Psychopathy, Executive Functions, and Neuropsychological Data: a Response to Sifferd and Hirstein

Jurjako, Marko; Malatesti, Luca

doi:10.1007/s12152-016-9291-6

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Thus, despite having similar brain morphology, individuals born without Corpus Callosum are less cognitively and behaviorally impaired than patients who had it removed due to illness (Jeeves, 1996). This indicates that not every brain difference is pertinent to establish whether a legally relevant capacity is present (see Jurjako & Malatesti, 2018).…”

Section: Ethical Concerns About the Bioprediction Of Antisocial Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Some Ethical Considerations About the Use of Biomarkers for the Classification of Adult Antisocial Individuals

Jurjako

Malatesti

Brazil

2019

International Journal of Forensic Mental Health

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It has been argued that a biomarker-informed classification system for antisocial individuals has the potential to overcome many obstacles in current conceptualizations of forensic and psychiatric constructs and promises better targeted treatments. However, some have expressed ethical worries about the social impact of the use of biological information for classification. Many have discussed the ethical and legal issues related to possibilities of using biomarkers for predicting antisocial behavior. We argue that prediction should not raise the most pressing ethical worries. Instead, issues connected with "biologization", such as stigmatization and negative effects on self-image, need more consideration. However, we conclude that also in this respect there are no principled ethical objections against the use of biomarkers to guide classification and treatment of adult antisocial individuals.

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Section: Ethical Concerns About the Bioprediction Of Antisocial Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Some Ethical Considerations About the Use of Biomarkers for the Classification of Adult Antisocial Individuals

Jurjako

Malatesti

Brazil

2019

International Journal of Forensic Mental Health

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“…However, Jurjako and Malatesti argue that deficits in performance in "hot" EF tasks are not significant enough to be exculpatory because they are so context-dependent and, as discussed above, may be corrected for (Jurjako and Malatesti 2018b). As already mentioned, in conditions where psychopaths pay attention to certain aspects of the gambling game, and pause before making a decision, psychopaths perform as well as controls.…”

Section: Cognitive Controlmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Executive functions include planning and goal-setting; monitoring of perceptions, emotions, and behavior; utilization of working memory; inhibition; and task-switching, as well as top-down attention. Recent research indicates that persons diagnosed as psychopaths may have very different executive profiles (Jurjako and Malatesti 2018b). Some studies indicated that unsuccessful psychopaths had reduced prefrontal and amygdala volumes as well as hippocampal abnormalities, possibly resulting in reduced executive functioning, including impaired decision-making (Gao and Raine 2010).…”

Section: Cognitive Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Psychopaths Legally Insane?

Jefferson

Sifferd

2018

EuJAP

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The question of whether psychopaths are criminally and morally responsible has generated significant controversy in the literature. In this paper, we discuss what relevance a psychopathy diagnosis has for criminal responsibility. It has been argued that figuring out whether psychopathy is a mental illness is of fundamental importance, because it is a precondition for psychopaths’ eligibility to be excused via the legal insanity defense. But even if psychopathy counts as a mental illness, this alone is not sufficient to show the insanity defense is applicable; it must also be shown that, as a result of the illness, specific deficits in moral understanding or control are present. In this paper, we show that a diagnosis of psychopathy will generally not indicate that a defendant is eligible for an insanity defense. This is because the group of individuals subsumed under the diagnosis is so heterogeneous that while some psychopaths do show significant impairments in affect and control which may impact on their responsibility, many psychopaths are not incapacitated in a way relevant to responsibility.

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“…I intend these arguments to build on the claims from the previous section. Successful psychopaths, by most accounts, are able practical reasoners (Babiak, Neumann, and Hare 2010;Jurjako and Malatesti 2018;Ramirez 2015). 7 If we feel the pull of the subjectivity requirement but are convinced, or are willing to grant for the sake of argument, that psychopaths are unable to feel or understand guilt, then we must look to attitudes other than guilt to ground psychopathic accountability.…”

Section: Shame and The Subjectivity Requirementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shame, Embarrassment, and the Subjectivity Requirement

Ramirez

2018

EuJAP

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Reactive theories of responsibility see moral accountability as grounded on the capacity for feeling reactive-attitudes. I respond to a recent argument gaining ground in this tradition that excludes psychopaths from accountability. The argument relies on what Paul Russell has called the 'subjectivity requirement'. On this view, the capacity to feel and direct reactive-attitudes at oneself is a necessary condition for responsibility. I argue that even if moral attitudes like guilt are impossible for psychopaths to deploy, that psychopaths, especially the "successful" and "secondary" subtypes of psychopathy, can satisfy the subjectivity requirement with regard to shame. I appeal to evidence that embarrassment and shame are grounded on the same affective process and data that psychopathic judgments about embarrassment are neurotypical. If I am right, then psychopaths ought to be open to shame-based forms of accountability including shame punishments. I conclude by considering why psychopaths rarely self-report shame. I argue that lacking a capacity to see oneself as flawed is a different sort of failure than lacking the capacity to feel.

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Psychopathy, Executive Functions, and Neuropsychological Data: a Response to Sifferd and Hirstein

Cited by 11 publications

References 31 publications

Some Ethical Considerations About the Use of Biomarkers for the Classification of Adult Antisocial Individuals

Some Ethical Considerations About the Use of Biomarkers for the Classification of Adult Antisocial Individuals

Are Psychopaths Legally Insane?

Shame, Embarrassment, and the Subjectivity Requirement

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