Am I a psychopath?

Great Debates
1

In conversation, I opined that I would like to introduce Fred Phelps to the business end of an acetylene torch. Freind opined that if I really meant that, it would make me a sadistic psychopath.

What do you think?

Let me be clear on this: I believe that torture is morally unacceptable in nearly all circumstances. I would make no effort to justify said torture morally, legally or otherwise. My whole point was that if there were no possible legal consequences, and if my conscious moral system were somehow removed from the equation, my conscience on its own would prove no hindrance. I’m not sure I’d actually enjoy the experience – although right now, I feel as though I might – but I would very much feel like justice was being done.

In interest of further clarification, “Fred Phelps” is fungible with a few other persons: Osama bin Laden and his cohort of Muslim whackjobs spring to mind.
Freind has contented himself with the belief that I’m not really self-aware, that were I to work over one of these cretins with a cattle prod and a jug of battery acid the way I want to, I would really be wracked with guilt ever afterwards. For purposes of this thread, we’ll assume he’s wrong and I would feel fine about it.

To repeat: we’re not talking about morality here: Were I to do this, it would be morally unjustifiable. My point is just that I wouldn’t feel bad about it.

Am I a closet sadist?
And in case anyone is* really* concerned: outside of a football field and a few junior high fistfights, no, I have never consciously hurt any living thing.

2

A sadist, certainly, but not a psychopath. You’re doing it out of hatred for your victim, not solely for your own pleasure, and you are concerned with his feelings - concerned that they’re as painful and unpleasant as possible, perhaps, but you do take them into account and recognize that they exist.

The critical element of psychopathy is lack of empathy - not being concerned with how others feel, thinking only of your (presumably pleasurable) reaction to your crimes. To the psychopath, his victim is no more a person than the Barbie dolls and spiders he “practiced” on in his formative years…

3

First, sadism and psychopathy are different things. Here is a description of the currently most widely used definition of psychopathy.

Secondly, we could not determine if you were a psychopath based simply on our internet based evaluation of you.

Thirdly, to answer your question, the behavior you described would be insufficient to meet the criteria for psychopathy, as you see if you scroll down a bit in the link I provided. More generally, imagining violence as retribution for the wrongs committed by others doesn’t really capture the self-serving callousness or the remorselessness of a psychopath, in my opinion.

4

Standard Disclaimer: IANAPsychologist

I do not think you would be deemed a psychopath in the clinical sense of the term.

In order to be a lieral psychopath you need:

If you read that link a bit they lump psychopathy in a group called “Antisocial Personality Disorder”. In order to be deemed suffering from APD you need to exhibit at least three of the following features as pulled from the DSM-IV (from same cite as above):

It seems like you might fit #1 and #7 for this but that only makes for two.

Frankly I think you are normal although I bet if you managed to actually be in a position to do what you describe you’d probably back down before (or very shortly after) you started. Hypothetical is all well and nice but it seems you are, in fact, a moral person and probably a decent fellow and that would kick in. I am guessing you’d just end up bitch slapping Phelps around a bit and leave it at that.

5

I should note that Psychopaths are lumped in with APD but those with APD are not necessarily psychopaths. If you do not even fit the description of APD then you cannot be a psychopath (at least from a clinical perspectiv).

6

While I appreciate the fact that you do note the difference between the constructs, I feel obliged to say that one could meet criteria for APD and not psychopathy, and vice versa (if it matters, IAACP).

7

You can be a psychopath (clinically defined) and not be lumped in to the APD group? I am not arguing with you (not my field)…just genuinely curious how that would work.

8

You won’t know until you actually try.
Selfperception is often an illusion.
Just look at American Idol.

9

I need to clarify; I was not using “psychopath” in a narrow clinical sense; nor, for that matter was my freind. The question is more generally whether there is something generally amiss, akilter, or wrong psychologically with the sentiments in the OP.

10

It depends.

I think it is normal for people to get an urge to smack someone now and again. Part of what makes us functioning members of society is not doing that when the urge strikes. Still, humans have a violent side and when societal/moral inhibitions fall the results can be ugly (read Lord of the Flies or look to places like Rwanda or even New Orleans after the hurricane).

So, that you have a desire to beat up on someone who you find offensive or overtly annoying I think is fine. What sets your post apart is the level to which you’d like to inflict pain. It is one thing to just want to punch someone…it is another level to want to pull out the battery acid and blow torch. If you honestly think you would derive pleasure/satisfaction from doing that to someone then yes…I think you might have issues.

That said I think when it came down to it you probably would not torture anyone*, no matter how evil or offensive you found them, because you do have a coherent set of morals and values. I suspect you are just being glib when talking to your friend about taking a blow torch to Phelps. Sitting in a bar talking about it over a drink it seems funny and attractive but if faced with the reality of doing it then it’d be a whole different ball game.

[sub]*- I can conceive of situations where torture might be doable by most anybody. For example, if I had a guy in front of me who I knew had placed a nuclear bomb in Chicago set to detonate in 6 hours I would have no compunctions going at him/her with a blowtorch if I thought it’d get me the info I need to find and stop the bomb. That said I am certain I would not enjoy any of it and view it merely as necessity.[/sub]

11

Sure. First, the easiest way would be via the requirement in the diagnosis of APD of the presence of some symptoms of CD by the age of 15. Hypothetically, it would be possible for someone to show criteria for psychopathy without having had CD symptoms in childhood.

However, the inclusion of a greater number of personality-based items (versus behaviorally oriented items) among the criteria for psychopathy illustrates a potential way in which one could be categorized as a psychopath without necessarily meeting criteria for APD.

Cleckly (who developed a key modification to the construct of psychopathy in the mid 20th century), in fact, discussed the “successful psychopath,” one who shows particularly the personality traits of the psychopath without the antisocial behavior. Clearly, some aspects of psychopathic personality can be regarded as advantageous in some occupations.

The construct of psychopathy has been around for a long time. In 1980, the diagnostic features of APD were intentionally restricted to those more behaviorally focused as a method of increasing interrater reliability. This has caused quite a bit of controversy among those who feel that specific personality features are crucial to understanding psychopaths, yet are excluded from the diagnosis of APD.

Another variable would be the question of what cutoff one should use to categorize psychopathy versus non-psychopathy. The cutoff of 30 on the Psychopathy Checklist (which is presently the gold standard for assessing psychopathy) suggested by Hare and his colleagues has yielded quite low rates of psychopathy among non-forensic samples. However, employing this cutoff would ensure a greater likelihood that your proposition would be true, as there would have to be the endorsement of behavioral and personality features among the positive categorization of psychopathy. Some suggestions for lowered cut-points have been put forward, which tends to increase the potential for being categorized as a psychopath without meeting criteria for APD.

12

Well… when I’m fighting with a a particularly aggressive piece of malware that is likely going to cause me to re-format and re-install the entire system, yes I do have these …thoughts where I roust the programmers and distributors of this crap out of bed at 3 in the morning, and go to work on them.

“Work” in this instance involves baseball bats, Dremel moto tools, camping saws, brush pruners with compound action, sledge and claw hammers, gasoline in a spray bottle, power drill wire brush attachments, and some Kosher table salt. And creativity… lots of creativity.

Would I actually do this? Probably not, it’s just too much trouble. Would I shoot them in the head and place them heads on spikes if I could get away with it? Ummm… maybe. Does this make me a psychopath? No… it’s revenge seeking combined with a moral calculus that they have IMO) forfeited the right to live among other human beings.

13

The only ethical problem I can see (ethical in the sense of classical philosophical ethics) is that if you can justify your position with respect to Fred Phelps, then he can, by the same reasoning you use, justify his position with respect to gays and lesbians.

14

Then you wouldn’t do it. You might have your fantasies and imagine your “conscience” would be no hindrance, but the moment your victim started screaming, you almost certainly would stop. Inflicting pain in cold blood is the kind of thing you have to work your way up to, and it helps to be temperamentally inclined in the first place. (I’m assuming your fantasy involves doing the job up close with your own hands, not from another room like in the Millgram Experiment.)

15

I would happily hold Phelps down for you. And I’m not a closet anything.

16

Bingo.

Also, what Brainglutton said. Fantasizing about it is one thing (and also pretty normal). Actually going through with something like that takes a certain level of detatchment that most people are incapable of.

I also think it’s ridiculous to compare Fred Phelps with Osama bin Laden. Fred Phelps is a piece of shit, to be sure. Not only is he a virulent bigot and loathesome, hurtful troll with his public behavior, he’s also a wife beater and a child abuser. He is not, however, a mass murderer or a violent terrorist. Let’s keep some perspective.

17

I don’t think it is a stretch putting them on the same level of mega-assholes. Osama has just been more successful at winning people to his side to do his bidding. I have little doubt Phelps would gleefully march every homosexual he could get his hands on to a gas chamber if had the chance.

18

It is not your nature, but rather the nature of evil itself that you have glimpsed. Hatred breeds hatred Demonization of those we hate is a process by which we allow ourselves to hate more easily. This is the root problem with the act of judging the souls of others. The “reward” we seek to give ourselves by justification of our own evil is to place our hatred beyond judgment. As an enemy of evil, we believe ourselves to be good. Our actions are only the final step, evil works on us in our hatreds, our fears, and our desires first.

Stop yourself. You have your soul to loose.

Tris

19

Oh, baby, it’s so already loost.

What if there is no soul? What if hatred and anger make us stronger, advance us as a species? What if, ladies and gentlemen, greed, for lack of a better word, is good?

Sorry, sometimes I think I’m Michael Douglas. The point is, can sadism be a virtue? Like others have said, it’s sadism the OP is more rightfully accused of. He claims he thinks he wouldn’t “enjoy” it, but that it wouldn’t bother him either, as if in his imagination he is a kind of cosmic enforcer - the Karma Police, perhaps. ;j He’s just doing his job, ma’am. In order for the scales in his head to sit right, somebody has to lose a pound of flesh.

It’s not like he invented the concept. If he actually did it he’d be a bad guy, but does thinking about it put him in psychological (or spiritual) danger as Tris suggests? He said he doesn’t want this to be about morality. He accepts a moral black mark for his hypothetical act, which makes this more interesting. He’s not conceptualizing it as an act of inspired goodness (which would certainly be crazy, if not psychopathic) but one of necessary evil. Again, the job to do.

Hannah Arendt wrote of the mind-numbing “banality of evil”. We see Nazis shuffling papers, International Business Machines counting gold fillings. But maybe exposure to evil, like the OP’s Fred Phelps, eventually numbs the conscience of even decent people who don’t think about cattle prods in a non-cowboy context, to the point where they become willing to stoop to any level to not just annihilate, but punish that evil. Many camp survivors talk of the revenge they would like to take on their guards.

This is what I think, and sorry for the rambling, I assemble my thoughts best out loud. :stuck_out_tongue: I think if it’s to be done, then do it with glee. Enjoy your work. Get out the pliers and the power drill. Have a blast. You have renounced your morality already, and to namby-pamby around with clinical detachment is, frankly, to express misgivings about what you’re doing, unless that’s really how you feel, and something in your tone (“right now I feel like I would”) suggests otherwise to me.

If you are going to do it, you had damn well better be absolutely sure it’s what you want to do. If you are, go to town. If you regret it later, kill yourself.

Of course, I don’t think the OP should do any of that. We’re speaking fiction here. This is just a little game of “24”.

Now as to the question, does it make you a bona fide crazy person if you don’t regret it, don’t kill yourself, just go on happily with your life, whistling and throwing the occasional bell-kick?

You better fuckin’ believe it does. Like Hunter Thompson said, buy the ticket, take the ride. The only way you could go on happily with your life after something like that anyway is to /go/ at least a little crazy, so it’s kind of moot. But I think yes, to do it you need an edge of insanity most people lack. But you might think of that as a gift, since you are speaking in a morally empty universe. Your sanity is your sacrifice so that those cosmic scales are inched that much closer to being balanced.

So given that, I have a question for you: Would it be worth it?