Abstract
BackgroundFrom fields such as neuroethics and legal medicine it is increasingly common to raise the issue on whether it is necessary to rethink questions such as moral and criminal responsibility in individuals fulfilling Hare’s criteria for psychopathy. The Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist Revised is currently the diagnostic gold standard for psychopathy and defines a type of personality characterized by interpersonal, affective, and behavioral symptoms. Moral and criminal responsibility in these individuals is now being reconsidered due to new data provided by neuroscience. However, the translation from these neuroscientific findings into terms of moral responsibility is neither direct nor evident. The aim of this review is to assemble the available neuroscientific evidence and to clarify the moral consequences of these findings.Main textA genetic base for psychopathy exists as well as brain functionality or even structural variations. However, these structural changes are not robust and consistent across the different studies. Moreover, this body of evidence uses different methodologies and, for this reason, it is hardly comparable. Findings from the field of neuropsychology such as the emotional alterations, empathy impairment or emotional theory of mind (ToM) deviance are equivocal, controversial, and a focus of debate. These can be well understood as correlates of the particular psychopaths’ moral functioning more than as a deterministic causality for their conduct. In addition, a biological and neuropsychological model of moral responsibility open to scientific analysis does not exist. Ultimately, moral responsibility has a biological and neuropsychological basis, but it cannot be fully explained by these constructs.ConclusionThis review assesses new findings in the study of moral and criminal responsibility in psychopaths, and the different interpretations about them. It concludes that, in the absence of an experimental model of moral responsibility, current data, though controversial, are not definitive arguments that can reduce or to eliminate moral, and subsequently, criminal responsibility.
Highlights
A genetic base for psychopathy exists as well as brain functionality or even structural variations
The personalities characterized by antisocial behavior are present in three categories: Antisocial Personality Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), Dissocial Personality Disorder (World Health Organization, 1992), and Hare’s psychopathy Checklist Revised (Hare, 2003)
In relation to the possible biological basis of psychopathy, two fundamental facts stand out: a) the existence of a genuine genetic basis (Bloningen et al, 2005; Viding et al, 2005) and b) the finding of functional and structural alterations in diverse brain regions such as the biological correlates of emotional alterations, of antisocial behavior and of the pathological tendency to lie exhibited by these patients (Yang & Raine, 2008)
Summary
The biological basis and neuroscience of psychopathy Psychopathy is a defined disorder of emotional dysfunction and antisocial behavior (Frick et al, 2003; Harpur et al, 1988). The amygdala and the ventromedial nucleus of the prefrontal lobe are two regions that are crucial in explaining the neuropsychology of psychopathy (Bechara et al, 1999; Blair, 2007, 2008) Both these areas allow for the integration of emotional and rational information into the decision-making process. The amygdala sends signals to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is implicated in the representation of reinforcement of different objects and actions and allows us to learn from the experience and anticipate expectations This information is key for decision-making and is utilized by other structures, like the anterior cingulate cortex. As a consequence of their impulsiveness and dissipative syndrome (Navas-Collado & Muñoz-García, 2004), these subjects could find it difficult to learn from punishment and from an analysis of the consequences of their actions in the long run, which in turn could harm their moral development and their ethical capacity
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