Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Psychopathy, Ethical Perception, and Moral Culpability

  • Published:
Neuroethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

I argue that emotional sensitivity (or insensitivity) has a marked negative influence on ethical perception. Diminished capacities of ethical perception, in turn, mitigate what we are morally responsible for while lack of such capacities may altogether eradicate responsibility. Impairment in ethical perception affects responsibility by affecting either recognition of or reactivity to moral reasons. It follows that emotional insensitivity (together with its attendant impairment in ethical perception) bears saliently on moral responsibility. Since one distinguishing mark of the psychopath is emotional insensitivity, emotional insensitivity and the resulting impairment in moral perception either excuses the psychopath from moral culpability or moderates the degree to which he is culpable.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. In a recent, instructive paper, Heidi Maibom [11] argues that psychopaths are (by and large) legally responsible for their transgressions. She defends the view that the psychopath neither lacks the abilities required to acquire deep moral understanding nor suffers from a substantial impairment regarding these abilities; so the psychopath is not insane under the M’Naghten laws. Nor, she further argues, do these deficiencies exculpate under the The Model Penal Code.

  2. Here, I use ‘moral culpability’ (and its cognates) interchangeably with ‘moral blameworthiness’ (and its cognates). I assume, as well, that moral culpability comes in degrees. I set aside the difficult issue of the precise connections, if any, between legal culpability and moral culpability.

  3. One should guard against one’s having an ethical perception on a certain occasion and that perception’s being ethically perceptive.

  4. Incompatibilists of a certain bent (“source incompatibilists”) may well challenge the view that ethical perception is partly within our control. They might claim that external influences on our moral development effectively put this development beyond our control: since we are not the ultimate sources or originators of any of our actions, we do not exert responsibility-relevant control over any of our actions, including those actions that would be implicated in our being indirectly responsible for our capacity of ethical perception. Here, I simply note that whether this claim is cogent depends on whether or not the source incompatibilist’s notion of being an ultimate originator is preferable to leading compatibilist notions of being such an originator (see, for example, [17]).

  5. See, also, Blair [42].

  6. As Blair [42] (p. 153 ) (and others, e.g., [44]) have emphasized, although psychopathy is associated with deficits in some types of emotion, it does not appear that all emotional responding is diminished. Blair [42] (p. 153) proposes that the increased risk for reactive aggression in psychopaths suggests that the propensity to anger, rather than being diminished, is augmented.

  7. It’s worth bearing in mind the following. Glannon explains that

    To say that one is impaired with respect to a particular capacity, or set of capacities, is not equivalent to saying that one lacks the relevant capacity or capacities altogether. In the absence of evidence showing that the psychopath lacks the relevant cognitive–affective capacity, and in the absence of a causal connection between genes or frontal lobe–amygdala dysfunction and behavior, at most one could argue that psychopathy warrants mitigated responsibility, not excuse or exoneration. This is not only because the empirical findings are not compelling enough to demonstrate that the psychopath completely lacks the capacity to recognize moral reasons and to be a moral agent. It is also because any consensus on what degree of brain dysfunction or genetic influence is enough for mitigation or excuse could not be reached on empirical grounds alone. It would also rely on normative considerations and reflect social factors to a considerable extent [45] (p. 161).

  8. Moral responsibility has, minimally, epistemic, control and agency requirements. These conditions are discussed extensively in [46].

  9. The effect of emotional deficiency on the salience of alternatives is supported by Blair’s studies [41, 49] indicating that psychopaths have difficulty representing outcomes.

  10. Again, depending partly on germane empirical evidence, these claims about lack of responsibility may require adjustment; perhaps the evidence might render credible the more cautious inference that the psychopath shoulders diminished responsibility. The view that lack of salience implies lack of alternative actions for the psychopath, and that it compels a certain mental orientation acquires some support from Lennart Nordenfelt’s argument [51] (pp. 182–183) that psychopaths are compelled to act and, therefore, are not responsible for their actions.

  11. I thank Walter Glannon and an anonymous referee for this journal for their comments and suggestions. This paper was written during my tenure of a 2008-2011 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Grant. I am most grateful to this granting agency for its support.

References

  1. Fine, C. and J. Kennett. 2004. Mental impairment, moral understanding and criminal responsibility: Psychopathy and the purposes of punishment. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 27: 425–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Hare, R.D. 1998. Psychopaths and their nature. In Psychopathy: Antisocial, criminal and violent behavior, ed. T. Millon, E. Simonsen, M. Birket-Smith, and R.D. Davis, 188–212. New York: Guilford.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Zinger, I. and A.E. Forth. 1998. Psychopathy and canadian criminal proceedings: The potential for human rights abuses. Canadian Journal of Criminology 40(3): 237–276.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Edens, J.F. J. Petrila, and J.K. Buffington-Vollum. 2001. Psychopathy and the death penalty: Can the psychopathy checklist—revised identify offenders who represent ‘a continuing threat to society’? Journal of Psychiatry & Law 29: 433–481.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Cleckley, H. 1950. The mask of sanity: An attempt to clarify some issues about the so-called psychopathic personality. St. Louis: CV Mosby.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Hare, R.D. 1991. The hare psychopathy checklist—revised. Toronto: Multi-Health Systems.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Reznek, L. 1997. Evil or ill? Justifying the insanity defence. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  8. McSherry, B. 1999. Mental impairment and criminal responsibility: Recent australian legislative reforms. Criminal Law Journal 23: 135–144.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Campbell, E. 1992. The psychopath and the definition of ‘mental disease or defect’ under the model penal code test of insanity: A question of psychology or a question of law? In Law and psychology: The broadening of the discipline, ed. J.R.P. Ogloff, 139–170. Durham: Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Schopp, R.F. and A.J. Slain. 2000. Psychopathy, criminal responsibility, and civil commitment as a sexual predator. Behavioral Sciences and the Law 18: 247–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Maibom, H.L. 2008. The mad, the bad, and the psychopath. Neuroethics 1: 167–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Harman, G. 1977. The nature of morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Starkey, C. 2006. On the category of ethical perception. Social Theory and Practice 32(1): 75–96.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Dixon, B. 2008. Animals, emotion, and morality: Marking the boundary. Amherst: Prometheus Books.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Murdoch, I. 1971. The sovereignty of good. New York: Schocken Books.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Sherman, N. 1989. The fabric of character. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Haji, I. 2009. Incompatibilism’s allure: Principal arguments for incompatibilism. Peterborough: Broadview Press.

  18. Lengbeyer, L. 2007. Situated cognition: The perspect model. In Distributed cognition and the will: Individual volition and social contract, ed. D. Ross, D. Spurrett, H. Kincaid, and G.L. Stephens, 227–254. Cambridge: MIT.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Eysenck, H.J. 1977. Crime and personality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Eysenck, H.J. 1998. Personality and crime. In Psychopathy: Antisocial, criminal, and violent behavior, ed. T. Millon, E. Simonsen, M. Birket-Smith, and R.D. Davis, 40–49. New York: Guilford.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Fowles, D.C. 1980. The three arousal model: Implications of gray’s two-factor learning theory for heart rate, electrodermal activity, and psychopathy. Psychophysiology 17(2): 87–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Lykken, D.T. 1995. The antisocial personalities. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Dienstbier, R. 1984. The role of emotion in moral socialization. In Emotions, cognition, and behavior, ed. C. Izard, J. Kagan, and R. Zajonc, 485–514. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Kagan, J. 1998. Biology and the child. In Handbook of child psychology. Social, emotional, and personality development, vol. 3, ed. N. Eisenberg and W. Damon, 177–235. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Kochanska, G. 1993. Toward a synthesis of parental socialization and child temperament in early development of conscience. Child Development 64: 325–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Kochanska, G. 1994. Beyond cognition: Expanding the search for the early roots of internalization and conscience. Developmental Psychology 30: 20–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Kochanska, G. J.N. Gross, M. Lin, and K.E. Nichols. 2002. Guilt in young children: Development, determinants, and relations with a broader system of standards. Child Development 73(2): 461–482.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Blair, R.J.R. 1995. A cognitive development approach to morality: Investigating the psychopath. Cognition 57: 1–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Hoffman, M.L. 2000. Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Blair, R.J.R. 1996. Brief report: Morality in the autistic child. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 26: 571–579.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Levy, N. 2007. The responsibility of the psychopath revisited. Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 14: 129–138.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Smetana, J.G. and J.L. Braeges. 1990. The development of toddlers’ moral and conventional judgments. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 36: 329–346.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Song, M. J.G. Smetana, and S.Y. Kim. 1987. Korean children’s conceptions of moral and conventional transgressions. Developmental Psychology 23: 577–582.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Viding, E. J. Blair, T.E. Moffitt, and R. Plomin. 2005. Evidence for substantial genetic risk for psychopathy in 7-year-olds. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 46: 592–597.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Christian, R. P.J. Frick, N. Hill, L.A. Tyler, and D. Fraser. 1997. Psychopathy and conduct problems in children: II. subtyping children with conduct problems based on their interpersonal and affective style. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 36: 233–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Barry, C.T. P.J. Frick, T.M. Deshazo, M.G. McCoy, M. Ellis, and B.R. Loney. 2000. The importance of callous-unemotional traits for extending the concept of psychopathy to children. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 109: 335–340.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Blair, R.J.R. and M. Coles. 2000. Expression recognition and behavioural problems in early adolescence. Cognitive Development 15: 421–434.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Blair, R.J.R. E. Colledge, and D.G.V. Mitchell. 2001. Somatic markers and response reversal: Is there orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction in boys with psychopathic tendencies? Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 29(6): 499–511.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Stevens, D. T. Charman, and R.J.R. Blair. 2001. Recognition of emotion in facial expressions and vocal tones in children with psychopathic tendencies. Journal of Genetic Psychology 162(2): 201–211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Kosson, D.S. Y. Suchy, A.R. Mayer, and J. Libby. 2002. Facial affect recognition in criminal psychopaths. Emotion 2(4): 398–411.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Blair, R.J.R. D.G.V. Mitchell, R.A. Richell, S. Kelly, A. Leonard, C. Newman, et al. 2002. Turning a deaf ear to fear: Impaired recognition of vocal affect in psychopathic individuals. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 111(4): 682–686.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Blair, R.J.R. 2008. The cognitive neuroscience of psychopathy and implications for judgments of responsibility. Neuroethics 1: 149–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Anderson, S.W. A. Bechara, H. Damasio, D. Tranel, and A.R. Damasio. 1999. Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience 2: 1032–1037.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Cornell, D.G. J. Warren, G. Hawk, E. Stafford, G. Oram, and D. Pine. 1996. Psychopathy in instrumental and reactive violent offenders. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 64: 783–790.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Glannon, W. 2008. Moral responsibility and the psychopath. Neuroethics 1: 158–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Haji, I. 1998. Moral appraisability: Puzzles, proposals, and perplexities. New York: Oxford University Press.

  47. Haji, I. n.d. The inauthentic evaluative schemes of psychopaths and culpability. Forthcoming In Responsibility and psychopathy interfacing law, psychiatry and philosophy, eds. L. Malatesti and J. McMillan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  48. Haji, I. 2003. The emotional depravity of psychopaths and culpability. Legal Theory 9: 63-82.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Blair, R.J.R. D. Mitchell, and K. Blair. 2005. The psychopath: Emotion and the brain. Malden: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Glannon, W. 1997. Psychopathy and responsibility. Journal of Applied Philosophy 14: 263–275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Nordenfelt, L. 2007. Rationality and compulsion: Applying action theory to psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Mele, A. 2006. Free will and luck. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  53. Damasio, A. 1994. Descartes’ error: Reason, emotion, and the human brain. New York: Grossett/Putnam.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Damasio, A. 2007. Neuroscience and ethics: Intersections. The American Journal of Bioethics 7: 3–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Aristotle. 1984. In The complete works of Aristotle: The revised Oxford Translation. 2 vols, Bollingen Series Lxxi.2, ed. J. Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, N.W., Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Ishtiyaque Haji

Authors
  1. Ishtiyaque Haji
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ishtiyaque Haji.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Haji, I. Psychopathy, Ethical Perception, and Moral Culpability. Neuroethics 3, 135–150 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-009-9049-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-009-9049-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation