Freud: 'Early trauma shapes personality & causes evil' Behavior genetics: 'Nope. Psychopathy is largely heritable.' Hollywood screenwriters: 'But supervillain origin stories will be so much more _story-like_ if we go with Freud....'
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If it's all genetic does it make any more sense to get mad at a person who commits a crime than it does to get mad at a hurricane?
If it's all trauma does it make sense to get mad at the person? Same issue regardless of your causation model.
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I don't know, just raising the question, which I think is interesting
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It is interesting, and the obvious conclusion is that blame is unfair in both scenarios, though perhaps more useful as a pressure on behaviour in one than the other?
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If psychopathy evolved as a distinctive social/sexual strategy, why would it take trauma to 'unlock' it? Doesn't make adaptive sense.
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Depends on the details of the mechanism. If it’s genetics, you’re basically a zombie and further stimuli, positive or negative, are pointless If it’s early stimuli, you might still be susceptible to being changed (or at least modifying your behavior) based on punishment, right?
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In terms of change, sincere remorse, & rehabilitation, we know some are capable of those things and some aren’t. Standardization of, and sweeping generalizations about, the nuanced & ambiguous is something humans really like b/c it’s convenient, but the outcomes are terrible.
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