Why Don't Psychopaths Kill All The Time?

A lot of people assume that we would...

This is a question asked of me all the time. Why don’t all psychopaths kill? From my perspective, this is an easy answer. Killing has a lot of problems attached to it that I would prefer to never have to deal with. While it is true that I could kill someone without any compunction or guilt, that in no way means that I have any interest in doing so. I have no drive to do so. So why is this such a common question?

I think that this has to do with the difference in how neurotypicals see the world, and how psychopaths do. Neurotypicals have high emotional experiences. It occurs to me that there are going to be times in their lives that they have a strong inclination to want to murder another person, but there are external factors in place that prevent them from doing so. Should those reasons be religion, God without organized religion, guilt, fear, or the law, there are a lot of restraints that are in place that prevent them from acting on that momentary impulse.

Kevin Dutton spoke about an interesting experiment that was done. Neurotypicals when asked:

If you had one hour in which to do anything you wanted, but at the end of that hour it would be as if nothing had ever happened, there would be no emotional comeback or any kind of real-world comeback, legal comeback, or anything, what would it be?”

The answers that he gets are usually one of two.

1. I would go and declare my unrequited love for someone that I didn’t have the guts to tell them before this.

2. I would wreak a terrible revenge on someone that had done me down.

He then goes on to say that he believes that everyone has these sorts of wishes or desires that they simply don’t act on for fear of the consequences, and if they had the opportunity to do so without having to deal with that fear, they would. He believes that part of the reason that people become so focused on psychopaths is that there is nothing preventing us from acting when we want to do so. It is an enviable position that people covet.

This brings me to the purpose of this post, and that is why psychopaths aren’t the killers that people insist that we are. I am in no way stating that there are no psychopathic killers. There are, and they have been studied in prisons. If you have followed my work you know my disagreement with many of the methods of these studies, but that does not in any way dismiss that psychopathic killers exist.

However, they are not killers because they are psychopathic. They are killers and they are psychopathic. I extend this same distinction to neurotypicals that are murderers also. I don’t believe that reducing someone’s crimes down to their brain function is doing any service to the need to take ownership of actions. Again, I am a big believer in personal responsibility, and that is certainly true when we are discussing murder. I also am aware that there are things that can make a person not responsible for their actions, but in this post, we are speaking about people that would qualify for the responsible category.

People tend to have this notion about psychopaths and murder. Likely a fair amount of the reason is television and movies, not to mention the news blaming every single bad action on psychopaths. That does not do a whole lot to provide a balanced view of how psychopaths actually are. A lot of people think about us in terms that don’t actually apply, and it becomes more and more evident that there is a great divide between us. One of these places where I see this the most and am just coming to the understanding as to why is the murder question.

Why do people believe unquestioningly that we are in fact just going around knifing people in the street? It is because of projection. I know, I say that a lot, but remember what I said about empathy. Empathy is not actually understanding what the person across from you is feeling, it is the assumption that you do because of what you would feel in a similar situation. The other person may not feel that way at all, but that won’t change your response. It may make you surprised to find out you are incorrect, however.

Neurotypicals deal with a lot of emotions on a daily basis. I hear about them, I see them, I am baffled by them. There are many reactions that are brought into check due to your internal patrol mechanisms such as guilt, and fear. They prevent you from acting even when you are very angry. I understand all of this. What just came to my understanding is that it is this situation, and what Dutton spoke about, that makes people think that psychopaths would-be killers.

They aren’t understanding what a psychopath actually experiences, which is extremely low emotional volume. They are just thinking that guilt, remorse, and fear are removed, but the emotional reactivity remains the same. They think this because they have no other way of seeing the world. They are just editing their emotional understanding, not comprehending that ours is totally different.

If a neurotypical has all of their emotions on high reactivity, and all the safeguards are removed, and they know that they won’t feel bad about their actions, they would likely kill the other person that they feel brought them to that point. This is the situation that they are applying to psychopaths, but that isn’t accurate.

The things that get you guys so angry and upset are simply vexing to us. We think that ya’ll need to calm down and relax. We don’t have that emotional reactivity, so while yes, there are no safeguards like guilt, remorse, and fear, there also isn’t really any care about other people in the first place. If I get yelled at by some stranger I don’t internalize that at all. I think that they have some kind of weird problem, but I have no interest in making their problem, my problem. I just let them have their little tantrum and get on with my day.

Neurotypicals often do not respond this way. it becomes very personal to be yelled out. It can cause resentment, anger, frustration, rage, and a desire to make the other person pay. When I think about this, and I think about the “no blowback” aspect of Dutton’s question, it is obvious that the responses are based on emotions. Nothing a psychopath does is based on emotion. It is either based on self-interest, or it is based on logic. There is no emotion to reason with.

I will never be so angry at a person that I want to lash out at them. I will just prefer that they go away. I may very well take it upon myself to remove them, but ending their life is not my method to do so. I know how doors and locks work, and that is suitable for my purposes.

It is the emotional life of the neurotypical that is creating the myth of the psychopathic killer. I understand that emotions can be very loud and internalized deeply for many of you, but that is not the case for me. Killing someone is just a lot of trouble. There is nothing that comes of it that benefits me in the long run. Even imagining a situation in which it could benefit me, say an inheritance, I’ll get that inheritance when it’s time. I have no need to speed things along. I enjoy living my life, so why would I both jeopardize that, and also remove any chance of the inheritance coming my way if I am caught? That to me lacks any kind of logic.

Murder is something that I think that you must have a very good reason for, such as self-defense, or the defense of another. Otherwise, it’s just a lot of drama that is seriously going to interrupt your life. A lot of murders are emotionally based, but many of them are just illogical choices that people make. They want life insurance, they want out of a marriage, they want inheritance, they’re angry, they hate someone, they’re jealous, they are drug-addicted and place no value on anything other than their addiction, or any number of other reasons.

Why do psychopaths kill when they do? I am sure that an actual psychopathic killer would think that they have a very good reason that they did what they did. Perhaps they are in a criminal gang and it was just the way things were done, I have no idea. What I do know is that most often their actions were of a utilitarian reasoning. That in no way makes it correct reasoning, but it was a means to an end that got them what they wanted with the most ruthless proficiency. That would be very psychopathic in nature.

This brings to mind the “surgeon dilemma” which is similar in nature to the trolley problem, but much more direct.

Back in the UK Professor Kevin Dutton interviewed a psychopathic killer. He had raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered in a particularly brutal fashion a young woman back in the nineteen-eighties. In fact, parts of her anatomy were later found in the glove compartment of his car. He said he would never forget this guy; He was better looking than Brad Pitt and more significantly, had an IQ of 160.

This is the particular variation of the dilemma that Professor Dutton gave him and the following will be his response verbatim give or take a word or two:

A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients. Each of the patients is in need of a different organ, and each of them will die without that organ. Unfortunately, there are no organs currently available to perform any of the transplants. A healthy young traveler just passing through comes to the doctor's surgery for a routine checkup. While performing the checkup the doctor discovers that his organs are compatible with all five of his dying patients. Suppose further that were the young man to disappear, no one would ever suspect the doctor. Would the doctor be justified to kill the young man to save his five patients?

This was his answer:

I can see where the problem lies. If all you're doing is simply playing the numbers game, it's a no-brainer, isn't it? You kill the guy and save the other five. It's Utilitarianism on crack. But it's not that easy, is it? There's a difference between letting someone die and actually killing them, isn't there? If the doctor did nothing he'd be letting five die, and if you ask me, so what? But to save them he actually has to roll his sleeves up, doesn't he? Get blood on his hands, he has to commit murder—a different ballgame altogether. He has to be proactive.

If I was the doctor, I wouldn't give it a second thought. It's five for the price of one, isn't it? Five bits of good news. I mean what about the families of these guys against one piece of bad. That's got to be a bargain, hasn't it?

It is a far better example of how our minds work and the logical steps we see without being caught up in the morality of it, the emotional garbage. We see it as it is and handle it that way. So while there may not be questions that only we can ask, there are certainly responses that only we will give. It shouldn't be the question that matters, it should be what makes up the answer.

Where in his crimes were the logical steps? I have no idea, as I never did find out the name of this particular killer. As far as I know, Dutton never disclosed it. I am curious about a case study regarding his ability to see the logic in the surgeon's dilemma, as opposed to the crimes that he committed. I would like to be able to piece together the psychopathic logic to committing crimes like that, and just as many times you look at the crimes that neurotypicals commit and think to yourself, “WTF was that about?” I do the same things with crimes committed by psychopaths like those that this guy committed.

Now for a bit about the surgeon's dilemma. I used to agree with his answer about it being five bits of good news for one bad. I have had time to really consider this, however, and have come to a conclusion. I don’t have a particular care one way or another about the human race. I am not heavily invested in thinking about it in any one direction. I recognize that there are good aspects and bad ones, but none of that was ever something that concerned me.

However, unlike what most people assume about psychopaths I recognize humans as humans. They are no more and no less valuable than I am. I may not be invested in them, but that doesn’t change that fact. I find it to be nonnegotiable logically. When hearing the surgeon dilemma the first time it is a logical conclusion that you could save the five lives and be done with it. That seemed reasonable to me, and I didn’t examine it very deeply. I had other things to do.

However, I have also been asked about the baby Hitler dilemma. would you kill baby Hitler? I don’t weigh the particular morality of killing the baby so much, as the question posed is about stopping Hitler from coming to pass, but those that do reject this tend to do so because of the innocence of a child, but my reasoning is quite different.

Who am I to make the decisions to change the course of the world. I have no idea what killing baby Hitler would usher in, and I do not know, nor will I even have enough information to make that choice. I wouldn’t kill baby Hitler because changing the course of history is not something that I as an individual have the authority to do.

The surgeon's dilemma is in that same mindset for me. Yes, the one person could save all the others, but who am I to make that choice. Their lives are inherently valuable as I stated, but they are not more valuable than the traveler that would lose his life, and I as the surgeon would determine that it was less valuable. That’s not my place. if I want the value of my own life respected, I must respect that of others. That to me is a logical decision. It is unfortunate for the five patients, but their existence alone is not enough to defer my estimation of life and its value.

In none of my reasoning am I considering as emotional cause for my action. I wouldn’t kill baby Hitler because he’s a baby and killing a baby would make me feel any particular way, and the five surgical patients won’t get their transplants because I would feel guilty about murdering the traveler to provide his organs to them. In both situations I decide based on logical considerations, as in neither case does my own self-interest come into play.

There is a vast difference in how we see the world, and it is difficult to know how different it is until certain connections are made, such as the one about why neurotypicals often think that psychopaths would just murder without compunction. every once in a while things fall into place and I can see the thought stream more clearly, and this was one of those occasions.