AnarchistFish said:
Mental illness isn't something intrinsic to the human species though.
Also, since it's a disorder it can often be treated. It's possible to treat the causes too. You can mitigate a lot with the right resources. Just because you probably can't eliminate it doesn't mean you can't drastically reduce it.
Of course just telling one not to rape won't make a difference. There's more to it than that.
But values and culture between different areas are things that are instilled based on someone's environment and upbringing. Even between individuals. Differences between areas are caused by environmental and socioeconomic factors. Because ultimately, races are indistinguishable on a DNA level (link below), which is what I assume you must be referring to consciously or subconsciously when you say that these differences are caused by people intrinsically holding different values to people from other areas. If values between even closely related individuals were randomly allocated to such extremes that still wouldn't explain geographical trends.
http://web.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/minorities.shtml
Calling certain humans evil is ambiguous. What does evil mean? Psychopathic? In which case it's something that's gone wrong with human nature, not something that's part of it, and it can be treated (to some extent) since it's effectively a mental disorder. Either way it's not something which applies to humans as a whole or which can be evolved out of. It's actually the opposite, because it's by definition something that's gone psychologically wrong.
It wasn't important to, since it was something you'd concluded based on the first part of your argument, which is the part I'm questioning.
Ultimately what we're saying here is that people will commit a crime like this either because of how their environment shaped their world image, or because of mental illness (or often a mix of the two since they can overlap). Neither is intrinsic to human nature or can be "evolved" out of (I'm not even sure how that would scientifically work in the first place), but they can both be improved by improving medical resources, socioeconomic factors, development, economic equality etc.
Edit: quoted the wrong person a couple of times
Just a thought, try not to split up quoted parts as much, then ya wont screw up who is quoted
That being said, Rape, or the desire to rape or have sex, given that rapists usually do not actually consider the act rape, but it is what we label the act as a society isnt a disorder or illness. At least i havent heard of any kind of mental disorder which would cause or increase the potential for sexual abuse or abuse in general. In most cases disorders are just a difference in chemical reactions in the brain, which influence our thought processes, as such someone with a disorder percieves the world, or things about the world much differently than a "normal person" would, although nobody is truly normal, there is just a parameter as to how much your mental faculties fit within whatever societal construct is established. For example if for the sake of the argument rape and murder were totally fine and accepted in society, then people murdering or raping wouldnt be "wrong" in any case, of course we would probably still have punishments for the act, but the acts would be percieved as less evil if we want to define acts based on moral grounds.
Honestly im not sure where you are going with this, half your post makes very little sense to me other than perhaps what i explained wrong or you misunderstood from earlier points i raised. Suppose its my fault for not repeating myself perfectly. Nature versus Nurture arguments fall flat because they are inconclusive at best, example being that even though you were never subjected to say the color pink, you could still end up liking it, regardless of whether you ever saw it before. And yes i realize thats a oversimplification but it works here.
Societal values are similar in that respect that you cant say that all western societies are like this, or all eastern societies are like that. There are noticable differences by country, even by specific regions within a country. Take the US for example, how can you have the proverbial "bible belt" when the other half of your country isnt in said bible belt? How can some states pass a law that makes homosexual marriage legal and accepted when other states forbid this? And even within a state there can be disagreements on specific topics, i.e. the homosexual marriage thing. There are only certain factors we universally agree on that they are evil because they harm us as a societal animal, we arent solitary animals. Hence murder, rape and such acts are defined as evil because if we allowed such acts, or didnt mind them one way or the other, they could harm us all equally, rather than just a few people being the victim, thats how morality works on the level of a society, there can still be differences based on the people within that society, i.e. a rapist would still rape even if the act is morally objectionable. No matter the upbringing, no matter what society says or teaches, you'd always have the proverbial bad apples. Hence i use the term "evolve past" because to me it seems the only solution, that each person somehow, regardless of societal construct, upbringing or such would arrive at the same end, that being "im not going to rape because rape is bad". If we could teach people not to rape to use that phrase, it would have happened by now, in fact, let me ask you this:
Have we ever taught people not to rape? Have we ever taught them not to murder? Not to lie? Not to steal? Or did we just somehow arrive at the conclusion that those are "bad" things without having to be told? I never had to be told that raping someone is bad, i never had to be told not to kill someone, yet somehow i arrived at that conclusion on my own, because i wouldnt like to be raped, i wouldnt like to be murdered. So i dont think we really need to teach these things, because ultimately it seems they dont matter. If we are teaching this stuff now, then how come some people didnt need to be told? And why is it still happening if we are teaching these things? This implies there is only so much we can do unless we allow ourselves to hope that eventually everyone agrees that rape is a bad thing, no matter where you come from or where you were raised or whatever. We can only do so much about it, but if the penalty doesnt scare people not to do it, if the law doesnt scare them, if the scorn of their fellow human beings doesnt stop them, then how could we do it with simple words?
Also yes i realize this is a disjointed mess, but im tired and the train of thought went off the rails twice while writing this, so please excuse me for that x.x
