[MD] Morality and Prudence

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Carl,

Carl said:
Time for a big slice of humble pie here.  I did confuse the definitions. 
(Who was it that said something about a little learning being a 
dangerous thing?)   See the following for a one-page definition of the 
distinction between psychopath and sociopath:

http://helpingpsychology.com/sociopath-vs-psychopath-whats-the-difference

Matt:
That's fair enough.  The DSM-IV itself doesn't use the terms officially 
(like, in the index for example) and you have to know ahead of time 
what the history of label-transformation in the field is.  In common 
parlance, for example, there's no difference at all between 
psychopath and sociopath (that I've found).  People pretty much use 
them as slang for the same thing: people who lack social empathy.  
(Though, my impression is that "psycho" was earlier appropriated 
into slang, though lately "socio" has begun displacing it: witness 
Dexter.  Angel Batista is constantly calling Dexter, ironically, "socio," 
though given the weblink, Dexter is clearly a charming psychopath.  
Come to think of it, Dexter is a good version of the thought 
experiment I fielded.  Certainly he's sick, but what does he tell us 
about our ways of moral thinking, particularly if we suppose that he 
is never outed to the public.)  And, on the other hand, it was clear 
you were talking about psychosis and antisocial personality disorder, 
which is the interesting thing to bring to bear on Pirsig's philosophy 
of insanity.  I'm not sure if Pirsig's insights have anything interesting 
to say about the distinction between sociopath and psychopath found 
on the weblink above.

Carl said:
>From reading the thread, it strikes me that Persig's definition of DQ 
is very similiar to the concept of superposition in quantum theory.  
Once a particular option is chosen, it then becomes SQ. Does that 
sound too far 'out there'?

Matt:
No, it sounds about right to me, though I don't like analogies between 
social phenomena and scientific phenomena (in the past, they have 
often been gateways for reductionism, as people try to stop thinking 
of it _as_ an analogy, and for pernicious forms of cosmos-projecting, 
i.e. taking one pattern and finding it everywhere, and drawing 
conclusions from it and making those conclusions fit back onto the 
phenomena, which sometimes creates a square-peg/round-hole 
forced feeling).

I prefer the analogy with the practice of common law: there are laws, 
but also judgments by judges, and past rulings have the force of law.  
This kind of practice mimics the authority of tradition and codifies it 
as a principle: stare decisis, the rule of precedent.  You can't just 
make up the law (pure chaos), you have to take seriously past 
judgments (SQ) and--if you disagree with how to fit a current 
experience before you into the past's purview--find in the past a 
latent principle that, on the surface might seem to break past 
interpretations of the particular law, but in the eyes of future judges, 
holds true as what the law really meant all along (DQ).  That's for 
English and American common law what betterness replacing past 
static patterns would look like.

Matt