Ethical sociopaths?

Can sociopaths be ethical? A certain type of ethical, certainly. But before we talk about potential sociopathic limitations, this NY Times article ("In Life and Business Learning to be Ethical") about the issues with ethics that almost all of humanity shares:

The problem, research shows, is that how we think we’re going to act when faced with a moral decision and how we really do act are often vastly different.

Here’s just one of many examples from an experiment at Northeastern University: Subjects were told they should flip a coin to see who should do certain tasks. One task is long and laborious; the other is short and fun.

The participant flips the coin in private (though secretly watched by video cameras), said David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern who conducted the experiment. Only 10 percent of them did it honestly. The others didn’t flip at all, or kept flipping until the coin came up the way they wanted.
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[W]e need to be more aware of the ways we fool ourselves. We have to learn how to avoid subconsciously turning our backs when faced with a moral dilemma. And then we must be taught how to challenge people appropriately in those situations.

“When people predict how they’re going to act in a given situation, the ‘should’ self dominates — we should be fair, we should be generous, we should assert our values,” said Ann E. Tenbrunsel, a professor of business ethics at the University of Notre Dame who is involved in the EthicalSystems website. “But when the time for action comes, the ‘want’ self dominates” — I don’t want to look like a fool, I don’t want to be punished.

“Our survival instinct is to want to be liked and to be included,” said Brooke Deterline, chief executive of Courageous Leadership, a consulting firm that offers workshops and programs on dealing with ethical situations. “We don’t willfully do bad things, but when we’re under threat our initial instinct is to downplay or ignore problematic situations.”

Sociopaths may not have the same set of ethics (or issues implementing ethics -- our survival instinct is not so much to be liked and included), but it's also possible for sociopaths to have a personal preference about how they wish to act, even if it is just a personal aesthetic as opposed to be a moral code. Webster defines ethics as many things, including "a guiding philosophy". Maybe for sociopaths that would look something more like utilitarianism or "the diamond rule", as opposed to a saint's altruism and golden rule, but even criminals have codes.

At the heart of any choice to ascribe to a set of ethics, whether empath or sociopath, is a belief that your choices matter -- that you and others around you are affected by everything you choose to do. You don't have to believe in right and wrong to understand that you are what you eat. And I wouldn't want life any other way. What would be the point of making choices if they didn't matter? And if you believe your choices matter, it's only natural to ascribe to some sort of "guiding philosophy" about how to make those choices. So yes, sociopaths can and are ethical. Could sociopaths ever be considered more ethical than empaths? 

Character (part 2)

The other reason for some sort of behavioral code is the idea of character. When I think of identity, I think of a mirror that reflects nothing back. When I think of personality, I think of the masks that I wear when I interact with people. Or maybe I think of the way my brain is wired, the things I think about when I'm not trying to think of anything in particular or anything at all. I have a limited degree of control over these things, if any at all.

The only self-descriptive word that I seem to identify with is the word character. To me, character is the sum of choices that I've made, about myself and what I choose to say and do from day to day. Maybe other sociopaths don't do that sort of math, but I do. Maybe it's because I have one friend who lives life beautifully, and I think, why not me too? I make a thousand choices every day, why not give them some sort of theme? Some sense of cohesion aesthetic appeal?

I thought this Atlantic article made some good points about the upside of living life with character:


It has been estimated that the average American tells 11 lies per week. Is this bad for us? Suppose we knew that a lie would never be detected, nor would we be punished. Suppose we had some means of ensuring that the lie would never cause us any physical or psychological harm through loss of sleep or the like. Suppose even that telling the lie would actually redound to our benefit, at least in the sense that it would secure us the pleasure, status, wealth, or power that those fudging the truth commonly seek. Under these circumstances, would it still make sense to tell the truth? Or would lying becoming the prudent course of action?

In his 2005 runaway philosophy best seller, On Bullshit, Princeton University's Harry Frankfurt distinguishes between lying and what he called "bullshit." Though liars do not tell the truth, they care about it, while the bullshitter does not even care about the truth and seeks merely to impress. Liars tell deliberate untruths, while bullshitters merely do not admit when they do not know something. This is a particularly pervasive form of untruth in my own orbits, medicine and academia, where people wish others to believe that we know more than we do. So instead of saying, "I don't know," we make things up, merely giving the appearance of knowledge while actually saying nothing.
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Perhaps the most powerful moral argument for honesty has to do with what the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called "bad faith." Liars deceive others, but in a sense, liars also deceive themselves. When we lie we tend to distort our own view of reality, and the more often we lie, the more habitual this distortion becomes. Over time, the habit of lying divorces us further and further from reality, so we see less and less clearly the choices before us and what is at stake in them. Eventually, we may find ourselves unable to see what we are really doing and how it is affecting others and ourselves. We end up leading inauthentic and irresponsible lives.

To tell the truth is to live authentically and responsibly, to really live. At times we may make honest mistakes, misperceiving what is really happening, failing to see things in appropriate context, or even operating unknowingly on deliberate untruths. Whenever possible, however, we should be honest with others and ourselves. When we are honest, we ground ourselves most completely in the world we actually inhabit, being as real as we can with others, and reducing as much as possible the distance between the way things seem to be and the way they really are. In the final analysis, honesty means avoiding illusion and unreality, instead keeping life as real as we possibly can.



Maybe it's because I grew up with a narcissist father that living a life of delusion does not appeal.

Character (part 1)

I have gotten a little bit of flack about the idea of a "sociopath code," that it is too Dexter-Hollywood, and that no real sociopath had a "code" that they live by. Ok, fair enough. The term "code" is maybe a little misleading in this context.

But there are a lot of reasons to have some sort of standard why you conduct yourself. Here's what a recent commenter had to say about the utility of having such a standard :

You said, "The only code that’s worth having or that I respect is becoming the best in whatever you decided to do." 

When you can't feel empathy for other people it makes it easy to manipulate and hurt them for whatever reason you see fit. I was taught my code by my grandfather, at an early age after many years of violent and manipulative behaviors. I knew the differences between right and wrong, I just didn't care because I never felt them. He taught me to use those abilities to protect the people who are close to me and that being able to do those things for my own immediate selfish reasons was the lazy way to react, and in the long run would not allow me to do what I wanted to do in the first place. 

It took several years before I understood what he meant. Not until after a few issues with the court system. It made me completely powerless; I could no longer do what I wanted. Afterward when I returned to school a friend of mine got into a fight. He had done something to provoke it and felt so bad about it that he couldn't defend himself, he just took the beating. A few days later they crossed paths in the hallway and my friend got sucker punched and didn't defend himself again, he couldn't he still felt bad. I stepped in for him and after slamming the guys head between and open locker and its door several times was promptly sent back to my 10x10.

The judge was impressed that I had thought about somebody else for a change instead of only myself and gave me no time. What he didn’t know was that I really was only thinking about myself he only saw the ‘good’ that I had done. In his eyes, I stood up to a bully for a friend who couldn’t defend himself. Personally I didn’t see it that way, he pissed ME off, disrespected MY friend and was going to take whatever punishment I gave him as a consequence. 

When I returned to school again, I had a different mindset, a code to base my behaviors on if you will. I still live my life based on that code to this day. I learned that appearing to be in the service of others who feel they cannot defend or stand up for themselves brings more long term opportunities for me. Who wants to sit in jail, where is the fun in that?

On becoming a sociopath (female)

From a reader:
 
In terms of ASPD: I still am, to a degree, but I am much less inclined to that disorder than I was as a  child. For the high-functioning sociopath, it is mandatory for him to have a relationship with himself. He lacks any sort of internal social inhibition, and therefore, he doesn't automatically incorporate the majority ethics. As a kid, I was at my most impulsive. Until I came to develop a code rooted in reason, rather than guilt, I was all over the place. People take for granted "right" and "wrong,” and many don’t question the ‘why’ behind it until they are much older, because they may cruise along on autopilot with the common knowledge that stealing is bad, and that they feel bad. If the sociopath can't introspect, however, he'll grow into a dangerous criminal as he hits adulthood and gains the means. For the sociopath, he has to mature early in, or face possible legal consequences for the rest of his life.  Although being a female and a sociopath is unique, I am fortunate in this respect. If I were a man, there’s a great chance that I would not have made it.
    
I hate to sound sexist, but it’s the truth: men are typically stronger than women. At the age of eight, I was already fantasizing about sex crimes. I remember thinking, verbatim, that it wasn’t “enough to love. You have to rip apart.” For me, cuddling and kissing could only go so far before the emptiness sank in. The threshold was reached, and boredom stirred. A man, or woman, could satisfy with soft whispers and affection to a point. Then, to overcome that boundary, sadism came to play. The only way I felt that I could truly share something with another human being, was to torture and to push him over the edge. There was excitement in this, and my own brand of worship. I didn’t realize that my desire was abnormal. For a long time, I didn’t realize that others weren’t like me. I observed them, and I thought that we were putting on a show, and so I acted, too. I watched and waited, half-expecting an explosion as one of us broke. It never came. Every now and again, I saw them clearly and was slammed with questions. "Is this real?" I wanted to capture their faces, to make them look at me. I lived in denial.
    
Bottom line: I stayed out of prison because I lacked the brute muscles to kill, and the dedication to go through with plans (I had constructed a motif in my head). Twice, I snapped on human beings and did everything in my carnal power to injure them, craving their expressions, because the fear and shock filled up a void within me. It was a foreign substance, and, as such, I took it as a druggie. 
    
I was let down in my weakness. I didn’t go after children my age, but lashed out against men who I perceived as strong. I wanted the triumph of breaking them, and I fell short. It was humiliating to have revealed and lost. Thus, I retreated to my intellect, and became the cult-starter. I manipulated without touch, and although, in the end, the new approach could have proved even more dangerous than the corporeal given my structure, I was appeased by little stunts, and, thankfully, came to my senses before moving onto greater defeats. Honestly, I just grew up, and trust me when I say that if I had waited even another year, given the crowd that I had gathered, things would be different. I have formalized legal opinions now, and a definition for good and evil, but I don’t possess the faculty of remorse. I can regret: regret meaning, I can find the consequences of something not to my enjoyment, and I can wish that I had acted otherwise, but, if not caught, I don’t have remorse, in that I don’t feel guilt for doing what I see as justifiably illegal. Hence, my version of “right” and “wrong” revolves around what is good for me, psychologically. Unrestrained, I slip and intentionally perform acts which I reject, lawfully, when statistics suggest a lapse in capture, but I do try to avoid this more often than not, because, regardless of how good I am, it’s never surefire.