About this topic
Summary

Serious empirical work on psychopathy and moral psychology started with the investigation on how individuals with psychopathy solve the moral/conventional task (M/C). First studies seemed to show that psychopaths do not differentiate between the two types of norms as the nonpsychopathic individuals. This result was taken to lend support to neosentimentalist views on moral judgment and has been taken to have important implications for debates on different kinds of internalism/externalism views in metaethics, accounts of moral understanding and ascriptions of responsibility. Later research and philosophical reflection on empirical data gave a more nuanced picture of psychopaths’ neuropsychological abnormalities and what implications those might have on moral psychology more generally. In particular, it has been noted that psychopaths exhibit cognitive deficits in decision-making processes and that different affective and cognitive abnormalities appear and disappear as a function of the context of the research paradigm. Moreover, in recent years pressure has been put on the initial discovery that psychopaths fail to solve the M/C. Thus it seems that psychopaths might possess normal moral understanding, albeit acquired by utilization of different neurocognitive resources. Further inquiries include questions whether psychopathic abnormal moral psychology might be an evolutionary adaptation to an antisocial life history.  

Key works

Seminal empirical papers on psychopaths’ performance on M/C are Blair 1995 and Blair 1997 . Shoemaker 2011 provides a conceptual analysis of M/C and what it implies for the moral understanding of psychopaths. Aharoni et al 2012 provide evidence against  poorer performance of psychopaths on M/C. Nichols 2004 and Prinz 2006 argue that psychopathy lends support to neosentimentalist account of moral judgment. In defense of rationalist accounts of moral judgments, Maibom 2005 and Kennett 2006 argue that psychopaths also suffer from rational deficits. Sinnott-Armstrong 2014 critically reviews what implications psychopathy has on internalism/externalism debate. Glenn et al 2009 provide an empirically based argument according to which psychopaths’ responses are abnormal in some domains of morality but not in others. Glenn et al 2011 review evolutionary approaches to psychopathy.

Introductions

Maibom 2013 is an encyclopedia article from a philosopher’s point of view. Patrick 2006 still provides a thorough and comprehensive view on different facets of psychopathy. Accessible overviews of psychopaths’ neuropsychology include affect-based and attention-based accounts. For the former see Blair et al 2005 ; for the latter see Koenigs & Newman 2013.

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  1. On the Everydayness of Trauma.Ryan Wasser - manuscript
    Shaili Jain's The Unspeakable Mind (2019) is an impressive examination of the stress experienced by a veteran community that too often is handled with a sense of clinical sterility that borders on inhumanity, or a that of pandering condescension. However, what is striking about Jain's text is the lack of analysis of how trauma manifests in what Heidegger would refer to as average everydayness. This, to me, seems like a missed opportunity, especially as it pertains to trauma-based ethics since all (...)
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  2. La psychopathie et son évaluation.Denis Delannoy, Xavier Saloppé, Vicenzutto Audrey, Vanessa Majois, Claire Ducro & T. H. Pham - forthcoming - EMC - Psychiatrie.
    L’évaluation de la psychopathie reste incontournable tant dans le domaine de l’expertise, de l’orientation, du traitement, que de l’évaluation et la gestion du risque. Le profil psychopathique et le niveau de risque de récidive associé constituent des indicateurs pertinents pour les professionnels de terrain. Cet article se propose de compléter le premier datant de 2011 en apportant des connaissances supplémentaires relatives aux modèles d’évaluation de la psychopathie ainsi qu’un éclairage optimiste sur l’efficacité des traitements auprès d’adultes délinquants. Il décrit, d’une (...)
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  3. Examining the Factor Structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Short-Form Across Four Young Adult Samples.Hailey L. Dotterer, Rebecca Waller, Craig S. Neumann, Daniel S. Shaw, Erika E. Forbes, Ahmad R. Hariri & Luke W. Hyde - forthcoming - Assessment:1-18.
    Psychopathy refers to a range of complex behaviors and personality traits, including callousness and antisocial behavior, typically studied in criminal populations. Recent studies have used self-reports to examine psychopathic traits among noncriminal samples. The goal of the current study was to examine the underlying factor structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Scale–Short Form (SRP-SF) across complementary samples and examine the impact of gender on factor structure. We examined the structure of the SRP-SF among 2,554 young adults from three undergraduate samples (...)
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  4. Parsing fear: A reassessment of the evidence for fear deficits in psychopathy.S. S. Hoppenbrouwers, B. H. Bulten & Inti A. Brazil - forthcoming - Psychological Bulletin.
    Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by interpersonal manipulation and callousness, and reckless and impulsive antisocial behavior. It is often seen as a disorder in which profound emotional disturbances lead to antisocial behavior. A lack of fear in particular has been proposed as an etiologically salient factor. In this review, we employ a conceptual model in which fear is parsed into separate subcomponents. Important historical conceptualizations of psychopathy, the neuroscientific and empirical evidence for fear deficits in psychopathy are compared against (...)
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  5. Interpersonal and Affective Psychopathy Traits Can Enhance Human Fitness.Janko Međedović, Boban Petrović, Jelena Želeskov-Đoric & Maja Savić - forthcoming - Evolutionary Psychological Science.
    Recently, attempts have been made to determine the evolutionary status of psychopathy. However, there is still a gap in empirical literature regarding the connection between psychopathy and fitness. In the present study, we explored the relations between the four-factor model of psychopathy and reproductive success as a fitness indicator in a sample of male convicts (N = 181). Direct relations were analyzed, together with the interaction effects between psychopathy and family risk factors (presence of criminality, substance abuse, and maltreatment in (...)
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  6. Modulatory effects of psychopathy on Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance in male offenders with Antisocial Personality Disorder.Vanessa Pera-Guardiola, Iolanda Batalla, Javier Bosque, David Kosson, Josep Pifarré, Rosa Hernández-Ribas, Ximena Goldberg, Oren Contreras-Rodríguez, José M. Menchón, Carles Soriano-Mas & Narcís Cardoner - forthcoming - Psychiatric Research.
    Neuropsychological deficits in executive functions(EF)have been linked to antisocial behavior and considered to be cardinal to the onset and persistence of severe antisocial and aggressive behavior. However, when psychopathy is present, prior evidence suggests that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is unaffected leading to intact EF. Ninety-one male offenders with Antisocial Personality Disorder(ASPD) and 24 controls completed the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test(WCST). ASPD individuals were grouped in three categories according to Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R)scores(low, medium and high). We hypothesized that ASPD offenders (...)
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  7. Electrophysiological Correlates of Empathic Processing in Individuals with Psychopathic Meanness traits.J. D. M. Van Dongen, Inti A. Brazil, F. M. van der Veen & I. H. A. Franken - forthcoming - Neuropsychology.
  8. How to keep unreproducible neuroimaging evidence out of court: A case study in fMRI and psychopathy.Jarkko Jalava, Stephanie Griffiths & Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen - 2023 - Psychology Public Policy and Law 29 (1):1-18.
    The amount of neuroimaging evidence introduced in courts continues to increase. Meanwhile, neuroimaging research is in the midst of a reproducibility crisis, as many published findings appear to be false positives. The problem is mostly due to small sample sizes, lack of direct replications, and questionable research practices. There are concerns that a significant proportion of neuroimaging evidence introduced in court may therefore be unreliable. Guidelines governing the admissibility of scientific evidence—Frye and Daubert—are not designed to weed out such data. (...)
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  9. Psychopathy and Criminal Responsibility (2nd edition).Marko Jurjako & Luca Malatesti - 2023 - Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy.
    Psychopathy is typically characterized as a constellation of deviant personality traits and behavioral tendencies. The link between psychopathic personality traits and pervasive antisocial behavior raises a crucial question concerning the legal accountability of offenders with psychopathy. Some argue that the unique clinical profile and neurobiological peculiarities of individuals with psychopathy mitigate their responsibility, while others maintain that current scientific knowledge does not support the use of psychopathy as an exculpatory condition for criminal offending. Our overview mainly centeres on whether offenders (...)
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  10. Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science.Joshua May - 2023 - New York, US: Oxford University Press.
    What ethical questions does neuroscience raise and help to answer? Neuroethics blends philosophical analysis with modern brain science to address central questions within this growing field: · Is free will an illusion? · Does brain stimulation impair a patient's autonomy? · Does having a mental disorder excuse bad behavior? · Is addiction a brain disease? · Should we trust our gut feelings in ethics and politics? · Should we alter our brains to become better people? · Is human reasoning bound (...)
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  11. Volitions, Préoccupations Prudentielles, Et Réflexivité Dans la Psychopathie.Mathieu Garcia - 2022 - Les Ateliers de l'Éthique / the Ethics Forum 17 (1-2):4–30.
    In accordance with a tradition depicting individuals with psychopathic functioning as morally blind, or even morally dead, discussions concerning their moral agency have for a long time neglected the analysis of volitional and conative aspects, whose contribution is nevertheless crucial in our understanding of their immoral actions. Based on the findings about the discrepancy that seems to occur, in this type of personality, between moral judgments and moral choices, we propose in this article to discuss the several theories that might (...)
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  12. Social Economic Decision-Making and Psychopathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Lukas J. Gunschera, Inti A. Brazil & Jossi M. A. Driessen - 2022 - Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 143 (104966):1-17.
    Psychopathy is a personality construct that encompasses a constellation of traits reflecting emotional dysfunction and antisocial behavior. This constellation has consistently been linked to poor decision-making, often focused on personal and monetary gains at the others’ expense. However, there remains a lack of a systematic examination of how psychopathy is related to the prospect of obtaining monetary gains as a function of social context. Therefore, we conducted a series of meta-analyses to elucidate these relationships. Our findings indicated that elevated levels (...)
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  13. Psychopathy: Neurohype and Its Consequences.Jarkko Jalava & Stephanie Griffiths - 2022 - In Luca Malatesti, John McMillan & Predrag Šustar (eds.), Psychopathy: Its Uses, Validity and Status. Cham: Springer. pp. 79-98.
    Many argue that psychopaths suffer from a stable pattern of neurobiological dysfunctions that should be taken into account in sentencing and treatment decisions. These arguments are compelling only if the neuroimaging data are consistent. It is possible that such consistency is created by reviewers who ignore contradictory findings. To evaluate this, we examined how accurately forensic literature reported neuroimaging findings on psychopaths in a theoretically central structure – the amygdala. We found that forensic commentators consistently under-reported null-findings, creating a misleading (...)
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  14. The value-ladenness of psychopathy.Marko Jurjako & Luca Malatesti - 2022 - In Luca Malatesti, John McMillan & Predrag Šustar (eds.), Psychopathy: Its Uses, Validity and Status. Cham: Springer. pp. 215-233.
    The recurring claim that the construct of psychopathy is value laden often is not qualified in enough detail. The chapters in this part of the volume, instead, investigate in depth the role and significance of values in different aspects of the construct of psychopathy. Following these chapters, but also by offering a background to them, we show how certain values are involved in the characterisation of psychopathy, inform societal needs satisfied by this construct, and have a central role in determining (...)
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  15. Are psychopaths moral‐psychologically impaired? Reassessing emotion‐theoretical explanations.Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen - 2022 - Mind and Language 37 (2):177-193.
    Psychopathy has been theorized as a disorder of emotion, which impairs moral judgments. However, these theories are increasingly being abandoned as empirical studies show that psychopaths seem to make proper moral judgments. In this contribution, these findings are reassessed, and it is argued that prevalent emotion‐theories of psychopathy appear to operate with the unjustified assumption that psychopaths have no emotions, which leads to the hypothesis that psychopaths are completely unable to make moral judgments. An alternative and novel explanation is proposed, (...)
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  16. The disunity of moral judgment: Implications for the study of psychopathy.David Sackris - 2022 - Philosophical Psychology 1.
    Since the 18th century, one of the key features of diagnosed psychopaths has been “moral colorblindness” or an inability to form moral judgments. However, attempts at experimentally verifying this moral incapacity have been largely unsuccessful. After reviewing the centrality of “moral colorblindness” to the study and diagnosis of psychopathy, I argue that the reason that researchers have been unable to verify that diagnosed psychopaths have an inability to make moral judgments is because their research is premised on the assumption that (...)
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  17. Više je ipak bolje: Epistemički interesi i prirodne vrste (eng. The more the merrier: Epistemic interests and natural kinds).Mladen Bošnjak & Zdenka Brzović - 2021 - Prolegomena: Journal of Philosophy 20 (2):235-259.
    In this paper, we focus on the propensity toward identifying natural kinds with successful scientific categories in contemporary discussions of natural kinds within the philosophy of science. Success in this case is understood as the fulfillment of epistemic interests or goals in a given field of scientific research. The prevailing view is that, in order to have a theory of natural kinds that successfully captures current scientific practice, the relevant epistemic interests are the current interests of scientists working in a (...)
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  18. Emotion in imaginative resistance.Dylan Campbell, William Kidder, Jason D’Cruz & Brendan Gaesser - 2021 - Philosophical Psychology 34 (7):895-937.
    Imaginative resistance refers to cases in which one’s otherwise flexible imaginative capacity is constrained by an unwillingness or inability to imaginatively engage with a given claim. In three studies, we explored which specific imaginative demands engender resistance when imagining morally deviant worlds and whether individual differences in emotion predict the degree of this resistance. In Study 1 (N = 176), participants resisted the notion that harmful actions could be morally acceptable in the world of a narrative regardless of the author’s (...)
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  19. Psychopathy, Agency, and Practical Reason.Monique Wonderly - 2021 - In Ruth Chang & Kurt Sylvan (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason. New York, USA: Routledge. pp. 262-275.
    Philosophers have urged that considerations about the psychopath’s capacity for practical rationality can help to advance metaethical debates. These debates include the role of rational faculties in moral judgment and action, the relationship between moral judgment and moral motivation, and the capacities required for morally responsible agency. I discuss how the psychopath’s capacity for practical reason features in these debates, and I identify several takeaway lessons from the relevant literature. Specifically, I show how the insights contained therein can illuminate the (...)
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  20. Psychopathy and the Induction of Desire: Formulating and Testing an Evolutionary Hypothesis.Kristopher J. Brazil & Adelle E. Forth - 2020 - Evolutionary Psychological Science 6:64–81.
    The problems psychopathic individuals impose on society and in their interpersonal relationships can be held in stark contrast to reports of their appeal and sexual success in some of those relationships. In the current paper, we seek to contextualize this enigma by focusing on the interpersonal dynamics of psychopathic individuals in romantic encounters. We first formulate a plausible evolutionary function, the sexual exploitation hypothesis, that proposes psychopathy exhibits “special design” features for subverting female mate choice, facilitating the induction of favorable (...)
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  21. Aus der Not eine Tugend machen? Ethische, juristische und praktische Implikationen funktionaler Psychopathen in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft.Jan Dehne-Niemann, Till E. Dehne-Niemann & Volker Lingnau - 2020 - In S. Et al Burger (ed.), Führungsverantwortung und Führungsversagen. Augsburg/München: Rainer Hampp Verlag. pp. 45-68.
    Das Themengebiet der Psychopathie hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten vor allem durch Filme, die sich mit (vermeintlich) psychopathischen Charakteren beschäfti- gen, ein breites gesellschaftliches Interesse erfahren (vgl. Swart 2016). Holly- woods Blockbuster zeigen hier Beispiele hochintelligenter (z. B. Hanibal Lector in „Das Schweigen der Lämmer“) oder sexuell devianter (z. B. Patrick Bateman in „American Psycho“) Serienkiller, welche aus klinischer Sicht tatsächlich hoch psy- chopathische Tendenzen aufweisen. Demgegenüber werden psychisch andersartig beeinträchtigte Filmcharaktere, wie z. B. Norman Bates („Psycho“) oder Travis Bickel (...)
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  22. Comment on Raine (2019) ‘The neuromoral theory of antisocial, violent, and psychopathic behavior’.Hyemin Han - 2020 - F1000Research 9:274.
    Raine (2019) reviewed previous research on the neural correlates of antisocial, violent, and psychopathic behavior based on previous studies of neuroscience of morality. The author identified neural circuitries associated with the aforementioned types of antisocial behaviors. However, in the review, Raine acknowledged a limitation in his arguments, the lack of evidence supporting the presence of the neural circuitries. In this correspondence, I intend to show that some of his concerns, particularly those about the insula and cingulate cortex, can be addressed (...)
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  23. Biocognitive classification of antisocial individuals without explanatory reductionism.Marko Jurjako, Luca Malatesti & Inti Brazil - 2020 - Perspectives on Psychological Science 15 (4):957-972.
    Effective and specifically targeted social and therapeutic responses for antisocial personality disorders and psychopathy are scarce. Some authors maintain that this scarcity should be overcome by revising current syndrome - based classifications of these conditions and devising better biocognitive classifications of antisocial individuals. The inspiration for the latter classifications has been embedded in the Research domain criteria approach (RDoC). RDoC - type approaches to psychiatric research aim at transforming diagnosis, provide valid measures of disorders, aid clinical practice, and improve health (...)
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  24. Psychopathy as moral blindness: a qualifying exploration of the blindness-analogy in psychopathy theory and research.Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen - 2020 - Philosophical Explorations 23 (3):214-233.
    Volume 23, Issue 3, September 2020, Page 214-233.
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  25. Psychopathy as moral blindness: a qualifying exploration of the blindness-analogy in psychopathy theory and research.Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen - 2020 - Philosophical Explorations 23 (3):214-233.
    The term psychopathy refers to a personality disorder associated with callous personality traits and antisocial behaviors. Throughout its research history, psychopathy has frequently been described as a peculiar form of moral blindness, engendering a narrative about a patient stereotype incapable of taking a genuine moral perspective, similar to a blind person who is deprived of proper visual perceptions. However, recent empirical research has shown that clinically diagnosed psychopaths are morally more fit than initially thought, and the blindness-analogy now comes across (...)
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  26. Are Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) Psychopaths Dangerous, Untreatable, and Without Conscience? A Systematic Review of the Empirical Evidence.Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen, Jarkko Jalava & Stephanie Griffiths - 2020 - Psychology, Public Policy and Law 26 (3):297–311.
    The Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL; Hare, Neumann, & Mokros 2018) scales are among the most widely used forensic assessment tools. Their perceived utility rests partly on their ability to assess stable personality traits indicative of a lack of conscience, which then facilitates behavioral predictions useful in forensic decisions. In this systematic review, we evaluate the empirical evidence behind 3 fundamental justifications for using the PCL scales in forensics, namely, that they are empirically predictive of (1) criminal behavior, (2) treatment outcomes, (...)
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  27. Commentary: The moral bioenhancement of psychopaths.Elisabetta Sirgiovanni - 2020 - Frontiers in Psychology 10:1-3.
    Baccarini and Malatesti (2017) defend the idea that we must use coercively biomedical means to enhance the morality of a specific group of individuals: psychopaths, diagnosed through the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) standards (Hare, 2003). Their argument is theoretical, thus it goes independently from the actual effectiveness of existent treatments, and it is based on a logical reasoning. Moral bioenhancement (MB) means include psychotropic drugs, brain stimulations, neurosurgeries, genetic editing, etc. -/- In short, the authors apply Gerald Gaus' account of open (...)
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  28. Psychopathy Treatment and the Stigma of Yesterday's Research.Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen - 2019 - Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 29 (3):243-272.
    The psychiatric diagnosis of psychopathic personality—or psychopathy—signifies a patient stereotype with a callous lack of empathy and strong antisocial tendencies. Throughout the research record and psychiatric practices, diagnosed psychopaths have been predominantly seen as immune to psychiatric intervention and treatment, making the diagnosis a potentially strong discriminator for treatment amenability. In this contribution, the evidence in support of this proposition is critically analyzed. It is demonstrated that the untreatability perspective rests largely on erroneous, unscientific conclusions. Instead, recent research suggests that (...)
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  29. The neuromoral theory of antisocial, violent, and psychopathic behavior.Adrian Raine - 2019 - Psychiatry Research 277:64–69.
    The neuromoral theory of antisocial behaviors argues that impairment to the neural circuitry underlying morality provides a common foundation for antisocial, violent, and psychopathic behavior in children, adolescents, and adults. This article reviews new findings in two research fields since this theory was first proposed: brain mechanisms underlying moral decision-making, and brain systems subserving antisocial behaviors. The neuromoral theory is updated to take into account new empirical findings. Key areas implicated in both moral decision-making and the spectrum of antisocial behaviors (...)
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  30. Psychopathy, autism, and basic moral emotions: Evidence for sentimentalist constructivism.Erick Jose Ramirez - 2019 - In Bluhm Robyn & Tekin Serife (eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Psychiatry. Bloomsbury.
    Philosophers and psychologists often claim that moral agency is connected with the ability to feel, understand, and deploy moral emotions. In this chapter, I investigate the nature of these emotions and their connection with moral agency. First, I examine the degree to which these emotional capacities are innate and/or ‘basic’ in a philosophically important sense. I examine three senses in which an emotion might be basic: developmental, compositional, and phylogenetic. After considering the evidence for basic emotion, I conclude that emotions (...)
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  31. Psychopathy Treatment and the Stigma of Yesterday's Research.Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen - 2019 - In Fritz Allhoff & Sandra L. Borden (eds.), Ethics and Error in Medicine. London: Routledge.
    The psychiatric diagnosis of psychopathic personality—or psychopathy—signifies a patient stereotype with a callous lack of empathy and strong antisocial tendencies. Throughout the research record and psychiatric practices, diagnosed psychopaths have been predominantly seen as immune to psychiatric intervention and treatment, making the diagnosis a potentially strong discriminator for treatment amenability. In this contribution, the evidence in support of this proposition is critically analyzed. It is demonstrated that the untreatability perspective rests largely on erroneous, unscientific conclusions. Instead, recent research suggests that (...)
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  32. Beyond physical harm: how preference for consequentialism and primary psychopathy relate to decisions on a monetary trolley dilemma.Dries H. Bostyn, Sybren Sevenhant & Arne Roets - 2018 - Thinking and Reasoning 25 (2):192-206.
    When is it appropriate to harm a single person to help multiple others? Psychologists have investigated this question through the study of hypothetical “trolley” dilemmas involving extreme physical harm life-or-death situations that contrast outcome-focussed, consequentialist moral reasoning with principle-focussed, deontological moral reasoning. The present studies investigate whether participants’ preference for consequentialism generalises across domains. We administered traditional physical harm dilemmas as well as a trolley-type dilemma involving monetary harm. Across four studies (N = 809), an internal meta-analysis demonstrated that participants’ (...)
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  33. Are Psychopaths Legally Insane?Anneli Jefferson & Katrina Sifferd - 2018 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 14 (1):79-96.
    The question of whether psychopaths are criminally and morally responsible has generated significant controversy in the literature. In this paper, we discuss what relevance a psychopathy diagnosis has for criminal responsibility. It has been argued that figuring out whether psychopathy is a mental illness is of fundamental importance, because it is a precondition for psychopaths’ eligibility to be excused via the legal insanity defense. But even if psychopathy counts as a mental illness, this alone is not sufficient to show the (...)
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  34. Psychopathy, executive functions, and neuropsychological data: a response to Sifferd and Hirstein.Marko Jurjako & Luca Malatesti - 2018 - Neuroethics 11 (1):55-65.
    Psychopathy, executive functions, and neuropsychological data: a response to Sifferd and Hirstein.
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  35. Neuropsychology and the Criminal Responsibility of Psychopaths: Reconsidering the Evidence.Marko Jurjako & Luca Malatesti - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (5):1003-1025.
    Recently it has been argued that certain neuropsychological findings on the decision-making, instrumental learning, and moral understanding in psychopathic offenders offer reasons to consider them not criminally responsible, due to certain epistemic and volitional impairments. We reply to this family of arguments, that collectively we call the irresponsibility of the psychopath argument. This type of argument has a premise that describes or prescribes the deficiencies that grant or should grant partial or complete criminal exculpation. The other premise contends that neuropsychological (...)
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  36. Psychopathy: Philosophical and Empirical Challenges.Marko Jurjako, Luca Malatesti & John McMillan - 2018 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 14 (1):5-14.
  37. What Can Philosophers Learn from Psychopathy?Heidi L. Maibom - 2018 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 14 (1):63-78.
    Many spectacular claims about psychopaths are circulated. This contribution aims at providing the reader with the more complex reality of the phenomenon (or phenomena), and to point to issues of particular interest to philosophers working in moral psychology and moral theory. I first discuss the current evidence regarding psychopaths’ deficient empathy and decision-making skills. I then explore what difference it makes to our thinking whether we regard their deficit dimensionally (as involving abilities that are on or off) and whether we (...)
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  38. Psychopathy, Identification and Mental Time Travel.Luca Malatesti & Filip Čeč - 2018 - In Filip Grgic & Davor Pećnjak (eds.), Free Will and Action. Dordrecht: pp. 89-101.
    Recently some have argued that psychopaths might suffer generalised cognitive impairments that affect their capacity for mental time travel. In relation to the past, mental time travel is the capacity to have memories of past episodes in which the agent was personally involved. In relation to the future, mental time travel involves prospection, the capacity to imagine future situations where the agent might be involved. The authors argue that certain studies on the instrumental learning of psychopaths show that, in relation (...)
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  39. Comparing the response modulation hypothesis and the integrated emotions system theory: The role of top-down attention in psychopathy.Jaap Munneke, Sylco S. Hoppenbrouwers, Bethany Little, Karen Kooiman, Erik Van der Burg & Jan Theeuwes - 2018 - Personality and Individual Differences 122:134-139.
    Objective: Two major etiological theories on psychopathy propose different mechanisms as to how emotional facial expressions are processed by individuals with elevated psychopathic traits. The Response Modulation Hypothesis (RMH) proposes that psychopathic individuals show emotional deficits as a consequence of attentional deployment, suggesting that emotional deficits are situation-specific. The Integrated Emotions System theory (IES) suggests that psychopathic individuals have a fundamental amygdala dysfunction which precludes adequate responsiveness to the distress of others. Methods: Participants performed a visual search task in which (...)
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  40. A Bayesian Account of Psychopathy: A Model of Lacks Remorse and Self-Aggrandizing.Aaron Prosser, Karl Friston, Nathan Bakker & Thomas Parr - 2018 - Computational Psychiatry 2:92-140.
    This article proposes a formal model that integrates cognitive and psychodynamic psychotherapeutic models of psychopathy to show how two major psychopathic traits called lacks remorse and self-aggrandizing can be understood as a form of abnormal Bayesian inference about the self. This model draws on the predictive coding (i.e., active inference) framework, a neurobiologically plausible explanatory framework for message passing in the brain that is formalized in terms of hierarchical Bayesian inference. In summary, this model proposes that these two cardinal psychopathic (...)
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  41. Shame, Embarrassment, and the Subjectivity Requirement.Erick J. Ramirez - 2018 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 14 (1):97-114.
    Reactive theories of responsibility see moral accountability as grounded on the capacity for feeling reactive-attitudes. I respond to a recent argument gaining ground in this tradition that excludes psychopaths from accountability. The argument relies on what Paul Russell has called the 'subjectivity requirement'. On this view, the capacity to feel and direct reactive-attitudes at oneself is a necessary condition for responsibility. I argue that even if moral attitudes like guilt are impossible for psychopaths to deploy, that psychopaths, especially the "successful" (...)
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  42. False-Positives in Psychopathy Assessment: Proposing Theory-Driven Exclusion Criteria in Research Sampling.Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen - 2018 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 14 (1):33-52.
    Recent debates in psychopathy studies have articulated concerns about false-positives in assessment and research sampling. These are pressing concerns for research progress, since scientific quality depends on sample quality, that is, if we wish to study psychopathy we must be certain that the individuals we study are, in fact, psychopaths. Thus, if conventional assessment tools yield substantial false-positives, this would explain why central research is laden with discrepancies and nonreplicable findings. This paper draws on moral psychology in order to develop (...)
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  43. Efekti crta ličnosti tamne trijade i emocionalne empatije na moralnu prosudbu.Ana Rožić, Domagoj Švegar & Igor Kardum - 2018 - Psychological Topics 27 (3):561-583.
    Klasične moralne dileme žrtvovanja, u kojima je potrebno žrtvovati život jedne osobe kako bi spasili nekoliko drugih života, često su definirane konfliktom između racionalnog odgovora maksimizacije ukupne dobrobiti (utilitaristička moralna prosudba) i emocionalne averzije na povredu (deontološka moralna prosudba). Novija su istraživanja moralnog prosuđivanja pokazala da su socijalno averzivni stilovi ličnosti povezani sa sklonosti utilitarističkom odgovaranju na moralne dileme. Cilj je ovoga istraživanja bio ispitati povezanosti crta ličnosti tamne trijade i odgovora na moralne dileme, kao i medijacijski efekt emocionalne empatije (...)
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  44. Temporal experience, emotions and decision making in psychopathy.Anja Berninger - 2017 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16 (4):661-677.
  45. Emotion-based learning systems and the development of morality.R. J. R. Blair - 2017 - Cognition 167 (C):38-45.
    In this paper it is proposed that important components of moral development and moral judgment rely on two forms of emotional learning: stimulus-reinforcement and response-outcome learning. Data in support of this position will be primarily drawn from work with individuals with the developmental condition of psychopathy as well as fMRI studies with healthy individuals. Individuals with psychopathy show impairment on moral judgment tasks and a pronounced increased risk for instrumental antisocial behavior. It will be argued that these impairments are developmental (...)
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  46. The Kindness of Psychopaths.Zdenka Brzović, Marko Jurjako & Predrag Šustar - 2017 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 31 (2):189-211.
    Psychopathy attracts considerable interdisciplinary interest. The idea of a group of people with abnormal morality and interpersonal relations raises important philosophical, legal, and clinical issues. However, before engaging these issues, we ought to examine whether this category is scientifically grounded. We frame the issue in terms of the question whether ‘psychopathy’ designates a natural kind according to the cluster approaches. We argue that currently there is no sufficient evidence for an affirmative answer to this question. Furthermore, we examine three ways (...)
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  47. Moral rationalism and psychopathy: Affective responses to reason.Allen Coates - 2017 - Philosophical Psychology 30 (7):855-877.
    Evidence suggests that psychopaths’ notoriously immoral behavior is due to affective rather than rational deficits. This evidence could be taken to show that, contrary to moral rationalism, moral norms are not norms of reason. Rationalists could reply either that psychopaths’ behavior is in fact primarily due to rational deficits or that affects are involved in responding to rational norms. Drawing on the work of Antonio Damasio and colleagues, I argue the latter is the better defense of moral rationalism.
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  48. Deux mesures de psychopathie chez les patients médicolégaux.Denis Delannoy, Xavier Saloppé, Luca A. Tiberi, Christelle Delescluse & Thierry H. Pham - 2017 - Annales Médico-Psychologiques, Revue Psychiatrique 175 (3):297-299.
    In the forensic field, psychopathy is a disorder that raises many questions. Indeed, the diagnostic evaluation by the PCL-R offers no opportunity to assess the variability of the disorder on the entire life. However, the dimensional scales used to assess this fluctuation, at least in the medium term. This study helps to validate the CAPP-IRS using the PCL-R with forensic patients.
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  49. Investigating the multivariate relationship between impulsivity and psychopathy using canonical correlation analysis.Siobhán Fox & Sean Hammon - 2017 - Personality and Individual Differences 111:187–192.
    Background -/- Impulsivity is generally considered a core feature of psychopathy, however one problem with understanding the association between these constructs is that both are multifaceted. Existing research often treats one or both of these constructs as unidimensional with important information regarding the complex nature of the relationship being lost. To clarify this issue the present study employs a canonical correlation analysis (CCA) which allows for the comparison of two multifaceted measurement scales simultaneously. -/- Methods -/- Respondents (n = 970) (...)
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  50. Associations between psychopathic traits and brain activity during instructed false responding.Andrea L. Glenn, Hyemin Han, Yaling Yang, Adrian Raine & Robert A. Schug - 2017 - Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 266:123-137.
    Lying is one of the characteristic features of psychopathy, and has been recognized in clinical and diagnostic descriptions of the disorder, yet individuals with psychopathic traits have been found to have reduced neural activity in many of the brain regions that are important for lying. In this study, we examine brain activity in sixteen individuals with varying degrees of psychopathic traits during a task in which they are instructed to falsify information or tell the truth about autobiographical and non-autobiographical facts, (...)
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