The responsibility of the psychopath revisited
Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 14 (2):pp. 129-138 (2007)
| Abstract | The question of the psychopath's responsibility for his or her wrongdoing has received considerable attention. Much of this attention has been directed toward whether psychopaths are a counterexample to motivational internalism (MI): Do they possess normal moral beliefs, which fail to motivate them? In this paper, I argue that this is a question that remains conceptually and empirically intractable, and that we ought to settle the psychopath's responsibility in some other way. I argue that recent empirical work on the moral judgments of psychopaths provides us with good reason to think that they are not fully responsible agents, because their actions cannot express the kinds of ill-will toward others that grounds attributions of distinctively moral responsibility. I defend this view against objections, especially those due to an influential account of moral responsibility that holds that moral knowledge is not necessary for responsibility. | |||||||||
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Neil Levy & Michael McKenna (2009). Recent Work on Free Will and Moral Responsibility. Philosophy Compass 4 (1):96-133.
Alfred R. Mele (2009). Moral Responsibility and History Revisited. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12 (5).
David W. Shoemaker (2011). Psychopathy, Responsibility, and the Moral/Conventional Distinction. Southern Journal of Philosophy 49 (s1):99-124.
Nicole A. Vincent (2008). Responsibility, Dysfunction and Capacity. Neuroethics 1 (3).
Walter Glannon (2008). Moral Responsibility and the Psychopath. Neuroethics 1 (3).
Christopher Ciocchetti (2003). Some Thoughts on Diverse Psychopathic Offenders and Legal Responsibility. Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 10 (2):195-198.
Carl Elliott (1992). Diagnosing Blame: Responsibility and the Psychopath. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 17 (2):199-214.
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