Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by antisocial behaviour, lack of remorse and empathy, and a constellation of symptoms that are suggestive of decision-making impairments. This condition raises several philosophical issues. Besides scientists, philosophers, working within philosophy of psychiatry, investigate the scientific validity and mental illness status of psychopathy. In moral psychology, it is debated whether psychopaths offer a counter-example to motivational internalism and if their case can be used to support sentimentalism about moral judgment and motivation as opposed to rationalism. There are philosophical debates concerning the moral responsibility and the legal responsibility of psychopathic offenders. In applied ethics, there is a discussion on the possibility and legitimacy of forms of biological moral enhancement of psychopaths.

A fundamental text for the contemporary conceptualisation of psychopathy is Hare 2003. Scepticism about the category of psychopathy is advanced in Mullen 2007. An empirically informed philosophical discussion of the mental illness status of psychopathy is in Nadelhoffer & Sinnott-Armstrong 2013. Levy 2014 offers a recent and influential argument for the conclusion that psychopaths are not morally responsible, Greenspan 2003 argues for the opposite conclusion. For the conclusion that psychopaths are not legally responsible, see Morse 2008, see Maibom 2008 for the opposite conclusion. Within metaethics, Nichols 2002 argues that the psychopathic disorder offers evidence for a sentimentalist interpretation of moral judgment. Maibom 2005, instead, maintain that psychopaths suffer from morally relevant rational deficits. For a discussion of motivational internalism in relation to psychopathy, see Sinnott-Armstrong 2014. Two opposing views on the possibility of biological moral enhancement of psychopaths are offered in Maibom 2014 and Glannon 2014.

Blair et al 2005 and Patrick 2006 are introductory texts on the scientific research on psychopathy. For an overview of meta-ethical debate, see Maibom 2013. The legal and moral responsibility of psychopaths are dealt with, respectively, in the collection Malatesti & McMillan 2010 and in the companion Kiehl & Sinnott-Armstrong 2013.