Did Tom Riddle ever have a moral conscience?

I’m intrigued by the psychology of young Tom Riddle, what do other readers think? – did he have a moral conscience,? a capacity for empathy because as said in an interview once, it is the human capacity for empathy which is the basis of all morality? On face value, I would say no; but further reflection makes me think he must have had otherwise his actions could no more be described as evil as are Remus Lupin’s destructive impulses in his fully fledged werewolf state. As Dumbledore tells Harry at the end of CoS, “It is not our abilities, Harry but rather our choices that show us what we truly are.” To make choices would seem to imply that one is capable of conceiving of alternatives. This is what Lupin, in his werewolf-state is incapable of doing, therefore it is inappropriate to hold him morally accountable for his actions in this state.

We do hold Tom Riddle morally accountable for his actions so it follows that he must be capable of conceiving of alternatives to the path he took which in turn implies he must have had a knowledge of good and evil ie. a moral conscience. Two alternatives of interpretation are thus left open: did he not think of his actions as evil but justifiable or did he choose not to listen to the dictates of his conscience? We know that young Tom was a master manipulator and not just through magical means. If Tom had some inborn psychological pathology that was incapable of imagining the emotions of others how could he use this knowledge to manipulate others? Clearly sacrificial or altruisic love lay outside his understanding but love as the value of another to fulfil one’s emotional needs it would seem so because he uses it as a lever to manipulate both Snape and Draco.

This raises the question of whether Tom as a small child had a deep longing for affection, much as Harry had, but because this longing was thwarted, he steeled himself against it, rejected it as a weakness; and channelled it instead into a conviction that he was special and this in turn translated into a burning need to have this recognized by others. And what greater confirmation of his ‘specialness’ than in the slavish obedience and adulation of his nascent Death Eaters? I believe that young Tom Riddle definitely had enough natural human impulses in him to have been able to conceive of an alternative path to the one he took; but the desire to show the world what he was made of born of a sense of injustice at being rejected from birth, overrode every other consideration. As he undergoes the transition from the essentially human, though not estimable, Tom Riddle, into the inhuman Lord Voldemort, his soul descends into utter darkness from which there is no return. Therefore the morally culpable being is not Voldemort but rather Tom Riddle who at one point, stood at the crossroads between the light and the dark. Any thoughts?

I know that heaps to take in

no he did not

A good point- but perhaps a gradual decline combined with an intrinsic streak of agressiveness, maliciousness, bitterness- waht ever it may be.
And most likely at an extremly young age.

Tom Riddle, aka Voldemort, had the inherent potential of immorality, of darkness, but, at the same time, he is certainly also the product of his environment. Because such instincts exist does not mean they do not evolve- Tom Riddle, in forging himself, had power, wanted power and thus took it- but in his life he saw no reason for such things as empathy.

I agree with you Bronwyn....from the begining he was not nice at all to any one who did benifit him. And barely civil to the snakes he comanded. No.....no good from the begining

I think he must've had a moral conscious at some point in his life, because I don't believe it's physically possible to be born without one, even if you have a child that has known abuse since day one, they must realize that that is not how humans are supposed to treat other humans.

I think that maybe he somehow lost his conscious through neglegance (did I spell that right?), like, he ignored it so much in the begining that it just kind of...died.

Or maybe, his conscious was there the entire time, but he satisfied it by truly believing the things he did weren't wrong? Like, you can't feel bad about something if you think you were justified in the act, so he could've honestly believed that what he was doing was completely justifyable and right, then his conscious wouldn't have bothered him at all.

Sorry if that was confusing, I get a litte carried away with this phycological analogy things...