Feeling like you’re a good person, or at least like you can make a credible case for being one, is an essential reward for most people. I don’t see it as either psychopath vs. normal; on a continuum, some normal people are more willing to sacrifice this reward than others.
It’s also easy to imagine being comfortable with acts of great malice or selfishness from a safe distance (e.g. hypothetical scenarios where there’s no possible downside for you personally except the memory of having done evil); when actually in position to pull the trigger, empathy or caution will become more telling. I wouldn’t become overly concerned with this sort of moral abstraction.
To imagine being content to do great harm to others, you have to imagine being extremely compartmentalized and delusional (in order to maintain the satisfaction of feeling like a good person), or else extremely unhappy. This is unattractive, and I can’t imagine anyone choosing it who values clear and honest thinking about their own nature, unless their situation is desperate.
People who actually don’t feel bad when they harm others are ultimately going to be extremely cautious to disguise this if they’re intelligent, but wherever they’re sure of some great benefit and can act with impunity, will likely do so. I don’t rule out such people choosing to live by some strict set of ethics, but generally they’re better off only pretending to do so unless they find deception especially taxing.
Feeling like you’re a good person, or at least like you can make a credible case for being one, is an essential reward for most people. I don’t see it as either psychopath vs. normal; on a continuum, some normal people are more willing to sacrifice this reward than others.
It’s also easy to imagine being comfortable with acts of great malice or selfishness from a safe distance (e.g. hypothetical scenarios where there’s no possible downside for you personally except the memory of having done evil); when actually in position to pull the trigger, empathy or caution will become more telling. I wouldn’t become overly concerned with this sort of moral abstraction.
To imagine being content to do great harm to others, you have to imagine being extremely compartmentalized and delusional (in order to maintain the satisfaction of feeling like a good person), or else extremely unhappy. This is unattractive, and I can’t imagine anyone choosing it who values clear and honest thinking about their own nature, unless their situation is desperate.
People who actually don’t feel bad when they harm others are ultimately going to be extremely cautious to disguise this if they’re intelligent, but wherever they’re sure of some great benefit and can act with impunity, will likely do so. I don’t rule out such people choosing to live by some strict set of ethics, but generally they’re better off only pretending to do so unless they find deception especially taxing.