We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 August 2021
This chapter completes the account begun in Chapter 4 of why psychopaths are unable to see other people as sources of value. I argue that as well as, and partly because of, their emotional deficiencies, psychopaths suffer a severe deficit of empathy, either from birth or brought on by abuse or neglect in childhood. Based on evidence from developmental psychology, I argue that empathy plays a central role in the way we come to ascribe value to entities other than ourselves. Lacking this crucial developmental stage, psychopaths reach adulthood without the capacity to see others as valuable. Because they lack this capacity due to factors which they cannot be expected to change, they are not morally responsible for lacking it. They are therefore not morally responsible for the failure to respond to certain reasons which stems from this lack. Finally, I consider other disorders of low empathy, specifically autism spectrum disorder and borderline personality disorder, and give an account of why these conditions do not apparently lead to the same outcomes in respect of the ability to value others.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
