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Do psychopaths really threaten moral rationalism?

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 9; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13869790500492524

1741-5918

Jeanette Kennett,

Philosophical Ethics and Theory

Abstract It is often claimed that the existence of psychopaths undermines moral rationalism. I examine a recent empirically based argument for this claim and conclude that rationalist accounts of moral judgement and moral reasoning are perfectly compatible with the evidence cited. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Steve Matthews, Michael Smith, and audiences at the Australian National University, Dartmouth College, and Melbourne University for helpful feedback on earlier versions of some of the arguments in this paper. Notes 1. Nichols does not provide any other details or evaluation of the survey he carried out. 2. Suppose instead that Bill, if pressed as to why he thinks it's irrational to hurt others, responds as follows: 'Look it's true that I don't respond emotionally to other people's pain—that was knocked out of me during my army training—but I understand that they don't like it, just as I don't like it when I am in pain. Now I don't want other people to hurt me, but if I think that my pain gives other people a reason not to hurt me—as I do—then surely I have the very same reason not to hurt them. After all there is nothing so special about me. So that's why I don't hurt others and that's why I think no-one should hurt others.' (This is of course just Nagel's account; Nagel 1970 Nagel, T. 1970. The possibility of altruism, Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar]). If respondents were then asked if Bill understands that hurting others is wrong, my bet is that a majority would agree that he does. 3. If he is not making this assumption he has changed the subject. And indeed his probe seems better designed to test whether the folk concept matches the sentimentalist account of moral judgement. It's this account which most clearly doesn't fit the folk concept here since 85 per cent of respondents appear to think moral judgements need not be connected with caring. 4. Smith develops his view on how the account needs to be augmented in several of the essays in Smith (2004) Smith, M. 2004. Ethics and the a priori, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]. 5. Perhaps there are successful psychopaths who do not suffer from these defects. Ted Bundy who completed a law degree may have been one of them. There are two things to be said here. First, such claims would require careful investigation given the strong evidence cited below for the connection between early self-regulation, conscience and empathy. Psychopaths can present a façade of normality and reasonableness which does not stand up to closer inspection. Second, the possibility that there may be some means-end rational psychopaths is not fatal to moral rationalism, since moral rationalists don't accept that this is all there is to rationality. I have been testing how far we can get given only Humean assumptions about rationality. 6. There is evidence of other factors in moral development which for reasons of space I haven't included. Some researchers have suggested that fearfulness is positively correlated with the development of conscience (Rothbart and Bates 1998 Rothbart, M. K. and Bates, J. E. 1998. "Temperament". In Handbook of child psychology, 5th ed, Edited by: Damon, W. and Eisenberg, N. Vol. 3, New York: Wiley. [Google Scholar]) and that fearful children are 'more guilt prone and engage in more rule compatible conduct' (Kochanska and Aksan 2005, 304). It is well established that both adult psychopaths and children with psychopathic tendencies have a reduced capacity to recognise fear in others and to experience it themselves. So a deficit in fear may be as important in explaining the psychopath's deficiencies as deficits in empathy or self-regulation. 7. The loss of sympathy in the story is a heuristic device. It is, of course, not essential that sympathy fail in order for us to meet Kantian requirements on deliberation and action.