To all the Josef Fritzl's in the world: Will you please stand up? I for one, would really appreciate if you were to wear some kind of a sign or t-shirt so I can see you coming!

We as a society are not much good at recognising sociopaths. I wonder how many more of these sex slave dungeons, apartments, attics, cabins, barns exist? I guess it's just too easy to assume that most other humans beings are more or less just like us. Maybe it's a natural human tendency to project our own natures onto others. We are after all, made of the same stuff.

But are we all capable of being sociopaths? I suppose my own saving grace is that function of the brain which makes me feel, queasy, uncomfortable and sometimes physically sick at the sight of another's pain. Ultimately, I suppose that's selfish. It is now known that people differ widely in their ability to empathise physically in the brain. Most sociopaths lack the abilty to empathise altogether. So without this empathy, how many more of us would inflict cruelty upon others?

I suppose my other saving grace is my "spiritual side". But again, scientists are now starting to isolate parts of the brain which invoke spiritual experience and the propensity for spiritual feelings. So again, is this just a function of the brain? Add to it that I was taught morality, ethics and right from wrong. I was lucky enough to have had a fairly decent upbringing.

So without the empathy functions, spiritual functions and fairly decent upbringing, is there anything else that would prevent me from being a completely selfish, narcissistic monster like Josef Fritzl? The romantic side of me would like to believe in some kind of transcendant quality which lifts us above the mere physical. But that may just be my spiritual/religiosity dna talking. . . What is it that makes us behave decently? What is it that keeps us from being monsters?