Naslov
Neuropsychology and the Criminal Responsibility of Psychopaths: Reconsidering the Evidence

Autori
Jurjako, Marko ; Malatesti, Luca

Izvornik
Erkenntnis (0165-0106) 83 (2018), 5; 1003-1025

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, znanstveni

Ključne riječi
psychopathy ; criminal responsibility ; neuropsychological correlates ; general and specific incapacities

Sažetak
Recently it has been argued that certain neuropsychological findings on the decision making, instrumental learning, and moral understanding in psychopathic offenders offer reasons to consider them not criminally responsible, due to certain epistemic and volitional impairments. We reply to this family of arguments, that collectively we call the irresponsibility of the psychopath argument (IPA for short). This type of argument has a premise that describes or prescribes the deficiencies that grant or should grant partial or complete criminal exculpation. The other premise contends that neuropsychological evidence shows that psychopaths have incapacitates that are sufficient to ascribe complete or partially exculpatory deficiencies. The focus of our criticism is this latter premise. We argue that it requires that psychopathy should correlate significantly with certain rational incapacities that manifest across contexts. We show that the available neuropsychological data do not support the claim that psychopaths have such general exculpatory incapacities.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filozofija

Napomena
DOI: 10.1007/s10670-017-9924-0 ; Advanced online edition ; FAQ-ovi 7, 8 i 2 ; 2017-08-22, admin

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