Any psychologists reading?
What is it that leads supposedly balanced people to willfully torture animals? It seems we've all done it. Is it a power thing? It's really no surprise that humanity has condoned slavery and genocide against races perceived to be powerless - and will again. And again.
(frankspencer, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 12:19, 37 replies)

have you read
american psycho...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 12:23, closed)

Feed me a stray cat
Well, it worked. Sort of.
( gareth_alien will be human again at, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 12:30, closed)

...
I'm not sure that the analogue between animal torture/ harm and genocide/ slavery is a good one. There might be a relationship between my willingness to torture this animal and this person, or between all animals (?of a certain species?) and all people (?of a certain group?), but I don't see how my willingness to torture this animal and all people (?of a certain group?) would have to be linked. Conflict between groups, it strikes me, would have to be explained in terms of socio-economic and genetic factors (in terms of our genes' desier to replicate themselves and eclipse rivals'). There's no social, economic or genetic competition between me and a daddy long-legs that I can see...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 12:34, closed)

Enzyme
It has been demonstrated and well documented that serial killers often start out by torturing and killing animals.

Me, I think it's because people are just plain evil. But for a fact, anyone who deliberately harms animals for their own amusement is the sort of horrid cunt I would never associate with. Killing a pest animal is one thing- killing an innocent animal who does no one harm is altogether different.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 11 Dec 2007, 12:41, closed)

Loon
But that's just it, isn't it? Serial killing is very different from slavery or genocide; there's no reason why a taste for one would imply a taste for the other.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 12:44, closed)

analogues
Infliction of pain or even discomfort on an animal that can show its feelings is evidence enough of ill will. Whatever it is that leads us to do that is the same impulse (just a different manifestation) that leads us to do the same to others.
EDIT: I think it boils down to accountability. A cat isn't going to inform on you. Genocide is made possible by the persecuted race having no recourse to justice and slavery is made possible by the enslaved race having no voice or rights. When you accept that there is no consequence of your cruelty, you have to fall back on morality and guilt. These are easily overcome.
(frankspencer, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 12:47, closed)

@frankspencer
Specific others, yes. I agree with that. And it might lead us to keep our slaves once we have them, and it might inform the way that we treat them. But there still seems to be a world of difference between instances of cruelty and a wide claim about the worth of groups of people.

(For example, there were slaves in Athens and Rome who were independently wealthy, educated, and so on; they just lacked certain rights that certain citizens had. One can embrace some system of slavery without having to be cruel. Many slave-owners or genocidal maniacs might be cruel *in addition* - but many may be very humane in a face-to-face situation. (Himmler was concerned for his SS men, who were distressed by what they were ordered to do - even though they did it. Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments from the 1950's are a - frankly terrifying - demonstration of the disjunction between banal evil and individual humanity.)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 12:54, closed)

Ancrenne
But, by that reasoning, we could extend your point like this: people have rights to property (which is what makes theft wrong); violating that right indicates being prepared to violate rights in the abstract; therefore thieves are more likely than non-thieves to become torturers. But that looks wrong; so the mere fact that rights are violated doesn't capture what's going on - not fully, anyway.

All the things you mention might indicate a violation of rights of some sort (allowing that "rights-talk" makes much sense to begin with - I'm not sure it does, but I'll leave that to one side); but they're plausibly violations of different rights. And even if they're violations of the same rights, then there might well still be differences in the intention behind the violation.

(I really am enjoying this thread, BTW! Certainly beats writing next semester's lectures... and it also demonstrates why inviting a philosopher to dinner can be quite foolhardy...)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 14:01, closed)

honing the debate
I'll admit that genocide and slavery are two very different examples that can be created by specific societal and historical factors, but cruelty is cruelty - it's the willful ignorance of pain caused to another animal that shows its pain. The cruelty towards a cat in the name of fun is the same cruelty towards a persecuted minority. It comes from the same place, whatever motivates it. You can throw in some moral relativism but I think certain facts have to be accepted, namely: causing known pain or discomfort to another sapient being because you can and because there will be no consequences is the same thing, no matter what the being or the circumstances. We know what we are doing is 'wrong' but we do it anyway.

This of course raises the question of a mind that simply does not recognise the guilt or wrongness (perhaps because a society at large has a collective morality). But I think there's evidence from ancient Greece of an uneasiness about the position of slaves. And an entire nation had amnesia about the Holocaust.
(frankspencer, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 14:13, closed)

Frankspencer
I'd go along with that entirely. Demonstrate suffering to someone and - all being well - their attitude will change. That's because there's an enormous psychological gulf between what we think about individuals and groups. And that's exactly why I don't think analysing one phenomenon will tell you much about the other. Would that it did: it'd make life a whole lot simpler.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 14:21, closed)

.
When the person doing it is capable of empathy, then yep, sadism is about power and sadism against animals is about power and fear of being held accountable (but the return is 'poorer' hence it often esculating quickly). In people who are incapable of empathy, it's more complicated, but that person is rarer than the media would have you believe.

Power is sought in order to overcome insecurity, lumping sadism in with the other 99% of people's problems. Power doesn't work against insecurity long term either, it's a quick fix you have to keep up.
(misanthrope is so adjective he's verbing nouns!, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 14:41, closed)

Misanthrope
What do you mean by "power"? You're very vague on that. Particularly, your claim that "power is sought to overcome insecurity" doesn't strike me as being anything like convincing (to the admittedly limited extent that I understand what you mean by it).
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 14:53, closed)

ancrenne
OK - but even if we allow that a willingness to violate right x might indicate a willingness to violate right y, it doesn't follow that one follows from the other. And, even if it did, then we're back to talking about wronging specific, identifiable people, rather than condoning slavery and genocide, which is what was in the original post, and which is a much "wider" thing.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 15:05, closed)

enzyme
You say: "there's an enormous psychological gulf between what we think about individuals and group." True, but the constant in that is "WE". What I'm trying to say is that flaw - whether you call that cruelty, or sadism, or 'evil' is in us - IS us. Different stimuli and circumstances might bring it out, but it's there in our torturing of cats as children. I think all humans have the capability for bad, and that we more readily choose that than good, which requires self-control and self-examination.

As for the willingness to break some rules leading to the willingness to break others, I'm not convinced. I see that as more of a societal thing than cruelty, which I think is innate and transcendent of culture.
(frankspencer, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 15:19, closed)

Frankspencer
You've made a very interesting claim when you say that "I think all humans have the capability for bad, and that we more readily choose that than good, which requires self-control and self-examination." It has a certain amount of prima-facie power.

However - wouldn't you know it - I'm inclined to disagree in the end. It strikes me as being more plausible to say that noone acts except that they think that what they do is right, good, or worthwhile. Noone knowingly chooses to do the wrong thing - though we may think that they have misidentified what the right, good or worthwhile thing is. For example, when I kick the puppy, I presumably think that it would be worth doing: I expect to get some kind of reward for it in terms of enjoyment. I have, that is, identified the action as being, on balance, good in some sense. The moral problem concerns how I could have missed the (apparently obvious) reasons not to act in this way, not in my having chosen the wrong thing per se. And I suspect that the same applies accross the board: bad people aren't moustache-twiddling evil genii; they've simply made a mistake of moral perception or evaluation.

The problem with this account is that it's hard to see how some errors could be made. We might be able to understand some moral miscalculations or moral blindness, but some seems incomprehensible. How could Hitler have made a moral mistake that monumental, after all? I don't have an answer to that challenge; and that might be a fatal flaw in my account. But nor does any other account of wrongdoing that I've ever come across have a satisfactory answer, either - so I'm not alone in that. (Note that to say that H was just evil doesn't solve anything - if he was just built that way, then it's hard to see how we can ascribe guilt to him any more than we can ascribe it to a hurricane... and that looks mistaken, too.)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 15:32, closed)

ancrenne
That's how I understood you - sorry if I was unclear. But I still don't see why there should be any relationship at all; now your claim looks to be in need of quite a lot of empirical data to back it up. (If there is some, I'll concede the point - though I'll also be at a loss to explain it!)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 15:38, closed)

enzyme
I've heard that before somewhere - Socrates? But I disagree. While it sounds like a plausible argument, I think people do act in full knowledge that they are bad. What motivates them is not a choice between good and bad, or a feeling that the action is somehow beneficial or worthy, but that they are unlikely to get caught.

Hitler knew exactly what he was doing, otherwise why go to such lengths to cover it up at the time ('get rid of' the Jews yes - but not 'execute and burn them en masse'). When we kick a cat down the stairs or download a DVD or spit in someone's tea or all the other things that make b3ta such a lovely place, we do so because we know it's wrong and the frisson of doing it without getting caught is the thrill. In short, your "good in some sense" derives entirely from the action being bad and going unpunished - a paradox, surely. The very act of considering how worthy an action is is seldom gone through before committing it, and only done after the fact as a form of exculpation or apologia.

That said, instances of what you describe do exist - the boy who smothers his crying baby sibling because his mother is trying to sleep, for example. But I'd argue that such instances are far rarer than you suggest in adult life. I think we all know what we're really doing and choose to rationalise it away. That's the easy route.
(frankspencer, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 15:56, closed)

Frankspencer
Socrates is right. It was a widespread claim in Athens.

Still - people are not motivated by the fact that they won't get caught: they won't get caught if they don't do action x, either. What motivates them is the desire that x is worth doing; not getting caught simply removes the brakes. (Noone ever thinks that something is worth doing simply because they won't get caught, and to the extent that would-be criminals are rational, they will take the chance of getting caught into their consideration. But it's not what gets them out of the house in the first place.)

You're right that, sometimes, wrongness adds to the thrill, and this is something of a paradox at first glance. But not all that much of one: the action isn't done because it's wrong; it's done because it's thrilling in some way. As we might Miltonsatanically say: "Evil, be thou my good." But the point is just that it does thereby become good, at least in context.

The same sort of thing fits with at least some terrorist tactics: the intention may not be to kill as such, but to shock as a means to promoting some (good) end. (I read a samizdat terrorist pamphlet from the late 1970s that conceded this point: most terrorists would prefer not to shed blood, but are willing to do so because they think that it is worth it in the end. That fits my account perfectly.)

As I said, Hitler is a problem case - and I do have difficulty there. But, as I also said, so does everyone else. To this extent, I think that he's not all that useful in moral debate: he kind of falls off the end of the spectrum, and it's difficult to say anything meaningful that isn't at the same time exculpatory.

I grant that many "decisions" are no such thing, because they aren't matters of deliberation - but I don't think that that makes all that much difference: if pressed, I suspect that I might want to tell a story about agents' characters, rather than their actions, being the proper object of scrutiny. We're back to Greece with that - Aristotle this time (who, in my world, is modified by a bit of Nietzsche... but that's a different story). So there's no rationalising or explaining away - it's just a matter of shifting the focus. For me, it's people, not actions, that're bad.

Is the smothering example a Thos. Hardy reference, BTW? "Done because we are too many..."
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 16:13, closed)

@ancrenne
I think that you're right - it fits my earlier claim. Someone can quite coherently say something along the lines of "It's wrong, but it's FUN - and I care more about fun". I'm simplifying, but I think the sketch is OK.

And I think that the Loon's claim about some people being evil is a bit unsatisfactory - again, it seems to let Hitler off the hook if he was simply built that way, and I'm not prepared to let that one go through without a fight. Plus, I'd want a non-question-begging definition of "evil".

Phew! Hometime, I think!
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 16:16, closed)

value judgements
could be another way of asking "What might be the consequences of my act -will I get caught?" rather than an internal balance between social and personal morality. Also, I'd argue that the kind of things I'm talking about are considered bad in all societies - they're not a matter of debate.

Eating meat - a matter of debate. Throwing rocks at a donkey for fun until it dies - wrong. Execution of a criminal - debatable. Execution of a man so you can be first in the bus queue - wrong. I suppose it also boils down to what you actually do yourself. I wouldn't want an immigrant to clean my toilet, but I'd let a Romanian orphan make my shoes (because I didn't personally make them do it, you see).

To reiterate, in case we've lost the plot: cruelty to animals is symptomatic of out innate cruelty, however much we control it or dress it up in ethics and philosophy.
(frankspencer, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 16:17, closed)

Enzyme
OK, people don't act solely from an anticipation of not being caught, but following your argument, the 'something worth doing' is done in full knowledge of doing wrong. A burglar robs your house for his own benefit, but he does so in full knowledge that what he's doing is wrong - which is why he waits until you're out or until it's dark. He just doesn't care that it's wrong (and the assumption of not being caught is a benefit). He could get a job and earn his money legally and without moral issue, but it's easier to do what he knows is wrong. This example strays, however, from the premise of physical cruelty that we started with.

Kicking the cat down the stairs seems to have no other benefit than that it is funny. What underlies both examples is that both are done in full knowledge of them being wrong. Whatever other justification is added to them, it doesn't change the fact that they demonstrate our readiness to act cruelly or wrongly because it's easier than doing otherwise - surely evidence of our propensity for evil. It's just easier to break 'the rules' - and the fun derived from that is related directly to the fact that there are rules to break. I can't see that doing wrong for the sake of doing wrong can become your doing good merely because it is the justification. That smacks of sophism: "I am not doing wrong because my wrongdoing does me good. My kicking this cat is not cruel or evidence of my cruelty because it makes me laugh." These are the words of a madman rather than a philosopher. And Nietzsche went mad.
(frankspencer, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 16:34, closed)

Is anyone actually a psychologist or philosopher here
'cos Im not.
(frankspencer, Tue 11 Dec 2007, 16:57, closed)

Jeez, I didn't think this thread would spin up like this!
As I'm posting from work, I don't have a hell of a lot of time to spend on this, but...

When I said that "people are evil" I suppose I should have qualified that a bit. People are, by default, mostly pretty horrid. Just watch kids on a playground or think back to when you were a child, and recall what mean and shitty things transpired there. But as we get older we develop empathy (usually) and learn that being horrid to others only makes them horrid to us as well, and we grow out of such behaviors.

Unfortunately, many don't make that transition- and then you get the adults who think it's okay to mistreat animals. These people lack the empathy needed to see how being cruel to an animal is just as bad as being cruel to a person- and, if given a chance, they'll be as cruel or worse to a human. These are the people who treat waiters and secretaries and grocery store cashiers like dirt, and who really should be prevented at all costs from getting into any sort of position of authority.

And yes, it does spread out to other antisocial behaviors as well.

Back to work now... and no, I'm no psychologist or philosopher, just a feckin' engineer.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 11 Dec 2007, 17:11, closed)

I think that
One area of cruelty that doesn’t involve strong feelings of wrongness are carried out by those with not much empathy.

Empathy is important for understanding why people are cruel – or not cruel - to animals. Someone who’s happy to put salt on a slug my baulk at killing a mouse for example. The person who sets a mouse trap wouldn’t kill a dog. Public opinion my accept brown foreigners being killed, but is more concered when nice white people are in the firing line. Etc.

People who have no more empathy towards a cat, dog or human than most of us has towards a slug can carry out acts of extreme cruelty without feeling particularly concerned, thrilled or empowered. Their acts may be driven by feelings of anger, boredom, lack of direction, curiosity…

The flip side to the lack of empathy is behaviour can become extremely regulated. Where there is no empathy driven boundary to guide what is acceptable behaviour, the person may set absolutes as a coping strategy, where all possibly cruel acts are prohibited.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Tue 11 Dec 2007, 17:32, closed)

empathy
You're into tricky territory with empathy. I think people only empathise with things they perceive to be on a similar existential level.

Racists probably don't see people of other races as being human in the same way. I experienced this in China, where groups of people would gather round to stare at me, even maintaining eye-contact but not actually seeing my feelings at all - the way we might look at an insect.
(frankspencer, Wed 12 Dec 2007, 9:04, closed)

'Ning, Frankspencer! 'Ning, all!
You asked whether anyone here was actually a philosopher... Um, yes. I am.

Anyway... where were we? Oh, yes: I agree with you that Albert the cat-burner, or whoever, ought to recognise the wrongness of his action; I don't think, though, that recognising wrongness is always - or even often - sufficient to inhibit action. On many occasions, if desirable outcome x involves wrong action y, then people may bite the bullet and do y anyway, because the desirability of x is sufficient to put y at a discount. (In some cases, of course, we'll decide that y isn't worth it.)

Take the example of lying to someone whom you think is about to commit a murder; the lie will prevent this. Most people think that lying is wrong, but that, in this case, the end achieved would justify it. (Kant, incidentally, disagrees.) So here's a good example of people deliberately doing something that they admit would otherwise be wrong for the sake of something that they have identified as sufficient to justify that action. And the same principle could apply to Albert the cat-burner. We might disagree with his evaluation of cat-burning as being worthwhile - and I hope we'd be correct and able to persuade him of this - but the point would still stand either way.

Your point about racism would seem to have some evidence backing it, BTW. Apparently (and, from a Darwinian view, understandably) we are naturally predisposed to be suspicious of strangers - they clearly aren't from our tribe, and therefore represent genetic rivals. However, genes are stupid: hence familiarity with someone is sufficient to convince us that they are part of our tribe after all; and that is why cultures that are separated tend to want to stay separated, and integration lessens racism. Of course, again, there are complications with this picture along the lines of culture, economics &c, but the outline seems to be there...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 12 Dec 2007, 9:19, closed)

Incidentally...
... Nietzsche did, of course, go mad (tertiary syphilis, I believe): but that doesn't make much difference to his status as a philosopher. He was quite sane until late 1888-early 1889, and the stuff he produced in his final sane years - the Geneaology of Morals in particular - is stunning, as is the putdown to John Stuart Mill in Twilight of the Idols: "Man does not strive after happiness: only the English do that". His strange little autobiography from 1888 (Ecce Homo) is also worth a read: "I know my destiny: one day my name will come to be associated with something monstrous... I am no man; I am dynamite." (Apols. for inaccuracy: I'm relying on memory there...)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 12 Dec 2007, 9:25, closed)

Enzyme
You say: "I don't think, though, that recognising wrongness is always - or even often - sufficient to inhibit action."

I say: "Yes. That;'s my entire point. We act wrongly in full knowledge of it because that is in our nature."

Regards lying, I think we're on to a different element of morality or ethics there. I think physical cruelty comes from a more animalistic place in our psyche, somewhere that rationality never touches (except perhaps as guilt - which comes after the fact).
(frankspencer, Wed 12 Dec 2007, 9:27, closed)

Ring of Fire...
You're pretty much in line with David Hume there - although you would still have to be able (presumably) to give some account of those for whom we ought to have empathy. After all, if it's just a matter of my empathy for some and not others, and if I happen not to empathise with this or that person or creature, it's not clear that I've made a mistake or that there's any deficiency: it could be a bare description of my psychological make-up.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 12 Dec 2007, 9:28, closed)

frankspencer...
Maybe we're closer than we imagined, then - there's some "vicious mole in nature" that inhibits certain (admirable) dispositions and heightens certain (repugnant) ones. And "mole", there, is a deliberate and shameless pun.

As for the arationality point: yep - I think I could go along with that. I'm not sure of the place of reason in ethics, but I do think that its centrality has been overplayed for the past couple of hundred years.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 12 Dec 2007, 9:31, closed)

I'm not joining in the discussion.
I'm just saying "Godwin's law Enzyme!"

Though it is justified =)
( Rev. Cleo still alive, Wed 12 Dec 2007, 18:08, closed)

Heavens!
Is this the same Frankspencer who has posted tales of binking with everyone and everything? There appears to be more to him than meets the eye.
(tinypod will never learn. Ever., Thu 13 Dec 2007, 10:27, closed)