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Old 06-15-2009, 01:35 PM   #14
alatar
Doubting Dwimmerlaik
 
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Heaven's basement
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alatar is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.alatar is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pitchwife View Post
alatar, in response to the question you raised in your first post in this thread, I think the difference between us and other animals as regards good and evil is not premeditation, but rather reflection. Chimps, dogs, cats etc. may kill, rape (?) or act altruistically, but as far as I know they don't reflect on the ethical value of their actions. They don't ask themselves, 'Ought I to do this?', and they don't think 'I really shouldn't, but heck, I'll do it anyway because I happen to feel like it'; hence, they don't feel guilt or bad conscience.
Excellent! That's the piece I was missing. And I would think that true psychopaths don't reflect much on their actions - they just 'do,' and until stopped, continue to do.

Quote:
It was Frodo. And wouldn't he have made a lovely little dictator of the Shire if he could have claimed the Ring and got away with it? Setting up schools for hobbit children, I'd suppose, with Quenya and Sindarin compulsory as foreign languages and everybody studying the Quenta Silmarillion in the original Klingon. 'Selecting' and bossing around people for what he thought their own good. There was a little Sauron in him after all.
We all have a little bit of Sauron in us. Like in the Sil, we have to fight the slow retreat.
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