This is a pretty good thread. He might’ve benefited from making a distinction between cognitive empathy and affective empathy. In short, cognitive empathy is being able to think about what other people are thinking, and affective empathy is being able to feel what other people are feeling. Different parts of the brain are responsible for thoughts vs feelings. A high IQ psychopath has a malformed part of the brain that is responsible for regulating feelings, but the parts that generate thoughts are functional. That’s how he’s able to use the theory of mind to figure out what other people are thinking, ie cognitive empathy. He’s not able to figure out other peoples’ feelings though. A low IQ person might be categorized as a psychopath because he’s clueless of other peoples’ feelings, but if he is so lacking in intellect that he can’t figure out other peoples’ perspectives and therefore their probable thoughts, he has no chance of figuring out how other people feel about their thoughts. So really, he’s not even up to the level of a psychopath. Would you call a rattlesnake a psychopath because it has no idea what other creatures are feeling?
This is a pretty good thread. He might’ve benefited from making a distinction between cognitive empathy and affective empathy. In short, cognitive empathy is being able to think about what other people are thinking, and affective empathy is being able to feel what other people are feeling. Different parts of the brain are responsible for thoughts vs feelings. A high IQ psychopath has a malformed part of the brain that is responsible for regulating feelings, but the parts that generate thoughts are functional. That’s how he’s able to use the theory of mind to figure out what other people are thinking, ie cognitive empathy. He’s not able to figure out other peoples’ feelings though. A low IQ person might be categorized as a psychopath because he’s clueless of other peoples’ feelings, but if he is so lacking in intellect that he can’t figure out other peoples’ perspectives and therefore their probable thoughts, he has no chance of figuring out how other people feel about their thoughts. So really, he’s not even up to the level of a psychopath. Would you call a rattlesnake a psychopath because it has no idea what other creatures are feeling?