The Seventh Sense
Conscience is considered the seventh sense. It is felt instinctively. For the most part, it can't be taught or conditioned or rehabilitated. The absence of conscience is a non-correctible disfigurement of character. There is no effective treatment. In a word: Guiltlessness. More words: Remorseless, deceitful, manipulative, self-centred, callous, unscrupulous, emotionally shallow. There was a time when the condition was described as "moral imbecility," which still fits. The modern shrinking heads bible, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, refers to the clinical diagnosis of little or no conscience as "anti-social personality disorder." More commonly, it's called psychopathy or the slightly semantic alternative, sociopathy. M.T., the 17-year-old girl convicted of first-degree murder on Friday for orchestrating - demanding, via sexual blackmail - the death of a perceived rival, 14-year-old Stefanie Rengel, is arguably a psychopath, or soci...