Autistics can't tell the difference between right and wrong?

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I'm suspicious of the notion of "telling the difference between right and wrong" because it smacks of moral absolutism, which I see as a dangerous state of mind. Once a person "knows" that their cause is noble, that they have god on their side, they cease to listen to the counter-arguments, and they cease to be stoppable.

I would think autistic people were generally less likely to internalise the edicts of their parents and teachers, more likely to think "that's only what they say" and to have their own ideas about ethical codes. I guess there's a problem that autistic folks are going to seem inconsiderate because they literally don't consider other people much, because they have difficulty in divining their feelings. I would think that the alexithymia would make it more difficult for us to control our behaviour sometimes, because we might not know that we're feeling angry and therefore we wouldn't know to take evasive action in case we lash out inappropriately. We might also put abnormal emphasis on the logic of parity when deciding moral issues. I think that neurotypical ethics are only partly rational.

I don't embrace any moral code as particularly mine. I think morality is just a set of rules drawn up in the hope of getting people to rub along together in reasonable harmony. I'll normally comply if I see the sense of it in that context, or if it's so strongy policed that I'd be taking an unreasonable risk to disobey. I don't feel that any good has been done if I'm forced to obey a rule I feel to be wrong. I have a sense of contempt for the rules I've been saddled with, because I was never really involved in the decision-making, it was more like somebody came up one day and said that's how it was, so I feel kind of bullied by the whole thing. I like the notion that when the law is unjust, resistance is a duty. The problem is, who decides what's unjust?

Mind you, I'm about as harmless as anybody can be. For one thing, I don't interact with people much....if I have little effect on other people, my capacity for moral or immoral behaviour is similarly limited. For another thing, I just don't like hurting people or other animals, I don't like damaging anything. Maybe we'd be better to stick to the Buddhist term "harmful" rather than "wrong" or "sinful." Harm stands at least some chance of being objectively assessed.

There's no reason why autism should affect the ability to tell right from wrong, that I've ever heard. Except maybe in empathy situations where right or wrong depends on the situation itself; such as where you might not know if it's right or wrong to say something in any particular situation, where an NT would "just know" if it's appropriate to say, etc. But right and wrong as far as what society has made as law and rules, such as stealing, lying, killing, etc., anyone autistic or NT should know the difference, and has the choice to act on it as a good citizen, or not, and become a criminal.

Charles

Yes, it does depend upon what you mean by right and wrong. For example, let's say in order to save 1,000,000 I have to kill 1 particular child what is the correct course of action? What do you do here? Letting people get killed is wrong but murder is wrong as well. It seems like in this situation both choices would be both right and wrong. What is the solution to this? Could there be other possible choices that I may have overlooked. I would have to collect more data and see if there were 3 or more choices.

What I presented is called an ethical dillemma. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_dilemma

Interesting.....I heard a radio programme about the study of ethics, and they reckoned that people generally accepted that it would be OK to push a button to remotely kill one man in order to save many lives, but they felt it wasn't OK to personally go and push him into the path of an oncoming train to achieve the same result. See how it's an emotive thing for them, and how we prefer to use logic, with all this talk of more data required, more possibilities need identifying, etc.? I disagreed with the NTs and figured that the ethics of the situation were the same whether or not I had to kill at close quarters, because logically the end result would be the same, except that I'd be more shaken up afterwards. But from the NTs' point of view, I'm missing something.

You guys are going really off topic. Is it reasonable to expect a mother with autism to be able to identify child abuse?

Depends on the person. NT women often aren't able to identify it, either.

But, usually, when a father abuses his children, he abuses his wife as well. So in most cases, she is just as much affected as they are. I know this was the case for my mother--when my stepfather hit me and my sisters, he also stole from her, lied to her, and kept her emotionally terrorized (he almost never hit her physically; in their case, it was all emotional abuse). When a person is trapped in an abusive relationship, it almost doesn't matter whether or not they're autistic. The difference, mainly, may be that an autistic person who is the target of spousal abuse will usually have fewer social connections outside the home, and thus be an easier target and more easily trapped.

I suspect that the significant factor here is the abusive husband rather than the autism.

That makes sense, Callista.

I can tell the difference between right and wrong, too.

hmm, i don't know.. what i know is that i'm always right LOL
i haven't ever been wrong before so i don't know yet.

Right and wrong as far as morality goes is often culture-centric. If your point of view doesn't mesh with the culture you are living in and you base your actions upon views that conflict with that culture, you are liable to face consequences you won't like.

Morality and ethics are taught by social institutions such as family, school, church, government, etc. I don't think that people are just born knowing such things.

Whether an autistic mother could understand the societal definition of child abuse might be determined at what kind of functioning level that mother has. Many NTs don't make good parents. It is reasonable to assume many people on the spectrum wouldn't be good parents either. Inability to emote certainly makes it difficult by the parent makes it difficult for the child to learn how to interpret nonverbal cues.

I'm pretty sure I had to learn the difference between right and wrong. Given the enormous effort by every society in history to teach their view of right and wrong to all their members, I figured everyone else needed to learn it too.

Except for a select few that can see the wrong things sanctioned by their own societies and work to stop it.

I've often been confused by the way a lot of people say "that's just wrong" about things... apparently without even thinking about it. But they don't really have to think about it, do they... they just feel it and it's good enough most of the time.