Borderline and Psychopathy: a Comparison

My good friend, James Renard, thinks I’m more of a Borderline than a Psychopath. All the online personality tests I have taken show me very low in Borderline traits. But, as James points out, self-administered tests can be skewed by the self-image of the testee. Is it true he sees something I don’t see?

BPD and Psychopathy have some striking similarities as well as vast divergences. Both involve a lack of firm identity. Psychopaths’ identity is fluid, flexible to enable us to become the person we need to be in each instance of our lives. “Why Does the psychopath wear a mask in the first place? Because he has little or no identity? True, that gives him the freedom to be whomever or whatever he wants to be.” Borderlines also experience this lack of clear definition. “Borderlines lack a constant, core sense of identity…” Of the two, only the Borderline is bothered by this, wants to “find hirself.”

Both have been described as involving an abyss. Borderlines find this terrifying. Blogger, Lucky Otter, a Borderline herself, wrote “sometimes they (psychopaths) can be caught when their mask is momentarily down (usually when they’ve been called out–or caught), and it’s here when we see the emptiness and evil inside them.” As a baby, I remember feeling as if there were an abyss inside threatening to swallow me up. I experienced that feeling only one time since then, on my first acid trip. I also remember not having a clear idea of what I looked like. What I saw in the mirror, seemed only an outline of a person. This void within and lack of clear identity could fit either personality.

As with the abyss, Borderline and Psychopaths live a lot of their lives in present time. However, only the Borderline stresses over it.

Sexual promiscuity and an omnivorous sexuality is another trait shared by both personalities. Psychopaths are notorious for hyper sexuality and many conquests. I, myself, have noticed how many Psychopaths are bisexual as well as kinky. The same thing is true of many Borderlines. I Hate You — don’t leave me describes the bed and bar hopping protagonist of Looking For Mr. Goodbar “Some writers have noted an increased incidence of homosexuality, bisexuality and sexual perversion among borderline personalities.”

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But there are differences too, of course. Unlike Psychopaths, Borderlines tend to have low self-esteem while we are grandiose. Sure there’s some low self-esteem hidden away. In “Do Psychopaths Suffer,” James admits to “even the inferiority complex, though I hide it from even myself most of the time.” Personally, if I have to have low self-esteem, I prefer the kind that’s camouflaged by grandiosity.

One of the biggest differences is emotionality. Borderlines are hyper emotional. Psychopaths the opposite. Here is where I score more points on the Borderline and lose some on the Psychopathic side of the dyad. I am more emotional and, therefore, more vulnerable than my friend James. Yet another difference, perhaps more important, is the one dealing with conscience. In this area, I am as psychopathic as James. I once mentioned to Lucky Otter that some shrinks are hypothesizing that women diagnosed with Borderline Disorder are really Psychopaths. Psychopathy, they muse, manifests as Borderline in women. To me, it was just an interesting bit of information but, to Lucky Otter, it was a heinous insult. As a diagnosed Borderline, she was adamant in her insistence that she had a conscience. From what I know about Borderline Disorder, she is probably right. Borderlines seem just as guilt-ridden (perhaps more so) as anyone. Of course, conscience is one of those things that cannot be objectively measured which is why it isn’t listed as a characteristic of ASPD. The APA wants to purge it’s concepts from anything subjective. They want to be scientific, after all. But, in separating Psychopathy from ASPD, they actually liberated Psychopathy from the world of personality disorders. Robert Hare, himself, has said Psychopaths “are not disordered. They have no deficit.” So Psychopathy is not properly part of Cluster B. (However, it makes a backdoor appearance in the stepchild of personality disorders, “NOS,” or “Not Otherwise Specified.”)

All my life, I’ve had a pattern of reinventing myself every few years. Am I still doing so? I had a personality appraisal by certified shrinks. They gave me two diagnoses (for the price of one). My life as a whole? ASPD. My present-day life? NOS. I don’t find this satisfactory. I want to be measured on the PCL-R. I’m on the spectrum but where? And I want an MRI too. Both are out of reach.

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Links

• Are Some Psychopaths Deeply Emotional? Psych Central News

Cluster B People Are, Too, Cool!

My friend, Lucky Otter, just posted a blog about Cluster Bs, of which she is, herself, a member. The title is Cluster B Disorders Are Not Cool.” She complains about a trend on the internet to celebrate this cluster of “disorders.” Since my page is the first and only one to specifically point to Cluster Bs as something good, I must take this as a compliment. I believe that psychopaths have networked so much lately that we take courage in being upfront about what we are. There are several psychopathic bloggers besides myself and I think we’re very cool.

Lucky’s blog then examines all the Bs one at a time. Starting with Narcissism, she depicts Narcs as spoiled brats who must have their way. Some are probably like that and a mother Narcissist can be purely awful for the child. Narcs are the most widely hated of Cluster Bs even more than Psychopaths.

borderline World

After Narcissism, she moves on to Borderline. Really. Joan Crawford was a Borderline? I know she was an alcoholic and a flaming bitch. I see her more of a Narc. After all, Borderlines love you and hate you several times a day. Mommie Dearest seemed very consistent in her hatred of her daughter, Christine, ever since Christine grew old enough to express a mind and will of her own. Crawford was a terminal control freak while, herself, being largely out of control. She seems kind of histrionic too. That scene with the roses!

The picture of the Histrionic is funny but kind of unfair. Most of them are really cute looking and have good taste. If they choose to look bizarro at times they do so to good, dramatic effect. This picture has me wondering if I perhaps have too much make-up on. They are not all about parties. The dramas they become immersed in are just as often tragic as they are fun. They seem to be heros or heroines of a thrilling novel all about them. This is perhaps true of all of us Bs.

The Anti-Social is shown as an avoidant misfit in the picture used to illustrate us. We are either criminals or corporate crooks (still criminal) and capable of untold amounts of harm. “If they’re high functioning, they’re the people who are responsible for everything that’s wrong in the world today and the reason why you work 3 jobs and can’t afford a vacation or health insurance.” Tall order for a fat boy glued to his computer.

I think psychopaths are fun people. We know how to enjoy life. More Ferris Bueller than Plague (the brilliant but socially inept hacker in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). I think Plague is an Aspie. Aspies are cool too as is Plague. Lizbeth, the main character, is a better candidate for the title of Psychopath. Though not charming, she is very cunning and a brilliant strategist.

Lucky Otter may feel that Borderline Disorder is no fun and, in fact, sucks. Sam Vaknin said the same thing about his Narcissism. Being a Psychopath isn’t always a bed of roses but I think the credits outweigh the debits, which is why hardly any Psychopaths look for “treatment.” I, personally, am glad I have no conscience to set me against myself. I know the cool things written about Bs are true.

Without backing off from her Cluster B Disorders are not Cool, Lucky has added There Should be No Shame in Having a Cluster B Diagnosis.

Are Psychopaths in Charge of Everything

An article written by Duncan MacMartin, The Way of the Psychopath published by OpEdNews.com, made some interesting claims that I was eager to challenge. Since the ability to “comment” is closed, I will answer it here.

Human beings have been domesticated like cattle over millennia by insidious and ruthless predator-parasites who easily walk among us. Their predatory nature has been largely sanitised and camouflaged by centuries of our begrudging tolerance and cowardly acceptance. Almost all of our great institutional ideas have been adjusted, perverted, corrupted and even radically transformed into environments that greatly favour their ways and tactics.

Human beings have been domesticated like cattle over millennia by insidious and ruthless predator-parasites who easily walk among us. Their predatory nature has been largely sanitised and camouflaged by centuries of our begrudging tolerance and cowardly acceptance. Almost all of our great institutional ideas have been adjusted, perverted, corrupted and even radically transformed into environments that greatly favour their ways and even radically transformed into environments that greatly favour their ways and tactics.

What strikes me at once is the complaint that we are “domesticated like cattle” so much like a complaint a psychopath might make. I guess anyone with spirit would feel disgusted at the tameness of the average citizen, how easily he/she is controlled by the government, the media and the educational system. The article says psychopaths are on the top, running the whole show, something you have often said as well. I’m sure some psychopaths are in the 1% running things but I think the machine which runs “civilization” contains a multiplicity of personalities, just as the 99% has its fair number of psychopaths. Isn’t the “anti-social personality” just a label for those who refuse to play along with their assigned role?

I agree that the 1% are parasitic and that the 99% is a lot like cattle with the exception of a small number who try to lead a revolution. Getting these “cattle” stirred up to do anything besides enrich their masters is what optimists would call “a heavy lift” and pessimists would call “impossible.”

Economics, governance, education, welfare, health, are now little more than facades of their original ideals filled with processes of entrapment, exploitation and frustration of potential that are working solely to empower and enrich the predators who control them.

Now through the focus of a number of researchers, these predators are coming to light and being described as “successful psychopaths” — they are composed of the majority of a 5% of humanity, who have successfully avoided being diagnosed clinically and have not been apprehended during criminal and immoral activities and then institutionalised.

The “ways” of the psychopath are simplistic and become easy to observe when we finally learn to see “the wood for the trees” and we learn that many of our critical social and economic “givens” are in fact evolutionary artefacts of the influences that psychopaths have had on our cultures and societies for millennia.

They have told us that, like domestic cattle, we need their fences (controls) and their oversight (surveillance) to protect us from the wolves (or terrorists) that would come and decimate us and our little ones and we have been told that the world is a terrible hostile place and that life is fraught with adversaries, a self–fulfilling prophecy when societies and cultures are governed by psychopaths. Their measures are in reality to make us defensive, terrorised and so easily influenced and ultimately such fear will intellectually infantilise us, divide us and then herd us like cattle for a more thorough and systematic control and exploitation.

The psychopath is operating cognitively at what Economics Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman called “System1” or fast thinking, this is a cognitive template that is in place in infancy, the processes of which are situated largely within the limbic system, memory based and emotionally controlled. This type of primitive “fast and dirty” thinking when amplified through trial and error experiences is ideal for operating in chaotic and conflict based environments such as on the battlefield or in video games.

Odd to rely on an economist to paint a psychological portrait of a class of people. But, since this article really is more an indictment on our economic system than anything else, it is appropriate. Psychopaths engage in what the economist, “Daniel Kahneman called ‘System1’ or fast thinking, this is a cognitive template that is in place in infancy, the processes of which are situated largely within the limbic system, memory based and emotionally controlled.” So infants are not the innocent and trusting creatures we thought them to be? They are powerful manipulators? Hard to believe Daniel Kahneman really made such a preposterous statement. If so, he really needs to stick to economics and leave the understanding of both infants and psychopaths to those more qualified.

Psychopathic thinking is “primitive ‘fast and dirty’ thinking when amplified through trial and error experiences is ideal for operating in chaotic and conflict based environments such as on the battlefield or in video games.” In other words, it is the thinking of people or animals living in a wild, survival-of-the-fittest situation. Interesting how the article compares most people to cattle, domesticated animals, and psychopaths to wild, undomesticated animals who thrive best in the jungle. Somehow, I don’t see wolves controlling cattle. It would be very clever of them, if they could but beyond the ability of any creature of the jungle.

“System2” thinking or slow thinking, on the other hand, is rational, considerate and logical, so being both analytical and constructive, it takes time. The cognitive processes of “System2” take place largely cortically, in the areas of higher brain function and when fully evolved, utilise those higher cognitive functions acquired only through seeking mutually beneficial relationships with others and the environment. This type of advanced slow and empathetic thinking is ideal for dealing with relationships, creativity and complexity.

“System1” or thinking “intuitively” (more like presumptuously) utilises formulae, recipes, scenarios and scripts for actions memorised and recalled in part from past experiences or mimicked from observing the “successful” actions of others in similar circumstances. As Kahneman points out, it is fraught with impulse, assumption and error. Its ONLY real advantages are for fast reflexive responses in conflict and competitive based survival environments where immediacy is the critical factor.

But somehow, these “cattle” are superior to the wolves in sheep’s clothing that control them. As opposed to psychopaths, their thinking, “‘System2’ thinking or slow thinking, on the other hand, is rational, considerate and logical, so being both analytical and constructive, it takes time. The cognitive processes of ‘System2’ take place largely cortically, in the areas of higher brain function and when fully evolved, utilise those higher cognitive functions acquired only through seeking mutually beneficial relationships with others and the environment.” These highly evolved souls have somehow ceded their power to wolves, or psychopaths. “They have told us that, like domestic cattle, we need their fences (controls) and their oversight (surveillance) to protect us from the wolves (or terrorists) that would come and decimate us and our little ones and we have been told that the world is a terrible hostile place and that life is fraught with adversaries, a self–fulfilling prophecy when societies and cultures are governed by psychopaths.” I quite agree that the way the ruling class rules through fear is contemptible. For this reason, I despise society with it’s sheep-like constituents. I don’t blame psychopaths for the average person’s cowardice. People need to take responsibility for themselves. Until they do, they deserve the inglorious title of “sheeple.”

Psychopaths are not just identified by their lack of empathy and conscience and their ruthless, manipulative, single-minded, narcissistic and opportunistic ways but also by their almost total lack of application of “System2” thinking. This means that they have a severe inability to deal with complexity, the welfare of others, or with any further effects of their actions beyond their immediate self-serving objective!

To understand how psychopaths have morphologically influenced the organs of society and culture we need to be aware of those ways and thinking processes outlined above. It’s not rocket science to come to the conclusion that if Psychopaths want to have the continual advantage and to prevail, they must turn every type of human dealing and interaction into a virtual conflict or competition. And so creating such adversarial systems is simple but such systems are extremely unintelligent, inefficient and run on flawed structures and processes, the true costs of which, unfortunately, are borne by the rest of us and the planet, and rarely by the psychopath.

All of us, at one time or another, probably often, have personally become victims of a psychopath. In the heat of a confrontation by one, it is almost reflexive to take up a “system1” defensive and competitive position and in doing so our empathy and sense of fairness seriously disadvantages us against the “battle” honed deviousness, ruthlessness and opportunism of the psychopath. It is even easier for the psychopath to sow, nurture and take advantage of division among family, friends, communities, committees, cultures and even countries.

The big, corrupting, ancient and perennial issue then becomes: “In a conflict or competition, wouldn’t you rather have a psychopath on your side than against you?” But the end of all such situations is of course not just possible short term “gains” but an inevitable destruction and an environment of on-going conflict, both within and without.

Competition/Conflict is the life’s blood of the psychopath and the ultimate psychological contagion that can only be eradicated through a clarity, understanding and then avoidance of the cyclical processes between psychopathy/sociopathy and competition as a human dynamic. Instead we must choose a different path through the conscious development of empathetic mutuality and the consequential maturation of the “System 2” thinking, creativity and complex thinking that gradually arises from such a choice.

Psychopaths and their constructs (ie corporations, political parties) need to be identified, avoided and isolated in such a manner that they have no further destructive influences over places of control, or critical decision-making. Competition spawns few winners and many losers, in an insidious hierarchy of exploitation. The organs of society, which have been perverted to reflect psychopathic ways and objectives should be rebuilt, eradicating competition and using our empathetically acquired higher intelligence, focussed on mutual benefit with true environmental synergy and creativity as its new core.

To understand the effect of the psychopath fully, we must be aware that the retarded infantile nature of his thinking and behaviour and his incapability of creative endeavour, keeps him in an infantile dependent state. He can only take, or be given what he needs and desires, so he focusses greatly on his infantile skills of manipulating others to meet his needs. He does this in a way that is amplified and sophisticated by many years of trial and error experience at “pushing people’s emotional buttons” using the emotional tactics of seduction, rejection and menace in all their variations.

So are psychopaths like wild animals or infants?

Unfortunately the psychopath’s attributes of control are uniquely successful in divisive competitive environments like politics and economics, where whole populations have been both intellectually and empathetically suppressed in their development through the cradle to the grave application of competition. For most of us, in order to compete, we have been coerced into attempting to apply seriously faulty “system1” thinking to every aspect of our lives, literally “in the heat of battle” and as a result have abandoned our fertile and complex cognitive potentials.

Education has now been perverted to where its major function is to prepare us for employment in very competitive environments under the direction of psychopaths or their processes and so, by default, pedagogy focusses on the simplistic and “quick and dirty” “system1” limbic memory based cognitive template and the competitive tactics of the psychopath. It is further based on the unspoken assumption that working life is about taking instruction from authorities in the form of recipes, formulae, scripts and scenarios, remembering them in detail and then following them accurately to get the result the instructor demanded.

The price we pay for an education based almost entirely on system1 thinking is that we have severely stunted our cognitive potentials to where most of us are unable to conceptualise or build our own matrixes of understanding about any subject and then going on to create integrated maps of reality. Instead we rely on supposed “authorities” like mainstream media, politicians and “accredited sources” to inform us about their values, their worldview and what they deem should be considered important in life. And these authorities are most often controlled by psychopaths.

I maintain that we cannot shed light on psychopathy by examining the pathology of society. Most people are not psychopaths and they sustain the status quo. I also can’t really blame the 1% to letting a bunch of suckers allow themselves to be milked as the cattle that they choose to be.

Psychopaths and Moral Blame: Empirical and Philosophical Issues

Reblogged from Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology

By John Danaher
Philosophical Disquisitions

Posted: Apr 4, 2015

They are glib and superficially charming. They have a grandiose sense of self worth. They are often pathological liars and routinely engage in acts of cunning and manipulation. If they do something wrong, they are without remorse.

Their emotional responses are typically shallow, and they commonly display a high degree of callousness and a lack of empathy. They are impulsive, irresponsible, parasitic and promiscuous. Some of them torture cats. Who are they? Psychopaths, of course.

Psychopaths fascinate the public. Although they are relatively uncommon within the general population, they are often overrepresented in prison populations, and are more likely to be responsible for the most heinous violent crimes, such as repeated acts of predatory violence and serial killings. They are also said to be overrepresented in the upper echelons of corporate and political life. If nothing else is true, they appear to have a significant impact on social life. Part of this impact seems to be helped by the fact that psychopaths don’t play by the same moral rules as the rest of us.

What is to be done about this state of affairs? Empirical studies seem to suggest that psychopaths lack important moral capacities (such as the capacity for empathy). And some philosophers use this empirical evidence to suggest that psychopaths fail to meet the basic conditions for moral blameworthiness. In this post, I want to take a look at the arguments these philosophers use to support this conclusion. I do so by calling, in particular, upon the discussion in a recent paper by Marion Godman and Anneli Jefferson entitled “On Blaming and Punishing Psychopaths”.

The paper makes a number of interesting arguments about how psychopaths should be viewed, both legally and morally. I don’t propose to cover all those arguments. I just want to hone-in on one particular aspect. As Godman and Jefferson point out, although arguments against the moral blameworthiness of psychopaths have found favour in some philosophical quarters, the empirical and philosophical assumptions upon which these arguments are based are somewhat dubious. I think this is an important claim — one that is worth analysing in more detail.

1. The Basic Structure of the Anti-Moral Blame Argument
It is important to appreciate how narrow the concerns of this post are. This post is solely about the moral blameworthiness of psychopaths. In this respect, “blame” is understood as a backwards-looking concept. In other words, people are blameworthy because of actions they have performed in the past. More precisely, it is the fact that their past behaviour exemplified certain morally salient properties that we deem them worthy of blame.

Because blameworthiness is being understood in this narrow, backwards-looking sense, it follows that assessments of blame have no necessary implications for questions relating to the punishment or legal confinement of psychopaths. They might do, of course. But only if one’s theory of punishment or legal confinement is such that it is only permissible to punish or confine people if they can be blamed for past actions. If one has a more consequentialist or forward-looking theory of punishment and/or confinement, such limitations may not apply. To put it more succinctly, even if one were to agree that psychopaths failed to meet the conditions for moral blame, one is not thereby obligated to accept the view that psychopaths do not warrant punishment or confinement.

With that caveat out of the way, we can proceed to consider the argument that psychopaths are not morally blameworthy. It is my contention that all such arguments — and certainly those covered in the Godman-Jefferson article — fit a common pattern. This pattern begins with a principle stating that an individual agent must, in their actions, meet certain conditions in order to warrant blame. Since the era of Aristotle, it has been common to identify two such general conditions. The first is the control condition, according to which agents must be in control of their actions in order to be deemed morally blameworthy for those actions. The second is the epistemic condition, according to which agents must have knowledge (or, “understanding”) of certain morally salient properties of those decisions in order to be deemed morally blameworthy.

Although the satisfaction of both conditions is an essential prerequisite to moral blame, most of the arguments about psychopaths tend to focus on the epistemic condition. This is probably because the control condition is deeply contested. In relation to the epistemic condition, the basic thrust of what I shall call the anti-moral blame argument (for want of a better name) is that an ability to understand certain moral concepts is an essential precondition for moral blame and that psychopaths lack that ability. As such, all these arguments tend to fit within the following abstract framework:

(1) An ability to understand moral concepts C1…Cn is an essential precondition for moral blame (motivating principle).
(2) Psychopaths lack the ability to understand moral concepts C1…Cn (empirical claim).
(3) Therefore, psychopaths cannot be morally blameworthy.

Different philosophers fill out the premises with different accounts of the essential moral concepts and different empirical studies supporting the claim that psychopaths are unable to grasp those concepts. Although the inability to empathise, and the lack of remorse are usually central to this, the versions of the argument considered by Godman and Jefferson relate to the ability to grasp moral rules and the ability to understand the nature of personhood. Let’s look at both of these versions of the argument now.

2. The “Moral versus Conventional Rule” Version of the Argument
The first version of the argument claims that psychopaths are unable to grasp the difference between moral and conventional rules and that this inability undermines their blameworthiness. There are some problematic steps in this argument. But let’s try to give it the respect it deserves by outlining the basic idea.

First, we need to understand the distinction in question for ourselves. A conventional rule is one that is contingent, localised, and oftentimes produced by an authority figure (or figures) within a certain practical or social context. For example, I could, as a lecturer in a university classroom, create a conventional rule stating that it is impermissible to use a laptop in my class. Students would go along with this rule (I hope) because I have some authority in that context. Now, to be sure, I could have some good reasons for introducing that rule (laptops are distracting and they undermine concentration and deep learning), but I could also suspend that rule (maybe for a particular classroom exercise) and no one would say it was wrong for me to do so. The rule is purely conventional. Moral rules are different. They are not simply contingent or localised, nor are they capable of being suspended by appropriate authority figures. Imagine if I, as a lecturer in a university classroom, told my students that it was okay for them to torture one another for the purposes of a classroom exercise. They would balk at the notion. The rule against torture is not merely conventional. It is moral.

(Does that make sense? If not, you are probably a psychopath.)

According to developmental psychologists, acquiring the ability to grasp the distinction between conventional and moral rules is a key stage in the moral development of children. But there is behavioural evidence suggesting that psychopaths cannot grasp the distinction. The most commonly cited studies in this area are those performed by James Blair, published in 1995 and 1997. Blair took people who scored highly on Hare’s psychopathy test and assessed their ability to tell the difference between moral and conventional transgressions. He found that psychopaths tended to treat conventional and moral transgressions equivalently, and were less likely to focus on the harm associated with an action when deciding whether or not it was permissible. Interestingly, his study didn’t seem (I say “seem” because I’m reporting it second-hand) to find that psychopaths thought that moral rules could be easily suspended by authority figures. Rather, psychopaths seemed to view moral and conventional rules as equally authority-independent.

Some authors have taken these findings as evidence for the view that psychopaths lack genuine moral understanding and so cannot be morally blamed for what they do. Neil Levy (2007) has made this point. The gist of the reasoning is clear enough. It is that awareness that particular action (A) involves the transgression of a moral rule is an essential prerequisite for moral blame. We don’t ordinarily deem people who lack that awareness morally blameworthy. Think of children who have not passed through the requisite stage of moral development. Why should we treat psychopaths differently?

Let’s plug this into the general framework outlined in the previous section:

(1*) An ability to understand that an action involves the transgression of a moral rule (as opposed to a conventional rule) is an essential precondition for moral blame for that action.
(2*) Psychopaths are unable to understand moral rules (more precisely: they cannot distinguish them from purely conventional rules).
(3*) Psychopaths cannot be deemed morally blameworthy for performing actions that transgress moral rules.

Is this argument any good? For what it’s worth, I have some doubts about the motivating principle, at least in its current form. I tend to think that awareness that an action involves the transgression of what you conceive to be conventional rule, but that you know everyone else deems to be a moral rule, and is in fact a moral rule, might be sufficient for moral blame. Furthermore, I suspect that many high-functioning psychopaths have that kind of knowledge. Still, I accept that this is an argument that would would require some elaboration.

Godman and Jefferson offer two other critiques in their paper. The first is targeted at premise (2*). They contend that the empirical evidence on the psychopathic inability to grasp that distinction is more uncertain than proponents of the argument let on. For example, in a 2012 study, Aharoni et al tried to test psychopaths’ ability to tell the difference between moral and conventional rules and were unable to reproduce Blair’s results. Indeed, they found that IQ, not psychopathy, was a predictor of an individual’s ability to grasp the distinction.

The second critique is more conceptual, though it has an empirical aspect to it. I guess it would be targeted at premise (1*) insofar as it calls into question the tenability of the moral-conventional distinction. Reflecting on it from my philosophical armchair, I find the distinction, as described, to be somewhat problematic. Oftentimes, moral rules are contingent, situational and localised in nature. Furthermore, on at least some occasions, moral rules can be authority-dependent (in fact, if you are a proponent of divine command theory this is always true). For example, I think it is immoral to drive on the right side of the road in certain countries (I live in one such country).

This is not because driving on the right is intrinsically immoral, but rather because within a particular community an appropriate authority has chosen the “everyone drive on the left”-equilibrium. The unsatisfactory nature of the moral-conventional distinction has also been confirmed by some empirical studies. Godman and Jefferson cite an online survey study published by Kelly et al in 2007 which found that judgments of moral impermissibility were not always universal, authority-independent and sensitive to factors like harm to others.

This suggests that this version of the anti-moral blame argument leaves something to be desired.

3. The “Lack of Personhood” Argument
This brings us to a second version of the argument, one that has recently been defended by Levy (again). To understand it, we need to go back to my original description of the behavioural characteristics of psychopaths. Note how several of them suggest that psychopaths have problems with delayed-gratification. We are told that they tend to be impulsive, promiscuous and irresponsible. This suggests that they aren’t always great at projecting themselves into the future and planning for that future. Likewise, some of their characteristics suggest that they aren’t that great at projecting themselves into the past either. An example would be their ability to act callously and without remorse.

Levy has suggested a unitary theory of these phenomena. He claims that what psychopaths lack is an ability to engage in Mental Time Travel (MTT -i.e. an ability to project themselves into the past and future). They are capable of short-term planning and execution, but notoriously bad at long-term planning and execution. As some have put it, they are “stuck in the present”. Levy cites several others in support of this view. All say much the same thing (e.g. McIlwain 2010; Petrican and Burris 2011): psychopaths seem to have a limited temporal imagination. They find fleeting impulses nearly irresistible; they find self-control more difficult.

Levy argues that these deficits in MTT are significant when it comes to moral blame. The reason being that MTT is central to the standard philosophical conception of personhood. For instance, Michael Tooley’s famous definition of personhood holds that a person is a continuing subject of conscious experiences. What makes me a person is that I have an awareness of my current experiences and an awareness that those experiences continue over time.

This notion of personhood is also central to many aspects of our morality. Though it is probably wrong to harm any sentient life, it is more wrong to harm a person. Levy argues that understanding this unique type of harm is essential to understanding several of our moral duties and responsibilities. An inability to grasp the nature of that harm may be an impediment to moral blame. His claim is that the psychopathic deficits in MTT engender such a disability. Psychopaths are unable (or, at least, less able) to view themselves and others as persons in the morally relevant sense.

In short, Levy puts forward the following argument:

(1**) An ability to understand the unique nature of harm to a person is an essential prerequisite for (at least some) types of moral blame.
(2**) Psychopaths lack the ability to understand the unique nature of harm to a person (due to their deficits in MTT).
(3**) Therefore, psychopaths cannot be deemed morally blameworthy for at least some types of moral wrong.

Note how this is a narrower argument than the preceding one. As is clear from both premise (1**) and the conclusion, this argument does not exonerate psychopaths from all types of moral blame. It only exonerates them from moral blame attaching to actions that involve harm to another person. To the extent that they understand harm to sentient beings (as distinct from persons) they could still be blamed for that. And since all persons are typically sentient, this suggests that in a case involving harm to a person, a psychopath could still be blamed for the lesser type of harm that they knew to be present.

But with that restriction in mind how should we view the argument? Premise (2**) is problematic. For one thing, the empirical support for it is unimpressive. The studies that Levy cites tend to involve either single cases, philosophical reviews of psychopathy, or studies not directly aimed at testing psychopaths. Furthermore, as he himself notes, what evidence there is suggests that a deficit in MTT is only present among low-functioning psychopaths.

High-functioning psychopaths seem to be capable of long-term planning and execution. Thus, the argument may have an even more restrictive reach than what has already been described. Beyond this, the link between a deficit in MTT and an inability to grasp the nature of harm to persons is merely conceptually appealing, not something that has been meticulously investigated.

4. Conclusion
To sum up, in this post I’ve been looking at philosophical arguments claiming that psychopaths are not morally blameworthy. As I noted, these arguments tend to focus on the inability of psychopaths to satisfy the epistemic conditions for moral blame. Two versions of this epistemic argument have been considered. The first claimed that psychopaths are unable to understand transgressions of moral rules because they are unable to grasp the distinction between moral and conventional rules.

This version of the argument was challenged on both empirical and conceptual grounds: recent studies suggest that psychopaths do understand that distinction; and both conceptual and empirical evidence suggests that the distinction is not as robust as some have tended to believe. The second argument claimed that psychopaths are unable to understand the nature of harm to a person because they suffer from deficits in Mental Time Travel. This is a more restrictive argument and one that, for the time being, lacks a credible empirical foundation.

John Danaher holds a PhD from University College Cork (Ireland) and is currently a lecturer in law at NUI Galway (Ireland). His research interests are eclectic, ranging broadly from philosophy of religion to legal theory, with particular interests in human enhancement and neuroethics. John blogs at http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/. You can follow him on twitter @JohnDanaher. Print • Email • permalink • (1) Comments • (2846) Hits • subscribe • Share on facebook • Stumble This • submit to reddit • submit to digg •

COMMENTS

dobermanmac • • Apr 7, 2015

I am a nihilist. In other words, I believe that value is extrinsic, not intrinsic. To characterize, if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then so is meaning. That means that I don’t believe anything is intrinsically evil or wrong. Instead, I believe that ethics is whimsical and arbitrary, cultural centric.

Try to use that point of view to evaluate psychopaths. While I don’t subscribe to the characterization of psychopaths (“typically shallow, and they commonly display a high degree of callousness and a lack of empathy. They are impulsive, irresponsible, parasitic and promiscuous. Some of them torture cat.”), I do agree that they don’t perceive morality and ethics the same way “normal” people do.

Instead, I urge you to evaluate people based upon their actions. I am reminded of the old song’s lyrics “everybody knows that smokin ain’t allowed in school.” A psychopath would have to be dumb to not know what social convention is, regardless of what is felt. While ignorance of the law is no excuse, some laws are completely unintuitive (like English common law saying that in the commission of a felony, each participating party is responsible for a murder only one commits). How can a psychopath not be responsible for the acts he commits, if he knows social convention?

By the way, I am so sick of people discriminating and slandering psychopaths, implying that they are driven to be felons and behave in immoral or unethical ways. Just because a gun doesn’t have a working safety, doesn’t mean it necessarily will shoot at the wrong time. Psychopaths simply have more freedom than straights, since they aren’t constrained by emotions.

I am reminded of the quip: never let your sense of morality stop you from doing what is right. Normals also make completely immoral decisions based upon loyalty, empathy, or fear. In some ways, psychopaths are more rational than normals who fail to meet the basic conditions for moral blameworthiness.

My Comment: It is a moral rule not to do to others what one would not want to be done to ourselves. Yet, it is “morally right” to suspend that rule altogether in war. It is considered moral to kill the “enemy” while murder of a fellow citizen is considered the most immoral act one can commit.

But people are punished for violating both moral and conventional rules. So is we know that both kinds of acts are forbidden, can we not be punished?

On one hand, the idea that we are not legally responsible for crime is kind of tempting. However, on the other hand, not being responsible would bring with it a lack of freedom as a citizen. We would be restricted for the “safety” of the rest of society. I am willing to take responsibility for my actions because I do know “right” from “wrong” and I realize I could be punished for doing “wrong” and it is my own decision to take that chance.

The nihilist, dobermanmac, makes an excellent point, one which I have also made in the past when he said, “By the way, I am so sick of people discriminating and slandering psychopaths, implying that they are driven to be felons and behave in immoral or unethical ways. Just because a gun doesn’t have a working safety, doesn’t mean it necessarily will shoot at the wrong time. Psychopaths simply have more freedom than straights, since they aren’t constrained by emotions.” Exactly! It scares the pants off people that we don’t have a conscience so we have more freedom to choose “wrong” than they do. However, “Normals also make completely immoral decisions based upon loyalty, empathy, or fear. In some ways, psychopaths are more rational than normals who fail to meet the basic conditions for moral blameworthiness.”

The World We Don’t Readily See

A very dear friend who posts under the name of Lucky Otter has written a blog that surprised me greatly. Is the Illuminati Really Running Everything? She started off by showing skepticism over the wacky theories some fundamentalist Christians subscribe too. The notion that the Illuminati really runs the world behind the scene. How laughable! Than she seemed to link the idea that 9/11 was an inside job or that the financial crisis was way the 1% were sucking even more wealth from the rest of us. Yes, I, too, believe 9/11 was an inside job and that the 1% are milking the rest of us dry. The latter of these two ideas is self-evident. But that video about the Illuminati and the Hollywood entertainment industry is right off the wall! How can she subscribe to this?

Sure, there are occult symbols in places you wouldn’t expect them to be unless you study history in greater detail. For example, the eye of Shiva/Horus on the dollar bill. You know what? Most US presidents have been Masons. These occult symbols come straight from Masonic teaching. Some Christians consider the Masons to be “evil” devil worshipers, many of them unknowingly. We can discuss these things forever and not reach consensus. This business about entertainers having to eat shit and babies’ hearts or whatever comes from a book called “Michelle Remembers” by Lawrence Pazder, M.D., who was Michelle Smith’s psychiatrist. She “remembered” horrible ordeals under his care. Later, she married the shrink, something that raised eyebrows but is not necessarily proof of breached professional ethics on his part. What really blows her testimony out of the water is testimony of regular, normal people who saw Michelle in school during that horrible year when she was allegedly kept in a cage with snakes and had devil horns sewed to her skull. She seemed very ordinary to those who knew her during that time. Her book was very compelling, however. I read it and believed it absolutely. I thought nobody could make up stuff like that. It had to be real. I was wrong as were many others. This book is credited with setting off the “satanic panic” when the existence of a satanic underground was widely believed, not only by religious freaks, but by social workers and therapists. Reputable people. You see how powerful urban legends can be?

Certainly, occultism has a much greater part in our lives than most of us suspect. The entertainment industry loves it, of course. The occult is just scary enough to keep people flocking to the cinema. I loved “The Believers” featured on your blog. I spoke of it in one of my blogs too,My High Maintenance Ego. The things this cult offered were very seductive, to me too.

Lucky has spoken of the “dead eyes” that you have seen in people before: The distinctive “look” of psychopathy: gazing into the face of evil. I discussed it in my blog at The Eyes Have It. I must admit I have never seen what she describes either in psychopaths or entertainers. They might have that look at times as might everybody. Perhaps it is just the look of someone who is not thinking about anything at that moment.

Part of me still wants to believe in these exciting conspiracy theories. I just can’t seem to manage it. (This blog started out as a comment in Facebook in response to Lucky Otter’s blog.)