14 Comments

scrumper99@hotmail.com4 min ago

If I could give this post multiple likes I would. This is important stuff explained with great clarity. I have little to say on the psychopathy aspect, because yeah, as a long term reader on Quora, it makes sense of course, and must be put out there. Over many years you have been absolutely consistent and I have no doubts about the validity of your perspective nor your intellectual honesty. And I too hope for a better future for the understanding of psycopathy and other neurodivergences.

On the religious moral thing, I can only think back to my early somewhat religious upbringing. You were meant to simultaneously do the right thing because of fear of god and ALSO because you sincerely wanted to. The sincerity mattered. Like, what does that even mean? And at death, as a sinner you could get into heaven, if you repented of your sins, but only if you were truly sincere. Umm? At death's door, can you be sure of the purity of your mindset, in the face of eternal damnation? Even as a child the mental gymnastics of this was just too much. The second guessing, the ambiguity. I later found out that people had been driven nearly mad trying to make sense of this (was it Bunyan who wrote a whole tortured book of his tortured religious mental gymnastics and fearing his every thought?). And that ordinary people who went to confession once a week felt free to do as they liked in between. So yeah, all that complicates the 'is it coming from you or is it just obedience?' And somehow you were meant to do both, simultaneously, and in exactly the right (contradictory) way. Hmmmm. And if you get it wrong, it's YOUR FAULT. Hell beckons.

Yes I still remember my first conversation about religion as a guide to morality. She was a lovely person, a Catholic, and she asked me how on earth I knew right from wrong without religion (???!!!!) and didn't I think it was obvious that religion had done much more good than harm in the world (?????????!!!!!!!!!!). And I explained my perspective. And we went on on friendly terms, because I do not enjoy agitated conversations seeking to deconvert people. But it was an eye opener onto how differently other think.

Expand full comment
Oct 27, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Have you read The Moral Fool by Moeller? He makes a very compelling argument against morality. I consider myself to be amoral and I have a limited code of conduct. This is not to show off that I'm amoral, but I do believe in a pragmatic approach to life. Actions have consequences. All you have to do is learn the law and morality isn't needed. I've been arguing in favor of amorality for some time until I realized I should portably shut up about it since I live in an overly moralistic country.

Expand full comment
Oct 25, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

I've always felt different and one day I finally decided to find out if I really was. I knew someone that gave people the MMPI-2 test. He's not a psychiatrist. He just gives people the test and runs their answers through scoring software. i asked him to give it to me. The results were... unexpected.

Expand full comment
Oct 24, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Thank you for another wonderful post!

Like Scrumper99, I also hope for a better future for the understanding of psychopathy and various other neurodivergences. Not sure how likely I feel that is, sometimes!

I'm a lifelong scifi/fantasy reader, and well-designed alien psychologies and moralities/ethical systems -- with multispecies interactions -- have been in some of my favorite worlds. That was mostly from before I knew anything about autism or my own diagnosis with that pretty horribly and imo unscientifically defined condition. The issues were just clearly and deeply relevant in my life, and reading the fictional representations was really a relief at times.

I tend to group humans who follow authoritarian leaders in with some of these problematic aspects of "religions"... invisible uber-leader or human uber-leader, both have been followed into truly horrible sets of "morals" and consequential behavior. The followers suspend their own thought... and tend to portray individual thought as to be eradicated. Nice neat packages...

Expand full comment

Great post as always. I for one an interested in "Hare’s influence and also his bias regarding psychopathy," so I vote yet on this.

Expand full comment
deletedOct 23, 2021Liked by Athena Walker
Comment deleted
Expand full comment