This brings up an interesting question, which is: might there be some “semi-sociopathic” humans who care about morality, but incrementally, not categorically?
It seems very likely that a person who cares a certain amount about morality, and a certain amount about money, would be willing to compromise his morality if given sufficient money. Such a mental model would form the basis of bribery. (It doesn’t have to be money, either, but the principle remains the same).
So a semi-sociopathic person would be anyone who could be bribed into completely disregarding morality.
a semi-sociopathic person would be anyone who could be bribed into completely disregarding morality.
On this account, we could presumably also categorize a semi-semi-sociopathic person as one who could be bribed into partially disregarding the thing we’re labeling “morality”. And of course bribes needn’t be money… people can be bribed by all kinds of things. Social status. Sex. Pleasant experiences. The promise of any or all of those things in the future.
Which is to say, we could categorize a semi-semi-sociopath as someone who cares about some stuff, and makes choices consistent with maximizing the stuff they care about, where some of that stuff is what we’re labeling “morality” and some of it isn’t.
We could also replace the term “semi-semi-sociopath” with the easier to pronounce and roughly equivalent term “person”.
It’s also worth noting that there probably exists stuff that we would label “morality” in one context and “bribe” in another, were we inclined to use such labels.
It seems very likely that a person who cares a certain amount about morality, and a certain amount about money, would be willing to compromise his morality if given sufficient money. Such a mental model would form the basis of bribery. (It doesn’t have to be money, either, but the principle remains the same).
So a semi-sociopathic person would be anyone who could be bribed into completely disregarding morality.
On this account, we could presumably also categorize a semi-semi-sociopathic person as one who could be bribed into partially disregarding the thing we’re labeling “morality”. And of course bribes needn’t be money… people can be bribed by all kinds of things. Social status. Sex. Pleasant experiences. The promise of any or all of those things in the future.
Which is to say, we could categorize a semi-semi-sociopath as someone who cares about some stuff, and makes choices consistent with maximizing the stuff they care about, where some of that stuff is what we’re labeling “morality” and some of it isn’t.
We could also replace the term “semi-semi-sociopath” with the easier to pronounce and roughly equivalent term “person”.
It’s also worth noting that there probably exists stuff that we would label “morality” in one context and “bribe” in another, were we inclined to use such labels.