Psychopathy is often used to settle disputes about the nature of moral judgement. The Trolley Problem is a familiar scenario in which psychopathy is used as a test case. Where a convergence in response to the Trolley Problem is registered between psychopathic subjects and non-psychopathic (normal) subjects, it is assumed that this convergence indicates that the capacity for making moral judgments is unimpaired in psychopathy. This in turn is taken to have implications for the dispute between motivation internalists and motivation externalists, for instance. In what follows, we want to do two things: firstly, we set out to question the assumption that convergence is informative of the capacity for moral judgement in psychopathy. Next, we consider a distinct feature of psychopathy which we think provides strong grounds for holding that the capacity for moral judgement is seriously impaired in psychopathic subjects. The feature in question is the psychopathic subject's inability to make sincere apologies. Our central claim will be this: convergence in response to Trolley Problems doesn't tell us very much about the psychopathic subject's capacity to make moral judgements, but his inability to make sincere apologies does provide us with strong grounds for holding that this capacity is seriously impaired in psychopathy.Psychopathy: what apology making tells us about moral agency

In this paper I argue that Wittgenstein's aim in the aspect‐perception passages is to critically evaluate a specific hypothesis. The target hypothesis in these passages is the Gestalt psychologist Köhler's “isomorphism principle.” According to this principle, there are neural correlates of conscious perceptual experience, and these neural correlates determine the content of our perceptual experiences. Wittgenstein's argument against the isomorphism principle comprises two steps. First, he diffuses the substantiveness of the principle by undermining an important assumption that underpins this principle, namely, that there is a unitary concept of seeing. Next, Wittgenstein argues that some forms of aspect‐perception involve recognitional capacities, the exercise of which is normatively constrained. The normative nature of aspect‐perceiving plays a pivotal role in Wittgenstein's rejection of the isomorphism principle. Aside from the clear exegetical benefits gained from identifying the target hypothesis in the aspect‐perception passages as the isomorphism principle, construing the remarks in the way suggested here is also philosophically interesting in its own right: it shows Wittgenstein engaging directly in the mind–body problem, construed as the problem of intentionality.

SummaryThis article examines the concept of moral responsibility in psychopathy. In doing so it shows how philosophical ideas can be used to help approach a complex issue in psychiatry. Building on a fictitious case, we explore two arguments: the exempting view, which proposes that psychopaths lack any ability to function as moral agents; and the mitigating view, which concedes that there are impairments in moral understanding in psychopathy, but takes these to be insufficient to be completely exempting, instead concluding that such individuals are at least partially morally responsible. Typically, clinicians (and the courts) are more comfortable with a mitigating view, whereas philosophers tend to extol an exempting view. Through discussion of the case, we illustrate the value that philosophy brings to clinical psychiatry and the ways in which psychiatry can enrich philosophical debate.Learning Objectives• Appreciate the diversity of views about moral responsibility in psychopathy, ranging from mitigation to exemption• Understand the philosophical arguments used to support both the mitigating and exempting views• Consider the benefits of philosophical reasoning in explicating a complex problem in psychiatry

It has been argued recently that persons diagnosed with a personality disorder (PD) ought to be held responsible for their actions because these actions are voluntary. (Pickard 2011, this journal). In what follows, I argue that this claim is grounded in a conception of voluntary action that is too coarse-grained to provide an adequate understanding of the structure of agency in persons diagnosed with PD. When the concept of voluntary action and that of behaviours typical of PD are examined more carefully, the claim that PD behaviours are voluntary turns out to be tenuous in at least two ways. Firstly, it becomes apparent that the grounds provided by Pickard do not conclusively establish that PD behaviours are voluntary. Secondly, a more refined conception of voluntary agency helps us to appreciate that, if indeed PD behaviours are voluntary, such behaviours seem at best to be voluntary in an anaemic and limited sense -a sense that is quite distinct from the ordinary sense in which we speak of actions being voluntary.

My aim in this paper is to critically evaluate John Campbell's (2002) characterization of the sense of demonstrative terms and his account of why an object's location matters in our understanding of perceptually‐based demonstrative terms. Campbell thinks that the senses of a demonstrative term are the different ways of consciously attending to an object. I will evaluate Campbell's account of sense by exploring and comparing two scenarios in which the actual location of a seen object is different from its perceived location. I do this in order to motivate the following point: Campbell's characterization of the sense of a demonstrative term turns sense into a psychologistic notion. As a consequence of this, it is difficult to see how sense could underwrite reference. In short, I shall be arguing that Campbell's account of the ways of perceiving an object is simply inadequate as an account of the Fregean notion of sense, according to which the senses of a demonstrative term are the different ways of thinking about an object.