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Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 195-198



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Some Thoughts on Diverse Psychopathic Offenders and Legal Responsibility

Christopher Ciocchetti


One psychopath is a hardened killer who is charming, likable and otherwise quite friendly. Another is a bold liar whose stories begin as self-glorifying spins on the truth and quickly become unbelievable to any but the most gullible. A third tells believable lies tuned carefully to appeal to his audience's ignorance and desire to believe him, but steals thoughtlessly and makes no attempt to cover his tracks. Psychopaths are problematic. Not only is their behavior unpredictable and diagnosis difficult, the disorder itself is hard to unify into a single set of deficiencies. For the purposes of assigning moral responsibility, I propose that we describe psychopaths as persons who cannot treat actions as affecting relationships. My first task must be to show that the diversity of psychopaths can be unified under this description, and Gwen Adshead and Piers Benn propose an interesting range of possible psychopaths.

Adshead discusses two kinds of psychopaths: those who otherwise seem normal and those who are aware of their deficiency. Psychopaths who appear to be normal and even likable, except for the serious crimes they commit are the most horrifying. We shrink at their ability to seemingly connect with other people and still hurt them so thoughtlessly. This kind of psychopath presents special problem for my account since this kind of psychopath appears to respond to his or her relationships appropriately. Such a response seems to show the ability to act within relationships and gives us a reason to judge that these persons are responsible for their actions. Nonetheless, they are (by hypothesis) psychopaths so they do show some serious deficiencies in their responses to others. On the account I have given, we must conclude that this kind of psychopath has the least diminished responsibility. The ability to act within relationships is not an 'all-or-nothing' ability. It is one that admits degrees, and the more ways a psychopath appears to be normal, the more appropriate responses he or she is capable of giving, the more responsible he or she is. This response may be surprising, since it would imply that the psychopaths who disturb us most and may even do the most damage (since they are the most capable of avoiding detection) are also the ones who have the most mild form of psychopathy, but the capacity to respond to relationships directly correlates to our justification for punishment. Insofar as they can treat actions as affecting relationships, we should hold them responsible.

Psychopaths who are aware of their psychopathy present another kind of problem for my [End Page 195] account. They are not just aware that they have been categorized as psychopaths or that others consider them deficient. These psychopaths are interesting because they are aware that they are unable to respond appropriately. This knowledge, however, seems to require that they know what it is to respond appropriately. Is this person properly labeled a 'psychopath' or does this knowledge require the capacities a psychopath lacks? Without getting going into detail on the different subcategories, and there could be many ways a person could understand something without being able to act on that understanding, there is at least one way a psychopath might be aware of his or her deficiencies. He or she might understand the concept of an appropriate response while being unable to specify a particular act as appropriate or inappropriate within a given relationship. This kind of failure is relevant because it is not enough that the psychopath be able to understand the concept of punishment to justify our punishing him or her. The psychopath must also be capable of responding to the punishment as altering his or her relationships. A deficiency that prevents this kind of response, at any level, will diminish a person's responsibility.

Piers Benn adds an additional kind of psychopath to the list. The kind of psychopath I originally had in mind, as he correctly notes, is one who simply has no awareness of relationships. For...

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