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When I read his answer to the surgeon's dilemma, I took his motivations a different way, when he mentions: "Good news." Saving these 5 people are in the doctor's best interest for the sake of his reputation.

I do think killing the guy to save the 5 people is the correct decision in this scenario, as it is.

I literally can't imagine the level of guilt I'd feel from killing someone. I've never done anything that would warrant more than minor guilt. I've heard stories of soldiers haunted their entire lives for killing. I might never be the same. The guilt might manifest in depression and anxiety that would make my life Hell.

But then, if I believe killing the guy is right, I might feel even more guilt if I let the 5 people die. In reality, it'd be a decision I'd make in the moment. What do I feel when I place my scalpel on the guy's throat? Is it guilt or is it conviction? And if it's guilt am I willing to be selfless and sacrifice my mental health as well?

I do try to thoroughly think things through thoroughly and logically in a big picture way. But I'm a highly emotional person, despite how I might seem. And so, I try to take my emotions into account. Really, reading your writings has greatly helped me understand human emotion. If you really want to understand something, you need to see it from both the inside and the outside.

As for baby Hitler? Yeah, I'd kill him, whatever the personal sacrifice. Sure, it could result in a worse future. But in all likelihood, it will result in a better future. There's just too much at stake in the scenario for me to be concerned about baby Hitler or myself.

Though, what I do dislike about these scenarios is that they encourage binary thinking. In reality, first thing anyone is going to do is look for a more favorable option. E.g. kidnap baby Hitler with your TIME MACHINE so he doesn't grow up to be such a monster.

Its also easier to be Utilitarian when the situation is simple. In the real world, things are much more complicated and the consequences of our actions are often uncertain at best, unlike with the doctor. When there's too many variables and uncertainty, people will usually go with what is comfortable and familiar, e.g. not killing someone. After all, you don't want to find out some information later and then regret killing them. Its recognizing that we are fallible and not jumping to an extreme solution when you haven't had the time or info to fully think things through.

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Feb 17, 2022·edited Feb 17, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

I think the same way about the dilemmas. As for the baby Hitler one, I wrote a whole essay on it for ethics.

I wouldn’t kill Hitler both if I were a time traveler and if I were his contemporary.

In the first case because I find the idea of changing the least weird. Don’t wave fists when the fight is over, as the idiom goes. What has happened has happened, why should we change it? Though even if I didn’t find the idea to be weird, it’s pointless. Contrary to a popular belief not people make history, rather circumstances do. There had already been ultraright ideas in Europe when Hitler was a baby and if not him, someone else could well play his role. Someone better than him, or someone worse. We cannot know if there hadn’t been Hitler, what the history would be, how much more or less victims could have been there, and considering the fact that German nazis were more human than Japanese ones, there could have been more, and how much more or less good things could have appeared after war. As for the good things, for me, if not ww2, my great-grandparents wouldn’t have met, and I certainly wouldn’t want to kill Hitler at the expense of my own life. I like my life much more than I dislike him.

In the second case, if I were his contemporary, I wouldn’t do it because killing him because someone told me that he would grow up to be a war criminal is delusional.

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Feb 17, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Lol I always enjoy and get a lot of insight from your knowledge of psychopathy..I also roll my eyes when neurotypical people ask the why isn’t the psycho path out murdering now as we speak? Or assume that you will only find them in prisons…I guess if someone has a brain in their head,neurotypical or otherwise they should be able to utilize logical thinking on this topic! It took me a long time to even get an inkling that I could be borderline or have the traits… and that even though I’m not violent or abusive that this could be the issue… very hard to find a good psychiatrist that knows about b clusters that will treat me and I want to get help but …. The world isn’t an easy or fair place

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Feb 17, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

You know how some kids go astray in bad company? If a child psychopath has joined a gang , he may commit crimes like murdering or so because that is what would be required to blend in. Now if he is rehabilitated, he would come to see that his previous adopted behaviour does not align with the social construct of society. To blend in he would now have to change his behaviour , become socially responsible. So he gives up his criminal inclination without any relapse. I think it all comes down to what environment they are exposed to any time in their life, not that different from neurotypicals.

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Feb 17, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Very interesting! I find myself underestimating the psychopathic minds’ emphasis on self-interest, all the time. I wonder what responses (and thoughts) one would get if comparing a range of psychopaths with greatly varying intelligence. I’ve also often wondered a few things:

1. Do intelligence and the biology of the psychopathic brain have some sort of correlation, or do NT’s perceive the psychopath to be more intelligent because the devision-making processes are not encumbered by the (often irrational) influence of emotion? Do we subconsciously (or otherwise) envy this? Is it projection?

2. Are psychopaths more successful at decision-making or less? I think, in this case, the actual choice to be made, obviously, has a huge effect, as would the psychopath in question’s ability to reason out emotions cognitively.

3 I am so curious as to how psychopaths learn to “cognitively feel” and if this just happens as they learn to mask to adapt to society? Does early socialization play a significant role?

I must commend you for approaching this subject. I think it’s likely to get less “flack” because you are writing on a platform that has your regular readers (whom I find to be a thoughtful, logical bunch - yay). I can imagine some readers who approach this essay with a closed mind or are a bit blinded by religious zeal, may definitely misinterpret it. You are brave to do so and I applaud your “desire” to improve the understanding of your brain/experience (and similar) as it relates to the massive body of ignorance out there.

By the way, you need to replace a few periods with question marks, as your writing has some, perhaps rhetorical questions, but questions nonetheless. Just a bit of punctuation perfection needed (and I say it not out of a place of superiority, not at all).

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I have learned a couple of very valuable phrases in my life, "That decision is above my paygrade" and "What's my motivation here?"

If something isn't in my job description and I have no up side for doing it I'm going to continue to observe just for the entertainment value.

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Feb 17, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Fantastic article! Spot on!

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Feb 19, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

For neurotypicals, I think it's so difficult to imagine what life is like with oxytocin-absent and other-tamped-down emotions, that most of us simply fail to imagine it. And yes, Athena, I believe you are right that it's like the morality question posed to atheists by God-believers: If you don't believe in God, why wouldn't you have sex with everyone and steal from your neighbors, etc?

(Being an atheist myself, I completely understand why we don't. Partly, like you, I don't see any upside to it -- and partly I agree with your golden rule principle, that if I don't want it done to me, I shouldn't go around doing it to others. Ie, Be and create the world I want to live in. Perhaps I'm a tad psychopathic on this score. But if your only reason for not doing "bad things" is that some white-haired all-powerful critter in the sky is going to punish you, well, that seems very immature to me. For me, morality and ethics are a matter of thinking through my values, and living by them.)

We NT's fail to imagine that together with the absence of guilt, shame, and similar inhibitions, there is also an absence of rage, lust, jealousy, greed, and desires for revenge -- the motives of perhaps 90+% of all murders. (Well, perhaps y'all psychopaths might experience greed? Not sure that's actually an emotion as opposed to a motive.)

Though as motives for murder are concerned, we're still left with covering up having committed a crime. Which would be based on fear of exposure. Dunno how such a fear or motive would fit into psychopathic realities.

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Feb 19, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

"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."

Fascinating analysis. And spot on. Along with baby Hitler and erasing all the events and relationships created by WWII's happenings. Along with Alexandra's notion (paraphrasing) "and the consequences might have been worse -- because someone else likely would come along and take advantage of the same political situation, someone possibly more competent in his/her destructiveness than Hitler."

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Feb 18, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

But even then, doing the surgery doesnt guarantee that the 5 will be saved— we can say that its reasonably likely to heal them but not guaranteed; and were it to fail you would have killed one person for no benefit, and more harm.

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This one is full of fascinating deep presuppositions

“not something that I as an individual have the authority to do”

Why does that matter?

Or, so what?

“Who am I to say xyz”

What difference does it make if you are, or aren’t the one to say?

There seem to be implicit values claims, based on what axioms?

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Feb 18, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

This reminds me a little bit of certain religious folks who say to atheists (who they don't understand), "If you're an atheist, there's just no reason to not run amok and sin like crazy! Why WOULDN'T you just go have sex with and steal from and murder whoever you wanted??" Like seriously, the ONLY reason you behave is because (you believe) God tells you to?

To tell the truth, it does make me skeptical that people behave in the way they think they behave, at least in the NT world. I know I haven't always behaved the way I thought I'd behave in certain situations, sometimes in the favor of "good." I put "good" in quotes because it represents acting on a value (such as loyalty) over something that my logic leads me to (eh, just get a better job). Ultimately I'm very satisfied with the results of my behavior, but it's not like I had some sort of crystal ball or anything.

I wonder if there's some amount of this when people talk about psychopaths (who they don't understand). As in, they view empathy as such a great value and wonderful thing to have, that they think it plays a bigger role in their behavior (which is probably quite complicated) than it actually does.

I know, this may in some ways go against your observations over the years in the ways NTs behave that are actually quite emotional when they would claim it's all logical. And I also am confident those observations are spot on.

Maybe it's just that (as far as I can see) a great deal of things factor into behavior, including the society that other people create (including what consequences there are for getting caught for crimes). Overall it seems silly to me to say something like, "If X were true, then everybody would definitely go out and do Y!!!"

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Jun 23, 2023Liked by Athena Walker

My first thought was five vs one, but I have been confronted few times with how thse experiments are very simplified next to reality and rarely options listed are all the options. And I am asking... Where in that experiment it is said that the organs those five are missing are not those that they have available in the person next to them. All five are dying. If the selection is about the same in all of them, then I determine who has the least chances of recovery (I might feel need to add other things like what I know about their families etc. - who depends on them and stuff - what info is available) and I sacrifice him to save the other four by using him as donor. If the selection is not about the same, then I'll see who has what to give and who doesn't and pick based on that. If I were to arrive to equation two sacrificed for three, that's still a go. If it is three against two, remember, I am not putting to risk that visitor, that's third life. If only one could get an organ from another of the patients... Now I am getting conflicted.

If no available means these five people included and really oly the visitor has them... I am still reluctant to ruin perfectly healthy life for five compromised ones. And all the other factors like how old, living alone of being a pillar of community and there might be stills tuff that subverts it all but cannot be known. I might end up flipping coin. And I might end up not looking at it because I would hate myself for offloading that decision like that. Something pulls at my thought process with "there is a reason why, even if not apparent" and there is also not wanting to be cowed by custom for teh sake of custom. I reached a point where I am not sure how I would decide though I suspect I would choose to risk the catch. I can only tell that if I let those five die I would feel cowardly and if I killed him I would feel like I possibly damned myself in some sense and waited for the shoe to drop. Which is not exclusive with a wisp of satisfaction with being able to go for it anyway. Self-image and stuff.

And all this is still less than wind, because I came across information that while many people answer they would decide trolley dilemma based on number, when put in conditions where they have to make hard choices like that and think them real, they freeze. The reluctance to do proactive thing is strong. And I think fear of punishment might be part of it, but not whole of it.

Your perspective on value makes sense and is thoughtprovoking.

With Hitler... Surprisingly little might change and surprisigly lot too and either way it might be about the same level of nightmare, just different, because WWII is not his work alone. He was only tip of iceberg. Germany was in crisis because of messed up diplomacy and collective unresolved issues, whole Europe was in crisis. If it wasn't him in leadership, it would be most likely someone else. Someone who might go very differently about things, but someone who would be working with the same options as Hitler was. Public would have still the same desires and grievances. It might come later, it might come sooner. But removing him as a baby does not magically douse a whole dumpster fire. And that sort of thinking is not conductive of preventing similar dumster fires of happening again.

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Feb 22, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

I am not certain if I agree with the sentence, "In none of my reasoning am I considering as emotional cause for my action."

It seems to me that "valuing" is also an emotion, though perhaps a cooler one than love or hate. I thought about similar things years ago, and remember concluding that mathematics might be the only thinking I do without emotions... not even sure about that, since math is often beautiful to me -- and I think perception of beauty has an emotional basis.

But then, just because these things feel this way to me, doesn't mean they have to in another brain, I guess? Very hard to know that, but it's also hard to separate such things in one's own brain.. our self-awareness is only ever partial I believe.

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Feb 22, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Hmmm. I don't kid myself that we have that much influence on matters, sure, but my problem is the word 'supposed', I just don't believe in some external purpose or direction at work.

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