ABSTRACT
Imagine a child, C, who likes to kill spiders. Soon unsatisfi ed with squishing, C takes to picking the spiders up with tweezers and pulling off their legs. But the event is placid. So C moves on to cats, and then to dogs. The child’s parents are aghast, and try reasoning: harming animals is wrong, infl icting pain intentionally is wrong, would you like that if someone did it to you?, it is bad for your soul to commit such acts. Unfortunately, C is a clinical psychopath, and none of these appeals works or even makes sense. Tragically, C grows up and moves from de-limbing animals to humans. C’s explanation for this behavior is straightforward: Tearing limbs is jolly good fun! When counterarguments are given, C dismisses them all as irrational: “Morality proper is logically inconclusive because reason is simply instrumental. The tearing of limbs is actually quite rational given my desires; in fact, I have a reason to tear limbs and no reason not to.”
