Being Amoral: Psychopathy and Moral Incapacity
Thomas Schramme
Abstract
Psychopathy has been the subject of investigations in both philosophy and psychiatry and yet the conceptual issues remain largely unresolved. This volume approaches psychopathy by considering the question of what psychopaths lack. The contributors investigate specific moral dysfunctions or deficits, shedding light on the capacities people need to be moral by examining cases of real people who seem to lack those capacities. The volume proceeds from the basic assumption that psychopathy is not characterized by a single deficit–for example, the lack of empathy, as some philosophers have proposed ... More
Psychopathy has been the subject of investigations in both philosophy and psychiatry and yet the conceptual issues remain largely unresolved. This volume approaches psychopathy by considering the question of what psychopaths lack. The contributors investigate specific moral dysfunctions or deficits, shedding light on the capacities people need to be moral by examining cases of real people who seem to lack those capacities. The volume proceeds from the basic assumption that psychopathy is not characterized by a single deficit–for example, the lack of empathy, as some philosophers have proposed – but by a range of them. Thus contributors address specific deficits that include impairments in rationality, language, fellow-feeling, volition, evaluation, and sympathy. They also consider such issues in moral psychology as moral motivation, moral emotions, and moral character; and they examine social aspects of psychopathic behavior, including ascriptions of moral responsibility, justification of moral blame, and social and legal responses to people perceived to be dangerous.
Keywords:
Psychopathy,
Amorality,
Moral Agency,
Moral Responsibility,
Moral Psychology,
Moral Character,
Lack of Moral Sense,
Philosophical Psychopathology
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780262027915 |
| Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: January 2015 |
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262027915.001.0001 |
