pnrjulius comments on Human Evil and Muddled Thinking - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 September 2007 11:43PM

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Comment author: lessdazed 30 August 2011 08:55:42AM 4 points [-]

Seems like he would have a label like "evil" for stabbing an ally in the back or the like. It just mightn't apply to outgroups whatsoever.

Comment author: pnrjulius 22 May 2012 06:38:51PM 2 points [-]

Yes, there's clearly something dubious about assuming that not only Genghis Khan, but his entire army, consisted of weird mutants who somehow lack moral intuitions. Much more likely is that they had normal human moral intuitions, but failed to apply them generally to all people, rather than (say) people in their own cultural group.

Stalin actually was a psychopath (probably diagnosable, as he fits all the standard criteria: flat affect, deceives people easily and without remorse, indifferent to suffering, superficially charming). Genghis Khan may have been (we know far less about him). But the average Soviet soldier? The average Mongol warrior? Clearly not---there are simply too many of them for that to be plausible.