Is genocide justified when it comes to psychopaths?

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26 Feb 2012, 7:09 am

So I'm listening to Coast to Coast AM and the guest was saying how the Eskimos will push psychopaths off the ice when nobody is looking. I'm not sure how true that is as you tend to hear a lot of myths about Eskimo culture but it made me think.

Do you think if a person is proven to be a psychopath/sociopath, they are worthless and unworthy of taking up human resources and living among 'normal' people? Do you think even building concentration camps to eliminate anyone proven to be a psychopath would not be an evil thing?

Personally I would strongly oppose killing psychopaths because for one, I'm a pacifist, but even if I wasn't, being a psychopath doesn't automatically make you a violent or cruel person, in fact I would say the majority of psychopaths are law abiding citizens simply because violence 'isn't their thing' and they are smart enough to realize it will only get them in trouble.

Another thing is I don't really believe true psychopaths exist, I think ALL psychopaths are 'situational psychopaths'. I've read a lot about famous 'evil people' such as Hitler, Stalin and Dahmer and most of the famous psychopaths loved someone or felt emotional about something at some point in their life.

NarcissusSavage
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26 Feb 2012, 7:21 am

My best friend is a pychopath, I quite like him, thanks.

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donnie_darko
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26 Feb 2012, 7:31 am

NarcissusSavage wrote:

My best friend is a pychopath, I quite like him, thanks.

I'm completely against the idea of killing off psychopaths, to me it's just as bad as killing off wolves or rattlesnakes. Just because they pose a danger to us in some situations, doesn't give us a right to kill them!

I think it's an interesting question though. I hear more and more about psychopaths it almost seems like it's the latest trend in psychology/sociology.

NarcissusSavage
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26 Feb 2012, 7:52 am

donnie_darko wrote:

I'm completely against the idea of killing off psychopaths, to me it's just as bad as killing off wolves or rattlesnakes.

Um...

They are PEOPLE.

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AstroGeek
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26 Feb 2012, 8:21 am

OK: genocide is when you kill an entire race or ethnicity. Psychopaths are not an individual race or ethnicity, so killing them all is not genocide. It's just mass-murder.

That said, I'm still opposed to your proposal.

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26 Feb 2012, 8:29 am

How do you decide who is and is not a psychopath? And who, exactly, would be the ones doing the deciding? Would there be some sort of right of appeal?

And, as an aside, I think what you're talking about here is not genocide, but eugenics. Unless you're going to make a Susan Sontag-like leap of vileness, and tar an entire race with one brush. (As with her charming quote "The white race is the cancer of human history.")

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LiberalJustice
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26 Feb 2012, 8:51 am

WorldsEdge wrote:

This.

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donnie_darko
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26 Feb 2012, 9:28 am

AstroGeek wrote:

That said, I'm still opposed to your proposal.

It's not my proposal! lol

donnie_darko
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26 Feb 2012, 9:30 am

WorldsEdge wrote:

On Coast to Coast AM the guest stated that scientists consider psychopaths a subspecies (very suspect claim, imo). So even though psychopaths aren't a race, what makes a mass killing a genocide is about intent, imo it would be genocide if they were killed because they were believed/considered to be a subspecies.

marshall
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26 Feb 2012, 11:46 am

No, but they should be locked away for good if they are dangerous.

donnie_darko
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26 Feb 2012, 11:52 am

marshall wrote:

No, but they should be locked away for good if they are dangerous.

Or at least until there is a way to cure them. I see them as mentally ill, not in the conventional sense of being delusional, but I think it is a kind of disability.

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26 Feb 2012, 12:44 pm

marshall wrote:

No, but they should be locked away for good if they are dangerous.

you can't lock people away simply because you believe them to be dangerous. as things stand, people have to have been convicted of a crime to be locked away, the only exception being the mental health system, which many believe to be questionable on ethical grounds. and even there, people can't be locked away simply on the grounds of a psychopathy diagnosis.

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simon_says
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26 Feb 2012, 1:14 pm

Psychopaths might be the only humans to survive a post-apocalyptic world. Better to keep them around just to get our genes through any bottlenecks. Just remember to open the prisons and mental hospitals before the bombs hit.

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26 Feb 2012, 1:53 pm

NarcissusSavage wrote:

donnie_darko wrote:

I'm completely against the idea of killing off psychopaths, to me it's just as bad as killing off wolves or rattlesnakes.

Um...

They are PEOPLE.

I know, I was just saying I don't consider wolves or rattlesnakes' lives to be worthless merely because they are a danger to people, and likewise I think psychopaths' lives have value too.

Tequila
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26 Feb 2012, 1:54 pm

Who would be doing the genocide...?

...oh, yeah.

Sweetleaf
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26 Feb 2012, 1:56 pm

I feel like this is a trick question, but I won't be fooled......so no genocide is not justified when it comes to psychopaths. We could use a society that does not cater to psychopathic behavior though, but that is a topic for another time.

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