I don't get it.
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Originally Posted by elucidate  Because Lions don't have consciences...we do, or at least most of us do. Lions kill for food...not for fun.
It may be in the serial killers nature to do what they do for pleasure, but their actions are purely selfish, and that is what is evil. They do not consider the harm it brings upon the family of the person they killed. Their pleasure is all that matters to them in their little universe. Meanwhile the murder victims family are left to pick up the pieces, and make sense of something that makes no sense. |
Right. The serial killer just doesn't care. Their conscience isn't there if it ever was. A lot of humans don't have that empathetic part of their psyche and for many more it gets deadened early on. What about someone like Jeffrey Dahmer who claims to have felt intense remorse for what he did even as he was doing it. Is Dahmer evil but a true sociopath serial killer without a conscience is innocent? Most people think the sociopath is "pure evil", but if violating conscience is what defines evil then this really doesn't make sense.
What about things that people disagree about morally? Is killing ok? What about in war? Can we lie? What if it's a white lie? Is polygamy ok? What about romantic relationships with the very young? What about homosexuality? What about orgys? What about rock and roll? Genital mutilation? You get the idea.
In one society something is evil and in another that same thing is good. This looks an awful lot like people projecting an artificial standard onto nature. Is there any evidence to the contrary?
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Originally Posted by elucidate Animals kill and it isn't cruel or personal...they kill to eat. We kill to eat animals, but some also kill just for the fun of it. No animal does that. Killer whales play with their prey before they kill them, but they still kill and eat them. |
Plenty of animals kill purely for entertainment when conditions are conducive. My cat for example.