Liberal Forum

Skans » 29 minutes ago » wrote: ↑

29 minutes ago

Well, everyone would now be a psychopath.  No empathy.  No real emotions for others.  But, they are all the same, and they know it.  They are intelligent, not mindless zombies. Psychopaths do care about themselves, so we can presume they will still act in ways that would place self-preservation relatively high on their list of needs, wants and desires. Or, perhaps not.  Maybe it would be like The Purge. I don't know how it would play out.

People do not behave in their societies' best interests even now. And people are literally helpless and hopeless without the tribe - without society. So what is best for society is at the meta level best for the individual. Yet individuals - even reasonably moral and non-psychotic ones - often act to further their own personal interests over those of their societies. Put psychopathy into the mix and you have a virulent extinction soup. 

The question you are asking is not taking into account the fact that working as empathetic members of a community tied together by their shared humanity is an integral and indispensable aspect OF that humanity - that without empathy, we would not be yuman beans. We would be something other than yuman beans. This is not a meaningless distinction - a mere quibble for quibbling's sake. It gets up UNDER your question and topples it like a turtle on its back. You might as well ask what if frogs couldn't jump. The answer would be, they wouldn't be frogs. They'd be something else.