| Description |
Psychopaths present a peculiar problem for philosophers of legal and moral responsibility. They acknowledge the rules and conventions of society but are impervious to the moral foundations of these rules and conventions. This phenomenon may be attributed to the psychopaths' lack of empathy that leads to an absence of conscience. Many philosophers endorse an all or nothing approach towards responsibility that regards psychopaths as either both legally and morally responsible or not responsible at all. However, when discussing responsibility, a distinction must be made between legal and moral responsibility as the criteria for having either differs greatly. In order for an individual to be legally responsible, one must merely know the laws and that breaking them is illegal. On the other hand, moral responsibility broadly requires that one knows and can articulate the difference between right and wrong. Therefore, the demands of moral responsibility hold people to a greater standard and in turn, require them to meet a much greater threshold than the demands of legal responsibility. Psychopaths present a case where a rational agent lies between the thresholds of legal and moral responsibility as research suggests that the onset of psychopathy involves a defect in the gene that codes for MAOA, an known enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin associated with moral learning. Given their moral learning impairments, psychopaths fail to meet the criteria necessary for moral responsibility while still possessing the ability to know legal from illegal and thus, maintaining legal responsibility. |
