Similarly, someone whose judgment of right and wrong is seriously defective is in serious trouble. If someone witnesses a criminal lunatic gun down random people in the street and then walks up to him and says, “nice day”, he’s a serious candidate for a Darwin Award. Correct recognition of evil is a basic life skill, and any human who does not have it will be cut out of the gene pool.
It sounds to me like you’re describing the ability to recognize danger, not evil, there.
Say that your hypothetical criminal lunatic manages to avoid the police, and goes about his life. Later that week, he’s at a buffet restaurant, acting normally. Is he still evil? Assuming nobody recognizes him from the shooting, do you expect the other people using the buffet to react unusually to him in any way?
It sounds to me like you’re describing the ability to recognize danger, not evil, there.
It’s not either/or. There is no such thing as a bare sense of danger. For example, if you are about to drive your car off a cliff, hopefully you notice in time and stop. In that case, you’ve sensed danger—but you also sensed the edge of a cliff, probably with your eyes. Or if you are about to drink antifreeze, hopefully you notice in time and stop. In that case, you’ve sensed danger—but you’ve also sensed antifreeze, probably with your nose.
And so on. It’s not either/or. You don’t either sense danger or sense some specific thing which happens to be dangerous. Rather, you sense something that happens to be dangerous, and because you know it’s dangerous, you sense danger.
Say that your hypothetical criminal lunatic manages to avoid the police, and goes about his life. Later that week, he’s at a buffet restaurant, acting normally. Is he still evil?
Chances are higher than average that if he was a criminal lunatic a few days ago, he is still a criminal lunatic today.
Assuming nobody recognizes him from the shooting, do you expect the other people using the buffet to react unusually to him in any way?
Obviously not, because if you assume that people fail to perceive something, then it follows that they will behave in a way that is consistent with their failure to perceive it. Similarly, if you fail to notice that the antifreeze that you’re drinking is anything other than fruit punch, then you can be expected to drink it just as if it were fruit punch.
My point was that in the shooting case, the perception of danger is sufficient to explain bystanders’ behavior. They may perceive other things, but that seems mostly irrelevant.
You said:
Correct recognition of evil is a basic life skill, and any human who does not have it will be cut out of the gene pool.
This claim appears to be incompatible with your expectation that people will not notice your hypothetical murderer when they encounter him acting according to social norms after committing a murder, given that he’s supposedly still evil.
My point was that in the shooting case, the perception of danger is sufficient to explain bystanders’ behavior.
People perceive danger because they perceive evil, and evil is dangerous.
They may perceive other things, but that seems mostly irrelevant.
It is not irrelevant that they perceive a specific thing (such as evil) which is dangerous. Take away the perception of the specific thing, and they have no basis upon which to perceive danger. Only Spiderman directly perceives danger, without perceiving some specific thing which is dangerous. And he’s fictional.
Correct recognition of evil is a basic life skill, and any human who does not have it will be cut out of the gene pool.
This claim appears to be incompatible with your expectation that people will not notice your hypothetical murderer when they encounter him acting according to social norms after committing a murder, given that he’s supposedly still evil.
I was referring to the standard, common ability to recognize evil. I was saying that someone who does not have that ability will be cut out of the gene pool (not definitely—probabilistically, his chances of surviving and reproducing are reduced, and over the generations the effect of this disadvantage compounds).
People who fail to recognize that the guy is that same guy from before are not thereby missing the standard human ability to recognize evil.
It sounds to me like you’re describing the ability to recognize danger, not evil, there.
Say that your hypothetical criminal lunatic manages to avoid the police, and goes about his life. Later that week, he’s at a buffet restaurant, acting normally. Is he still evil? Assuming nobody recognizes him from the shooting, do you expect the other people using the buffet to react unusually to him in any way?
It’s not either/or. There is no such thing as a bare sense of danger. For example, if you are about to drive your car off a cliff, hopefully you notice in time and stop. In that case, you’ve sensed danger—but you also sensed the edge of a cliff, probably with your eyes. Or if you are about to drink antifreeze, hopefully you notice in time and stop. In that case, you’ve sensed danger—but you’ve also sensed antifreeze, probably with your nose.
And so on. It’s not either/or. You don’t either sense danger or sense some specific thing which happens to be dangerous. Rather, you sense something that happens to be dangerous, and because you know it’s dangerous, you sense danger.
Chances are higher than average that if he was a criminal lunatic a few days ago, he is still a criminal lunatic today.
Obviously not, because if you assume that people fail to perceive something, then it follows that they will behave in a way that is consistent with their failure to perceive it. Similarly, if you fail to notice that the antifreeze that you’re drinking is anything other than fruit punch, then you can be expected to drink it just as if it were fruit punch.
My point was that in the shooting case, the perception of danger is sufficient to explain bystanders’ behavior. They may perceive other things, but that seems mostly irrelevant.
You said:
This claim appears to be incompatible with your expectation that people will not notice your hypothetical murderer when they encounter him acting according to social norms after committing a murder, given that he’s supposedly still evil.
People perceive danger because they perceive evil, and evil is dangerous.
It is not irrelevant that they perceive a specific thing (such as evil) which is dangerous. Take away the perception of the specific thing, and they have no basis upon which to perceive danger. Only Spiderman directly perceives danger, without perceiving some specific thing which is dangerous. And he’s fictional.
I was referring to the standard, common ability to recognize evil. I was saying that someone who does not have that ability will be cut out of the gene pool (not definitely—probabilistically, his chances of surviving and reproducing are reduced, and over the generations the effect of this disadvantage compounds).
People who fail to recognize that the guy is that same guy from before are not thereby missing the standard human ability to recognize evil.