[ExI] People are Genuine Altruists, Sociopaths, or Confused/Moody

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2008/8/31 Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com>:

> 2. For the purposes of this discussion, I'd like to use the term "sociopath"
> to refer to people who have no consciences. In other words, this is
> *not* simply a behavioral characteristic, i.e., someone who acts as
> though he or she has a conscience, but is doing so only out of fear of
> eventual discrimination should the truth emerge, as---we may hypothesize
> ---it shortly may under appropriate MRI application. I'm confident that I
> will shortly be informed by the more knowledgeable here if my usage is
> just too much at odds with convention

It is somewhat at odds with convention as the personality disorders
are diagnosed mostly on the basis of behaviours rather than internal
states. This is really just a practical consideration, since there's
no point in diagnosing a condition that does not result in either
distress to the patient or dysfunctional behaviour. However, there are
people who seem to have no conscience but behave "well" because they
judge it to be in their best interests to do so, differing from
clinically diagnosed psychopaths in being less impulsive and less
reckless.




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou