Psychopathy as moral blindness
A qualifying exploration of the blindness-analogy in psychopathy theory and research
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21702941 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen (0000-0002-9294-8645, University of Toronto Mississauga, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 214-233 |
| Publication date | 2020-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophical Explorations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1386-9795 • E-ISSN: 1741-5918 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13869795.2020.1799662 |
| OpenAlex | W3046455652 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 56 |
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 as largely misleading. In this contribution, the moral-blindness analogy is explored in an attempt to qualify anew its relevance in psychopathy theory and research. It is demonstrated that there are indeed theoretically relevant parallels to be drawn between blindness and psychopathy, parallels that are especially illuminating when accounting for the potential symptomatology, dimensionality, and etiological nature of the disorder
Analogy · Antisocial personality disorder · Dark triad · Epistemology · Injury prevention · Parallels · Personality · Poison control · Psychopathy · Deception detection and forensic psychology · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending · Social Psychology
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| Highly cited | No |
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