, is genetically a minute occurrence.

What got me up in arms was the casual way you said it, as if it happens all the time. It reminded me of all the kids that are put on Ritalin that perhaps shouldn't be.

Of course there's an exception to every rule, of course there are people born without that particular genetic instinct I suppose just like there are people born without two arms or two legs or without a nose. It happens. It just happens so infrequently that I don't think you can look at a behavior and say "oh, that must be because of his genetic inability to empathize".

I know that you said it was far more likely he was chasing the American dream, it just didn't settle well with me how you made it seem like those bad seeds occur in every bunch of apples, when in reality I bet it occurs more like once in every 10,000 bunches of apples.

In short: when you were talking about people being born without their instincts, I didn't think you were referring to genetic mutation. Just like if I told you "the air contains 20% methane" you would object to that statement, when perhaps I really meant "the air contains 20% methane 50,000 feet above Los Angeles". (not a very good example but you know what I'm getting at)

Buzzby

You don't understand the the biochemical process that makes human beings social animals and leopards solitary animals, but these are certainly genetic traits of both species. As yet, no one understands the mechanism.

If you accept that the mechanism exists and that it is established by the creature's genetics, then how can you say that a fault in genetics wouldn't cause it not to be there? Certainly both nature and nurture affect the behavior of an organism. On the other hand, if you're born without wings, no amount of conditioning is going to allow you to fly. If you're born without whatever mechanism makes us social animals, the countermanding urge to behave totally selfishly would automatically dominate. You might learn to take on the appearance of a normal human being to avoid incarceration but it would be unlikely that you wouldn't do whatever harmful things you felt like if you thought you could get away with it.