The Responsibility of Psychopaths
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5349641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Vinit Haksar (University of St Andrews, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1965 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 59 |
| Pages | 135 |
| Publication date | 1965-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2218213 |
| OpenAlex | W2312917822 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
It sometimes argued that it paradoxical to excuse the psychopath from punishment and blame, while we continue to punish and blame those who only occasionally commit a crime. For the psychopath commits crimes persistently and therefore more wicked than the one who commits a crime only occasionally. This argument assumes that psychopaths are not lacking in responsibility. For wickedness depends not only upon the extent of harm a person has done, but also on whether and how far he was responsible in the sense of having a fair choice. If we can show that psychopaths are not responsible, then the paradox will disappear. Now there are people who believe that we cannot (logically) show the psychopath to be lacking in responsibility. Thus, Lady Wootton, in her very stimulating book, has argued that the psychopath is in fact, par excellence, and without shame or qualification, the model of the circular process by which mental abnormality inferred from anti-social behaviour, while anti-social behaviour explained by mental abnormality .1 Now, if we assume, as Lady Wootton seems to, that explaining the psychopath's behaviour a necessary condition of excusing it, and if she right that arguments that try to explain the psychopath's behaviour are circular, then it follows that arguments that try to excuse his behaviour will also involve circular reasoning. But explaining a person's behaviour not a sufficient condition of excusing it. So even if Lady Wootton wrong on this point about circularity, even if we can explain the actions of psychopaths, there still the problem whether we can show psychopaths to be lacking in responsibility. I shall discuss this problem in the next section. In this section I shall try to show that we can attempt to explain the behaviour of psychopaths, and that Lady Wootton not right on this point about circular reasoning. If we know some facts about the psychopath other than the mere fact that he persistently commits anti-social actions, then we can without circularity try to explain his persistent anti-social behaviour with the help of these other facts
Free Will and Agency · Psychology · Torture, Ethics, and Law · War, Ethics, and Justification
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,13 |
| Citation span | 1995 - 2010 (16) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |