I think the most simple example is how people in the past considered torturing animals enjoyable.
When you focus on animals, it removes a lot of human rationalizations from the picture. The animals are not your political enemies. They are not your religious enemies. They are not your business competitors. Most of the clever rationalizations a modern civilized person one could find for why e.g. some religious people enjoy torturing heretics, they don’t apply to animals. Yet, some people enjoy torturing animals.
Can we agree that some people enjoy torturing animals, and that in the past (past is also a different culture) such behavior was more frequent?
If yes, then the hypothesis that some people also enjoy torturing humans, and that the frequency of such enjoyment depends on culture (by which I don’t deny the possibility of also biological causes) seems rather likely to me.
I feel a bit dirty for calling Chesterton to help, but here he is:
If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.
To answer your questions specifically:
What evidence is there that “the parts of the brain containing the idea of burning the heretics were connected by neural pathways to the pleasure centers”?
This is how all associations in human brain work. Why would this one be an exception?
What you mean when you say “People from different cultures and subcultures can be wired differently”?
Just like in some culture people see a caterpillar and are like: eek!” and in other culture they are like: “yummy food!”
What exactly does it mean to be wired differently?
In context of this debate, to have different emotions fire automatically after perceiving the same concept. For example, emotions of empathy and sadness, or emotions of satisfaction and joy (after they both read in the newspapers that another dozen heretics were publicly burned).
I think the most simple example is how people in the past considered torturing animals enjoyable.
When you focus on animals, it removes a lot of human rationalizations from the picture. The animals are not your political enemies. They are not your religious enemies. They are not your business competitors. Most of the clever rationalizations a modern civilized person one could find for why e.g. some religious people enjoy torturing heretics, they don’t apply to animals. Yet, some people enjoy torturing animals.
Can we agree that some people enjoy torturing animals, and that in the past (past is also a different culture) such behavior was more frequent?
If yes, then the hypothesis that some people also enjoy torturing humans, and that the frequency of such enjoyment depends on culture (by which I don’t deny the possibility of also biological causes) seems rather likely to me.
I feel a bit dirty for calling Chesterton to help, but here he is:
To answer your questions specifically:
This is how all associations in human brain work. Why would this one be an exception?
Just like in some culture people see a caterpillar and are like: eek!” and in other culture they are like: “yummy food!”
In context of this debate, to have different emotions fire automatically after perceiving the same concept. For example, emotions of empathy and sadness, or emotions of satisfaction and joy (after they both read in the newspapers that another dozen heretics were publicly burned).
I think you may have misunderstood me. I was asking for you to make your claims more precise and to provide evidence for them.