I do. At least as long as they behave. If you’re intelligent enough to know (on an abstract level) why altruism and cooperation is good for humans within societies and have enough self-control to live by this principle, I don’t know why empathy remains important. I mean, as a terminal value.
There’s only an argument for altruism and cooperation if an agent is certain the other agents are running a decision theory that is as good as its own and their utility functions are similar enough to cooperate. TDT will cooperate with other TDTs, but a TDT without empathy will Win against decision theories like the ones human brains use. That’s essentially the main argument for FAI. Self-control implies a terminal value with greater utility than doing whatever anti-social things one otherwise wants to do. I don’t believe psychopaths have any greater-utility terminal values than getting what they want at the expense of others. That seems to be the entire problem, in fact.
Empathetic, slightly-less-intelligent people are okay but surely not more desirable than otherwise similarly empathetic intelligent people. Punishing less intelligent people just because of this appears to be just as useless and (w.r.t. my morality) immoral as punishing less empathetic people.
I’d prefer intelligent and non-psychopathic people over the others but I don’t want to punish less intelligent people, I want to make them more intelligent. I don’t want to punish psychopaths either. I want to make them less psychopathic. I can teach less intelligent people but apparently I can’t (yet) teach empathy to psychopaths.
If there’s a better approach to reducing murders by psychopaths than decreasing the number of psychopaths (by hindering them from reproducing), I’d opt for that.
Right now I don’t know of any. Therapy appears to teach psychopaths better skills at manipulating people. One potential solution would be to prevent unintelligent people from being born and train everyone to recognize and counter the strategies that psychopaths use. That would put everyone on a level intellectual playing field and it’s arguable that even psychopaths would recognize that fact and cooperate with everyone else.
train everyone to recognize and counter the strategies that psychopaths use
I like this way of thinking. By the way, there is some research about the weaknesses of psychopaths. From this article:
In this task, the participant has to decide whether to play a card. Initially, the participant’s choice to play is always reinforcing; if the participant plays the card he or she will win points or money. However, as the participant progresses through the pack of cards, the probability of reward decreases. Thus, initially ten out of ten cards are rewarded, then nine out of ten, then eight out of ten continuing on until zero out of ten cards are rewarded. The participant should stop playing the cards when playing means that more cards are associated with punishment rather than reward. That is, they should stop playing the cards when only four out of ten cards are associated with reward. Children with psychopathic tendencies and adult individuals with psychopathy have considerable difficulty with this task; they continue to play the cards even when they are being repeatedly punished and may end up losing all the points that they had gained.
Just making these weaknesses widely known, together with some simple strategies for exploiting them (something like “The Game”, just about playing your boss), could change the balance on the playing field...
With the card game in mind, I have doubts that most psychopaths can function on any executive level, and am not surprised at all that they overrepresent as prisoners.
Hare says that because narcissistic, histrionic, and obsessive compulsive tendencies are elevated in executives, it must mean that psychopaths are more common in executives as well, because after all these are “psychopathic tendencies” This is akin to saying that because someone has above-average self-esteem, they also have psychopathic traits. But if anyone really wants to pore through the data, antisocial traits (or callousness), a core feature of psychopathy, is not elevated in executives. In fact, it was lower than the other groups studied. They report the data but overlook this important fact in their paper. Looks like the authors had an agenda.
Considering what we know about the callousness of corporations and atrocities committed by cultures throughout history, it is easy to assume that psychopathy runs rampant among leaders. (and it plays on people’s envy) Of course, this relies on the assumption that “good” people are not capable of atrocities and competitive greed without the coercion of bad people. Put two perfectly normal small families in a remote island with only enough resources to feed one, and you will see how quickly morality and compassion get thrown out the window. Knowing this, it is easy to imagine this concept in larger groups, which explains the behavior we see in war or corporate competition (where letting your competitors win means losing your job). No psychopathy is needed.
a TDT without empathy will Win against decision theories like the ones human brains use.
‘Winning’ is not really the right word here—a rational decision procedure should Win by definition. Clearly, psychopaths have different goals compared to the rest of the population: for simplicity, let’s suppose that, compared to neurotypicals, they lack a terminal goal of not inflicting direct costs on others. However, punishing people for lacking certain terminal goals is not quite kosher by modern political/ethical standards. We don’t lock people up for not donating enough to developing-world charities, because we understand that the vast majority of interactions are positive sum regardless.
Whether a psychopath approximating TDT could cooperate with a neurotypical person following either TDT or some kind of informal morality—and vice versa—is an interesting question and one that probably does not have an easy answer. However, in theory, TDT-approximating psychopaths should readily cooperate with each other.
It may also be the case that psychopaths are less able to enter precommitments and abide by them due to their overall deficits, which would make them more similar to CDT agents. However, this would not make them “winners” either, in any real sense: far from it. They would stop “winning” as soon as their lack of commitment (and thus non-credibility) was perceived by other agents—which would be quite soon, especially in a more rational world with a higher sanity waterline.
There’s only an argument for altruism and cooperation if an agent is certain the other agents are running a decision theory that is as good as its own and their utility functions are similar enough to cooperate.
It also works in society, with a government enforcing law and puts forth other fines and incentives. Furthermore, humans are messy. Our immediate desires, on a lower level, can be quite different from our long-term, reflected, higher goals. It’s a matter of impulsiveness which of these wins how frequently.
I don’t believe psychopaths have any greater-utility terminal values than getting what they want at the expense of others.
Why “at the expense of others”? That’s a property of the world, not of them (which does not excuse what they do).
I don’t want to punish psychopaths either. I want to make them less psychopathic.
I apopogize for misreading you. “We didn’t eradicate malaria or polio with kinder, gentler methods. Don’t leave anything for evolution to work with.” sounds rather more… straightforward to me than you apparently meant it. I’m glad that we agree that psychopaths should be helped, whereever possible, to become productive parts of society.
Therapy appears to teach psychopaths better skills at manipulating people.
Then the current therapeutic methods are not well-suited for this task. If we want to go down the road of developing more effective means of psychopath crime prevention, therapy etc., I suggest we Hold Off On Proposing Solutions.
There’s only an argument for altruism and cooperation if an agent is certain the other agents are running a decision theory that is as good as its own and their utility functions are similar enough to cooperate. TDT will cooperate with other TDTs, but a TDT without empathy will Win against decision theories like the ones human brains use. That’s essentially the main argument for FAI. Self-control implies a terminal value with greater utility than doing whatever anti-social things one otherwise wants to do. I don’t believe psychopaths have any greater-utility terminal values than getting what they want at the expense of others. That seems to be the entire problem, in fact.
I’d prefer intelligent and non-psychopathic people over the others but I don’t want to punish less intelligent people, I want to make them more intelligent. I don’t want to punish psychopaths either. I want to make them less psychopathic. I can teach less intelligent people but apparently I can’t (yet) teach empathy to psychopaths.
Right now I don’t know of any. Therapy appears to teach psychopaths better skills at manipulating people. One potential solution would be to prevent unintelligent people from being born and train everyone to recognize and counter the strategies that psychopaths use. That would put everyone on a level intellectual playing field and it’s arguable that even psychopaths would recognize that fact and cooperate with everyone else.
I like this way of thinking. By the way, there is some research about the weaknesses of psychopaths. From this article:
Just making these weaknesses widely known, together with some simple strategies for exploiting them (something like “The Game”, just about playing your boss), could change the balance on the playing field...
With the card game in mind, I have doubts that most psychopaths can function on any executive level, and am not surprised at all that they overrepresent as prisoners.
Hare says that because narcissistic, histrionic, and obsessive compulsive tendencies are elevated in executives, it must mean that psychopaths are more common in executives as well, because after all these are “psychopathic tendencies” This is akin to saying that because someone has above-average self-esteem, they also have psychopathic traits. But if anyone really wants to pore through the data, antisocial traits (or callousness), a core feature of psychopathy, is not elevated in executives. In fact, it was lower than the other groups studied. They report the data but overlook this important fact in their paper. Looks like the authors had an agenda.
http://thegrcbluebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Disordered-Personalities-at-Work-Belinda-Jane-BoardKatarina-Fritzon.pdf
Considering what we know about the callousness of corporations and atrocities committed by cultures throughout history, it is easy to assume that psychopathy runs rampant among leaders. (and it plays on people’s envy) Of course, this relies on the assumption that “good” people are not capable of atrocities and competitive greed without the coercion of bad people. Put two perfectly normal small families in a remote island with only enough resources to feed one, and you will see how quickly morality and compassion get thrown out the window. Knowing this, it is easy to imagine this concept in larger groups, which explains the behavior we see in war or corporate competition (where letting your competitors win means losing your job). No psychopathy is needed.
That makes perfect sense, thanks!
‘Winning’ is not really the right word here—a rational decision procedure should Win by definition. Clearly, psychopaths have different goals compared to the rest of the population: for simplicity, let’s suppose that, compared to neurotypicals, they lack a terminal goal of not inflicting direct costs on others. However, punishing people for lacking certain terminal goals is not quite kosher by modern political/ethical standards. We don’t lock people up for not donating enough to developing-world charities, because we understand that the vast majority of interactions are positive sum regardless.
Whether a psychopath approximating TDT could cooperate with a neurotypical person following either TDT or some kind of informal morality—and vice versa—is an interesting question and one that probably does not have an easy answer. However, in theory, TDT-approximating psychopaths should readily cooperate with each other.
It may also be the case that psychopaths are less able to enter precommitments and abide by them due to their overall deficits, which would make them more similar to CDT agents. However, this would not make them “winners” either, in any real sense: far from it. They would stop “winning” as soon as their lack of commitment (and thus non-credibility) was perceived by other agents—which would be quite soon, especially in a more rational world with a higher sanity waterline.
It also works in society, with a government enforcing law and puts forth other fines and incentives. Furthermore, humans are messy. Our immediate desires, on a lower level, can be quite different from our long-term, reflected, higher goals. It’s a matter of impulsiveness which of these wins how frequently.
Why “at the expense of others”? That’s a property of the world, not of them (which does not excuse what they do).
I apopogize for misreading you. “We didn’t eradicate malaria or polio with kinder, gentler methods. Don’t leave anything for evolution to work with.” sounds rather more… straightforward to me than you apparently meant it. I’m glad that we agree that psychopaths should be helped, whereever possible, to become productive parts of society.
Then the current therapeutic methods are not well-suited for this task. If we want to go down the road of developing more effective means of psychopath crime prevention, therapy etc., I suggest we Hold Off On Proposing Solutions.