'Ning, Frankspencer! 'Ning, all!
You asked whether anyone here was actually a philosopher... Um, yes. I am.

Anyway... where were we? Oh, yes: I agree with you that Albert the cat-burner, or whoever, ought to recognise the wrongness of his action; I don't think, though, that recognising wrongness is always - or even often - sufficient to inhibit action. On many occasions, if desirable outcome x involves wrong action y, then people may bite the bullet and do y anyway, because the desirability of x is sufficient to put y at a discount. (In some cases, of course, we'll decide that y isn't worth it.)

Take the example of lying to someone whom you think is about to commit a murder; the lie will prevent this. Most people think that lying is wrong, but that, in this case, the end achieved would justify it. (Kant, incidentally, disagrees.) So here's a good example of people deliberately doing something that they admit would otherwise be wrong for the sake of something that they have identified as sufficient to justify that action. And the same principle could apply to Albert the cat-burner. We might disagree with his evaluation of cat-burning as being worthwhile - and I hope we'd be correct and able to persuade him of this - but the point would still stand either way.

Your point about racism would seem to have some evidence backing it, BTW. Apparently (and, from a Darwinian view, understandably) we are naturally predisposed to be suspicious of strangers - they clearly aren't from our tribe, and therefore represent genetic rivals. However, genes are stupid: hence familiarity with someone is sufficient to convince us that they are part of our tribe after all; and that is why cultures that are separated tend to want to stay separated, and integration lessens racism. Of course, again, there are complications with this picture along the lines of culture, economics &c, but the outline seems to be there...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 12 Dec 2007, 9:19, Reply)