On The Psychopath

I think it is a funny thing that when someone mentions the "disorder", they think of the low functioning variety of psychopath. Of course it's a pathology if someone winds up like Ted Bundy, and is quite unable to operate properly in society. That's kinda the definition of a pathology in that sense. But today I am considering the matter of that and morality:

There seems to be a really big deal being made about psychopaths being immoral monsters who do as they please. But when I read the arguments out there, I often find that it simply boils down to people having some weird sort of emotive understanding of morality. In general, I take issue with the definition of a person as broken just because they think differently from the mainstream. Something like people limiting behaviors simply because someone else didn't like it done to them. Yet, we are quite aware that the golden rule can only be taken so far. In the matter of victimless crimes, I actually find the emotive take to be dangerous.

Of course, I have wound up somewhat conflating morality with legality, and then there's the separate matter of ethics. I don't think they are all equivalent (they aren't), but I do find that legality is often influenced by popular morality. And of course, it is annoying. If I were to break a law because I figure it's the right thing to do, I do not expect to be punished for it. That's pretty lame.

I disagree that there can be no morality without the emotive component. In fact, I think it would be improved if people can just be more logical about their means towards their ends. Sadly, of course, I know the average person is just incapable of shutting those emotions swimming about their heads, and the calls will be quite different from what is logically optimal.