In April I gave a talk at a Free Will/ Moral Responsibility conference near my hometown in Massachusetts on the culpability of psychopaths. There, I argued that psychopaths are morally responsible for their actions because they have the necessary cognitive mechanisms one needs to properly judge an action as morally right or morally wrong. Now that I have time to address some of the issues that were raised at that talk I figured this would be a good place to flush out some of my ideas. The talk I gave was part of a larger project on Moral Responsibility, the title of the paper was “Moral Culpability, Blame, and Psychopaths”.
For readers unfamiliar with the usual line of argument given to explain why Psychopaths should not be morally responsible for their actions I’ll provide a bit of background. It is thought by some (Ish Haji, David Shoemaker, Neil Levy, among others) that Psychopaths are not blameworthy for the acts that they commit. All three authors have argued for them to be exculpated of their moral responsibility or at least have a mitigated degree of blameworthiness in light of some of their cognitive deficiencies. I won’t have time to give each of their arguments in detail but I’ll mention the different approaches to the problem in order to give you an idea of what their trying to do. Ultimately, I disagree with their conclusions.
The first approach tried to assess which kinds of moral knowledge the psychopath could possess (Haji 1998, Levy 2007). The debate was rooted in a discussion about which relevant moral beliefs the psychopath was capable of having given that the psychopath was motivated differently and seemingly without the appropriate motivations that one would need to have in order to act morally. And, assuming that the psychopath is not at fault for lacking the ability to be motivated by moral reasons, we should not hold the psychopath morally responsible.
The second approach focused on the psychopath’s failure to grasp the moral/conventional distinction (for a good exchange see Levy (2007) and, Vargas and Nichols (2007)). The argument there goes something like this; since the psychopath lacks the relevant moral knowledge (usually cashed out in an account of the epistemic condition) to be deemed morally responsible the psychopath is unable to control their actions in the light of moral reasons because those reasons can only map on to a conventional distinction and not a purely moral one. By failing to grasp the conventional/moral distinction the psychopath does not have the proper knowledge to act morally, and thus, should not be held morally responsible.
A third approach, (offered by my supervisor in 2010), claims that ethical perception is needed to properly gauge what one ought to do in moral situations. And, emotions are paramount in ethically perceiving a given situation. Since the psychopath cannot ethical perceive the way you or I can then her degree of blame should be mitigated accordingly.
Now, I argue against all of these positions. The philosophers that I’ve mentioned are assuming that the psychological literature on the subject is correct when they claim certain emotional capacities are NEEDED to act morally. The conclusions to those empirical findings are exactly what I call into question in the piece that I presented. Sure, certain emotions may allow one to filter some possible actions (non-moral actions, for instance) from their set, however, it’s not apparent to me that a person who can rationalize properly should not be held morally responsible for the actions they engage in. But, I’ll save the details of my argument and the answers I have to some of the criticisms raised against my position.
Here, I’d like to focus on some practical questions associated with adopting any of the aforementioned theses that conclude that psychopaths are not in fact morally responsible. What would or should change if in fact one or all of these positions was correct? Is the claim that we should not have feelings of resent or disgust that are normally associated with the blame that we ordinarily ascribe to the psychopath? So, the families of the victims are not justified in directing their reactive attitudes toward the psychopath? If one does not think that the psychopath is culpable are they committed to asking the families that have been victimized by the psychopath to suspend their feelings of resent toward the psychopath? Well, if in fact the psychopath is not morally responsible then it does not seem fitting that they hold feelings of resent toward the psychopath. Usually, feelings of resent are connected to blameworthiness, and, blameworthiness is connected to moral responsibility. By mitigating the psychopaths responsibility it seems that we must look at those feelings of resent as being ill-founded. Those who think the psychopath is not morally responsible find themselves in a dilemma.
I think the psychopath is blameworthy. My account is similar to those of the authors mentioned above. Ish and I, for instance, share an almost identical view with regards to the conditions one must meet to be held accountable. However, we differ in what we find salient in making particular (moral) decisions. So, the real question is; what kinds of cognitive mechanisms are needed to make a moral judgement? How we answer this will then inform our judgement to whether the psychopath is in fact morally responsible for his actions.
A Philosopher's Take 
stevecapone
May 25, 2012
Justin – great post! Have you seen Shoemaker’s 2011 article in Ethics – “attributability, answerability, and accountability: toward a wider theory of moral responsibility”? I know you’re reading Shoemaker – so if you haven’t seen it, this definitely is worth checking out. There’s a lengthy treatment about culpability and psychopathology toward the end of the paper.
thanks for posting!
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Justin Caouette
May 25, 2012
Thanks, Steve. Yes, I read that piece earlier this year-excellent read! He’s a good writer. His views aren’t ‘much’ different than those of Angela Smith, T.M Scanlon, and others in the attributionist camp(though he tries to separate himself from them a bit in that piece). If I remember correctly, he concludes that piece by claiming that the psychopath is not morally responsible (add him to the long list).
I’m almost on an island when claiming that psychopaths are morally responsible. It all comes down to one’s views on moral judgements, or so I think. Are certain emotions REQUIRED in order for one to make a moral judgement (1)? I think that the answer to whether or not the psychopath is morally responsible will fall out of the answer one gives to (1). If one thinks that emotions are not REQUIRED in order to make a moral judgement then you won’t have a problem holding the psychopath morally responsible (assuming the control and epistemic condition is met), however, if you think that emotions are required in order to make moral judgements then it seems the psychopath is lacking (at times, and with regards to certain emotions) and this might be enough for you to mitigate the psychopath of his moral responsibility. I guess I’m not buying a sentimentalist framework.
Many think that if your emotional responses are impaired that you can’t ‘know’ that something is wrong. So, this lack of ‘knowledge’ effects your ability to meet the epistemic condition. It’s a long and detailed story but I’m not one of those people…
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Steve Capone
May 25, 2012
I am going to dodge your questions, though they may well be the right questions to ask. I dodge because I have been trying to stay away from ‘moral responsibility’ and keep to ‘responsibility’ – understood broadly, in terms of causation. For this reason, I have come to believe that no one is responsible for almost anything they do… this, of course, includes psychopaths.
I don’t understand morality the way most ethicists do (perhaps because I have psychopathic intuitions?). I like the way Shoemaker distinguishes between accountability, attributability, and responsibility in that article (he is more nuanced than this, if I remember right) – I appreciate that take because I think that responsibility and accountability get lumped together, and I don’t think they should…
I think I take a utilitarian position on ethics these days – in terms of this conversation, I believe that psychopaths don’t understand social norms, and those norms are morally binding insofar as they are normatively binding in intuitionally non-offensive ways… And I think accountability is important to reinforcing what we take to be the *correct* social norms. But I take responsibility out of the picture, because I understand it very bluntly in the terms I described above. And, really, when one takes the view for which I’m advocating, responsibility really becomes irrelevant to determining when one ought to be held accountable – because the answer is “always” – at least, one ought to be held accountable to the degree we think it’s reasonable to hold any person accountable.
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Justin Caouette
May 25, 2012
Steve, I appreciate the response. You’ve forced me to look at my notes regarding the Shoemaker piece and some of Angela Smith’s work–thanks for that. I have a few things to say (bear with me with regards to grammar and the like as I’m typing rather quickly and packing for a weekend family outing, I just wanted to get some of this out before I put it down for a few days).
You want to focus on causal responsibility or “causation” (if I understood you correctly). The motivation behind your focus on causal responsibility is to allow you to circumvent the questions surrounding moral responsibility, but I’m not sure you get what you want by making this move. First, are you assuming a deterministic picture of the world? You’ve concluded that “no one is responsible” but I don’t see how a focus on causation gets you to that conclusion unless determinism is underlying the claim. And, if it is, semi-compatabilists like John Martin Fischer (Perspectives on Moral Responsibility 1993) and Al Mele (Free Will and Luck 07′) have some really good arguments to support the conclusion that we could still be morally responsible in a deterministic world.
With regards to Shoemaker, I also liked his distinction between accountability, attributabilty, and responsibility. All 3 concepts deserve to be discussed in their own right, however, they are not mutually exclusive. For instance, should I hold someone accountable for something if they are not morally responsible for it? That seems bizarre (not for you but I’ll get to that in a sec).
What does it mean to “hold one accountable”? I take that to mean blame. Angela Smith talks about this in her 2007 piece where she focuses on the distinction between holding responsible and being responsible. So, am I justified in blaming someone for something if they are only causally responsible for it? That seems weird too. Here’s an example;
Joe walks into his office. Unbeknownst to him, there is a bomb device strapped to his chair and it will detonate a bomb in another city if he sits on his chair. (There were no warning signs that could have led Joe to think there was a bomb connected to his chair and Joe sits on his chair to do his work every morning). So, Joe sits on his chair and a bomb goes off in Chicago killing everyone in the city. Joe is causally responsible for killing millions of people. Am I justified in blaming Joe for killing millions of people? I don’t think so. I do think I’m justified in blaming him if he KNEW about the bomb and decided to sit anyway because his legs were tired and he doesn’t like Chicago anyway. I think we should speak about responsibility in 3 ways: (1) causal responsibility, (2) legal responsibility, and (3) moral responsibility. You can’t be (2) or (3) without being (1) and you can be (1) without being (2) or (3). We get out of suggesting Joe was morally responsible but keep causal responsibility. So, yes, he’s responsible in the sense of (1) but not in (3) so we are not justified in blaming because blame is only connected to (3).
But, if we put all talks of responsibility aside for a second and we follow the suggestion you gave in your last paragraph: “one ought to be held accountable to the degree we think it’s reasonable to hold any person accountable.” where would that leave us? When is it “reasonable to hold one accountable”? Any attempt to answer this latter question, at least the way I see it, will have to appeal to something beyond causal responsibility. I think it’s necessarily connected to their moral responsibility. On what grounds would you have to say that Joe shouldn’t be “held accountable”. (I see holding one accountable as the same thing as saying that one is blameworthy)
Keep in mind that I’m not suggesting that everyone that is morally responsible MUST be blamed. There are nuanced cases where blame seems unreasonable, even in cases where the person is morally responsible. Smith’s 2007 piece talks about this in detail. But at the end of the day, when you try and answer the question of when it’s reasonable or not to blame or “hold one accountable” I think will be hard pressed to give an account that doesn’t have some notion of moral responsibility underlying it.
With regards to your comments on psychopaths (last point I’ll make–apologies for being long-winded) You say;
“I believe that psychopaths don’t understand social norms, and those norms are morally binding insofar as they are normatively binding in intuitionally non-offensive ways… And I think accountability is important to reinforcing what we take to be the *correct* social norms.”
All of the psychological research I have done on psychopathy (and the same research eluded to by Neil Levy, Manual Vargas, Shaun Nichols, Ish Haji, and even Shoemaker), suggest that psychopaths DO in fact understand social norms, and understand them quite well. Their understanding of social norms allows them to elude the authorities amongst other things.
I guess I’ll just disagree that “social norms are morally binding norms that are morally binding insofar as they are normatively binding in intuitionally non-offensive ways”. Slavery comes to mind here.Intuitions differ between different sorts of people. But rather than get into a meta-ethical debate surrounding intuitionism or cultural relativism, I’ll stop here.
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Steve Capone
May 26, 2012
Thanks for that reply, Justin – you’re making me think, damn you…
First – I appreciate those recommendations – Mele and Fischer – I’ve added them to my Amazon wish list… I’ll pick them up at some point!
I only want to offer a limited response here, about one thing you said: “I think we should speak about responsibility in 3 ways: (1) causal responsibility, (2) legal responsibility, and (3) moral responsibility. You can’t be (2) or (3) without being (1)”
This I don’t agree with – if we allow ‘to hold accountable’ to be the same kind of thing as legal responsibility. Here’s an example: Consider a person in a supervisory role (military, retail outlet, etc) who does not *cause* a subordinate to behave badly, but is held accountable for their behavior. We might think that holding the superior officer or supervisor responsible is a reasonable course of action. He or she is held to be responsible, even if that person is not causally responsible.
This example is a case in which one is (2) without being (1). Do you think this counter-example works?
In addition – because I have such an intuitive kickback against the notion that I have in my head – let’s simplify things by defining terms, at least broadly – what do you mean by ‘moral responsibility’? Part of my problem with the concept is that I really don’t think I understand it.
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dave
December 15, 2013
He can’t even be (1) causally responsible: the guy who strapped the thing to him and set it to explode is solely causally responsible. Joe is circumstantial. Like being the bomb itself. It is not responsible. One doesn’t gain culpability for simply having a brain as opposed to not. at least not for all situations into which they find themselves.
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Justin Caouette
May 27, 2012
Hey Steve, I’ll first respond to your counter example and then I’ll offer you the two definitions of moral responsibility that are the most common in the literature. Thanks for the counterexample, it’s helped me to try and better articulate myself.
Your counter example: You’re absolutely right. In the above example the supervisor didn’t perform the act (fill in whatever act you’d like) the subordinate did, so on the face of it, it seems he/she isn’t the “cause” in a strict sense. However, this strict sense of cause is not what is meant when we hold one causally responsible. In many cases being the “cause” is sufficient to call one causally responsible but it is not necessary.
I see your counter example playing out like this; Subordinate (Jon) caused action A, he is causally responsible for A. Manager (Jay) has a job to do (manage Jon – among others). Now let’s assume that he failed to properly manage Jon. Let’s also assume that your assumption “that holding the superior officer or supervisor responsible is a reasonable course of action” is correct. Jay is still causally responsible for Jon’s action because the action occurred (in part) because of his failure to properly manage Jon. By not acting when one is supposed to one can be an indirect CAUSE of an action or an outcome. And, I think this is enough to say he is both causally and legally responsible in this very general counterexample.
But, to be honest, one being legally responsible is context sensitive to whatever the laws may be. It’s not philosophically interesting to me in that regard. So, admittedly I said “You can’t be (2) or (3) without being (1)”, what I should have said, and I’ll correct this now by saying “You can’t be (2) AND (3) without being (1)”. You may have been right in your counter, but even if this specific example doesn’t work there are others. But, this amended version is the one I was trying to get at it. I appreciate you forcing me to clarify.
The reason I don’t find legal responsibility as philosophically important is that I’m interested in justified ascriptions of praise and blame. We can break the law and be praised or blamed for breaking the same law, it depends on the law. If I broke the law by freeing slaves it seems I should be praised, even though I may be legally responsible for trespassing (law states trespassing is illegal). And, I should be blamed for cheating on my wife even though the law says it’s legal. In these two examples blame and praise transcend legal responsibility. This notion is what I am trying to ground. This is the realm beyond legal and causal responsibility, hence my focus on moral responsibility.
What is moral responsibility? Well, the two dominant views in the literature are usually cashed out as the “standard account” and the “constitutive account” (I credit Joe Campbell with teaching it to me in this way). This latter view, to put it simply, is that moral responsibility is constitutive of the moral sentiments, primarily praise and blame – if one is praised or blame then one is morally responsible – bottom line. This view gets messy (hence the literature on being responsible vs. holding responsible – ibid. Shoemaker, Scanlon, Smith, Fischer)The standard account says that one is morally responsible for an act if he/she is praiseworthy or blameworthy for that act. This latter notion is the notion I’ve been working on recently (past year or 2).
I hope that clarifies things a bit.
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oneatarco
June 2, 2012
Hello, Justin. I am quite new to most of the names and concepts you and Steve eloquently discuss, but I will throw my hat into the fray by saying that it seems to me that, in fact, the psychopath is quite aware of the social norms, and that it is precisely the knowledge of those norms which sets up an exciting cost/benefit decision that is made each time that they engage in psychopathic behavior, the cost being the potential for being caught and the subsequent punishment or consequences and the benefit being the addictive emotional charge of breaking the norm paired with the fear/exhiliration that comes with the repetitive consideration of the cost (that consideration likely lasting way beyond the initial offense). I hope that makes sense. 🙂
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Justin Caouette
June 3, 2012
That makes complete sense and the psychological literature that I have come across would agree with your assessment that psychopaths do understand social conventions which is why they are often difficult to apprehend as they understand how they will be sought after following their often times horrific behavior. Thanks for making that point.
The question though is this; do they understand morality? Do they understand WHY it’s morally wrong to end someone’s life? Since they lack empathy do they have the cognitive mechanisms to understand why they shouldn’t treat people immorally? If the only reason they have not to kill someone is the law and not some moral code then can they be morally responsible? Sure they can be legally responsible because they knew about the law and decided to act against it, but morally responsible? I think so, for the reasons I’ve mentioned above but many disagree.
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shangreene
June 10, 2012
Wow. What a truly great read this post and these comments have been. You guys are rockin’ here. Quick question:
Where are the morals that we are using to judge this psychopath coming from? Are they yours, mine, 21st century America’s, from the Bible (New testament or Old?), do they come from Genghis Khan or Gandhi? I mean, you guys seem to be on the same page but really, I’m confused – it seems to me that morality is based on culture and changes whenever there is a leadership change. New gov’t = new laws = new views on morality (as evidenced throughout history.)
If we simply take a view of murder here it can be interpreted many ways. Murder by a psychopath who straps a bomb to himself and blows up an Israeli marketplace and kills women and children takes a totally different, and justified by Allah and morally “required,” perspective from the eyes of a Palestinian who thinks he will be rewarded for this action. This person has been convinced that psychopathy is the correct way to think and behave and is praised for doing so. Without this social conditioning and encouragement would this act have taken place.
Obviously there is much more that can be added, but do you understand my thinking here? Can you address this for me please?
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Justin Caouette
June 11, 2012
Good questions, shangreene.
The morality is irrelevant, choose any axiology you’d like. The concern is if in fact the psychopath is a legitimate target for our feelings of moral approbation given your axiological moral system of choice. Can they be justifiably blamed (assuming blame can only be justified if in fact the person being blamed is morally responsible for the action)This is more of a metaphysical question that relates to morality than a purely moral or ethical question.
I hope that helped…
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the mindless philosopher
June 20, 2012
hello justin,
for starters, my question may be a bit off topic.
one question that i have wondered (assuming that a psychopath is morally responsible for their actions) is — once we have attributed moral blame, how do we assign an appropriate punishment for what a psychopath does? it is clearly one thing to say a person (psychopath or not) is morally guilty for a particular act, but another to say that an individual should be incarcerated for life or executed for their crime. i know that kant’s thoughts on rationality and morality requires us to treat individuals as rational beings, even if they are not “fully” rational. but is that fair? does it serve justice to, say, execute an individual who, due to his mental illness, may not have been in full control or fully aware of what s/he is doing?
i have thought about the subject of moral culpability and punishment and i have yet to figure out what is appropriate (punishment) for individuals who are mentally incompetent or suffer from mental illness. i am interested in seeing what you think.
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Justin Caouette
June 24, 2012
Hey mindless, thanks for taking the time to chime in.
Yes, your question is a very different question and I take it to be a question of punishment. It all depends on what you see the purpose of punishment to be. Should punishment be of the retributivist variety or should it be based on a consequentialist approach? Are we punishing to deter future crimes or are we punishing because it is what the criminal “deserves”?
So, fairness is only one consideration one could apeal to when thinking about punishment, and, if that is the only consideration, then it seems that it might be unfair to punish schizophrenics or people with psychosis as they would most likely not meet one’s criteria with regards to the epistemic condition for moral responsibility. Now, I think we should consider fairness, but, I also see the practice of punishment to be a bit more nuanced than that. We must consider deterrence and the consequences of locking someone up, or conversely, failing to lock someone up. Another consideration is centered around treatment. If one cannot be treated then should we “treat” them?
I hope this was helpful. I haven’t done any extensive work on punishment but it is very intriguing nonetheless. I took a grad class in Phil. Law and we covered different concepts of punishment, I thought it was the best part of the course.
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the mindless philosopher
June 25, 2012
hi justin,
for starters, thank you for responding to my question. the purpose of punishment has been a question on my mind for some time (in particular as it relates to ideas of mental illness and fairness). i suppose that the goal of imprisonment is a multi-goal — we incarcerate people to punish, for deterrence to protect the public, etc. but we also put people away, so to speak, to rehabilitate. many of those incarcerated for rehabilitative purposes often are drug users or mentally ill. in our legal system, the focus is so often on punishment (i must admit i am no exception), that we often forget to ask how culpable an individual is in the first place. your article gave me food for thought (and a few places to look).
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Panda2
April 29, 2013
As someone who has dealt with a psychopath head on, it is correct that we should have the full range of emotions in response to the Predator. First hand knowledge tells me that he will not walk up to a police officer and threaten violence as ” he knows better” as this affects HIM! When he see’s a weaker target, he thinks ” I can get away with this and not have it harm ME”. The more people hold them accountable, the more likely they are to be diverted from their conscienceless decision making. They do the things they do based on “what will happen to me?” Not “how will I hurt the other?” as they just don’t care. NOT holding them responsible makes them more likely to commit harm. I know this as I have watched it with my own eyes, so regardless of whether they are unable to “feel” makes them no less responsible. Being a BIGGER psychopath in their eyes is the only thing that stops them, so they ARE responsible and need to know it, This is the only thing they care about, their OWN consequences, not what happens to you, your loved one or anyone else they victimize.
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tocksin
December 8, 2013
Morning Justin,
It seems to me while reading these various takes on whether or not they should be held accountable, that maybe they could hold themselves accountable much like Camus’ The Stranger. We are all born with some form of deficency that plagues our walking life, if mine was not feel the pain of others and by design it fell to me to hurt others…I am unable to follow through with that thought because it seems that these said people have a purpose that is beyond our comprehension, much like how we don’t begin to understand autism. There are many varieties of humans that are weaved into society, and the ones that are sick are made so by others. So ultimately we are responsible for their deficency. And we pay the price. The more we get our act together and the more we learn to corporate and the more care we show towards the environment, the less so will we create such aberrant monsters comparable to a killing machine such as a shark. Or just as well maybe not, maybe they are a phenomena much like a shark.
Good post to consider culpability.
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Sandro Magi
April 2, 2014
Interesting topic. Certainly psychopaths, if they can understand morality at all, fail to be motivated by moral prescriptions.
However, the position that emotional engagement is necessary to understand a moral precept seems contradictory on the face of it. It would amount to saying that psychopaths do not have the cognitive capacities to understand simple propositions like “murder is not an acceptable action”.
Even if emotions are typically engaged in normal people when making moral choices, then in people lacking such emotional engagement, moral facts just reduce to natural facts. Is there anyone that seriously thinks psychopaths can’t reason about natural facts like math and science?
In which case, psychopaths simply need more explicit education in this set of natural facts that typical people don’t (although I’d argue that everyone should receive it). Morality is simply a set of rules constraining social exploration, the way mathematical rules constrain explorations in physics.
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