Off-topic? Hah - did you see tealterror0 and kith_koby talking about freakin' tennis?
There's a big difference between a child who's a self-centered brat and one who is completely lacking in empathy. Empathy is not an elaborate set of Pavlovian conditioning. It's not, "If I'm mean to people, they'll be mean to me, and if I'm nice, they'll be nice to me, so I'll figure out how to get people to be nice to me the same way a rat figures out how to make a food pellet drop into its tray..." Self-centered brats can grow up and get better. People who are truly lacking in empathy, for the most part, cannot.
I'm not sure you actually understand what sociopathy is. If you reduce humans to survival machines, then yes, being utterly amoral is arguably viable and advantageous, since enjoying human relationships and appreciating the value of other members of your species would be completely irrelevant to your existence. But you're basically arguing that being a viable and effective human doesn't require humanity.
In a real sense, sociopaths are rather alien. We don't just dislike sociopathy because it's bad for us as a group (though it obviously is) but because it's a disability in the same way that being incapable of love or lacking a sense of taste and smell is a disability. And yes, not just because it would be a bummer not to love anyone, but because amorality really doesn't work out well for most people. Because we are a social species. Sociopaths are generally not at all successful in their professional and social lives. For every "genius sociopath" who's a ruthless CEO or powerful politician who got where he is by being willing to do anything to get there, there are many more who are bitter unemployable losers quietly sitting in their homes, angry at the world. Or they just die young, since sociopaths are often likely to do stupid things before they learn enough control and cunning to avoid consequences.
Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door (http://inverarity.livejournal.com/93942.html) is an interesting read, though it's kind of light, being pop science.
Sociopaths
There's a big difference between a child who's a self-centered brat and one who is completely lacking in empathy. Empathy is not an elaborate set of Pavlovian conditioning. It's not, "If I'm mean to people, they'll be mean to me, and if I'm nice, they'll be nice to me, so I'll figure out how to get people to be nice to me the same way a rat figures out how to make a food pellet drop into its tray..." Self-centered brats can grow up and get better. People who are truly lacking in empathy, for the most part, cannot.
I'm not sure you actually understand what sociopathy is. If you reduce humans to survival machines, then yes, being utterly amoral is arguably viable and advantageous, since enjoying human relationships and appreciating the value of other members of your species would be completely irrelevant to your existence. But you're basically arguing that being a viable and effective human doesn't require humanity.
In a real sense, sociopaths are rather alien. We don't just dislike sociopathy because it's bad for us as a group (though it obviously is) but because it's a disability in the same way that being incapable of love or lacking a sense of taste and smell is a disability. And yes, not just because it would be a bummer not to love anyone, but because amorality really doesn't work out well for most people. Because we are a social species. Sociopaths are generally not at all successful in their professional and social lives. For every "genius sociopath" who's a ruthless CEO or powerful politician who got where he is by being willing to do anything to get there, there are many more who are bitter unemployable losers quietly sitting in their homes, angry at the world. Or they just die young, since sociopaths are often likely to do stupid things before they learn enough control and cunning to avoid consequences.
Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door (http://inverarity.livejournal.com/93942.html) is an interesting read, though it's kind of light, being pop science.