The thread below on the possibility of pedophilia being a biologically mediated tendency rapidly degenerated, to no one’s surprise. As I didn’t have the time to engage in strict moderation I had to close it. And I don’t want to reopen that particular topic. Rather, I want to focus on the issue of psychopathy exhibiting some genetic disposition.
I want to assert immediately that I’m not positing that you’re born a psychopath like you’re born with red hair. Rather, psychopathy is a set of traits whose upstream causes can be both genetic and non-genetic. In fact some cases of psychopathic behavior seems to be rooted in extreme social and psychological deprivation (e.g., orphanages in underdeveloped countries). Interestingly, this may be a case where the environmental input reshapes the developing brain, so that even though the individual may lack a genetic predisposition toward a particular psychology, they may now be biological oriented toward all the traits associated with psychopathy because of the nature of their neurological development.
Going to the model where some people exhibit a genetic disposition toward psychopathy, there are two dichotomous models I’d like to outline. First, there is a model where psychopathy is a deviation from the …