AMORALISM AND PSYCHOPATHY (Amoralizm i psychopatia)

• Authors: Janikowski W.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Amoralist in a philosophically technical sense is a person who acknowledges that it would be morally wrong if she did certain act, yet she does not care about it at all, lacking any moral motivations as such. She would be capable of identifying moral reasons, but treating them as not reasons for her. The author points out that amoralists exist - they are persons ranked highly in R.D. Hare's PCL-R test (which, published in 1991, has been widely accepted in practice around the world, and Hare's concept of 'psychopathy' is now firmly grounded in clinical and theoretical community). Then he argues against apparently analytical claim of ethical rationalism. This claim, mostly considered sort of 'moral internalism', is not true, neither conceptually, nor factually. In the course of coming to such conclusion, the author discusses two peculiarities of psychopaths' minds: their difficulties with moral/conventional differentiation and being deprived of Violence Inhibition Mechanism.

Keywords

EN

AMORALISM; ETHICAL RATIONALISM; HARE R. H.; MORAL INTERNALISM; PSYCHOPATHY

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
• Journal: Analiza i Egzystencja. Czasopismo Filozoficzne
• Year: 2008
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 35-47
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Janikowski W.

• W. Janikowski, Uniwersytet Szczecinski, Instytut Filozofii, Zaklad Etyki, ul. Krakowska 61/69, 71-017 Szczecin, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

09PLAAAA064127