Philosophical discussion on psychopaths, moral agency, and evildoers

means that maturation eventually legitimizes individuals as potential evildoers. It does not, however, cause a shift in our sense of evilrecipients. Willie Bosket may not have been an evildoer, but he certainly could have been an evilrecipient. What about psychopaths, people like Charles Manson and Ted Bundy? Pop culture tells us that they are depraved, heinous, immoral monsters, deliberately causing harm to others, and often with a delicious twinkle in their eye. But what if I told you that several recent studies of psychopaths indicate that they know the difference between right and wrong? When judging the moral permissibility of different actions, such as harming one person to save the lives of many, psychopaths’ judgments are often like yours and mine, nuanced, varying depending upon the outcomes and the means by which they are achieved. This is a rational, albeit largely unconscious understanding of right and wrong. This makes psychopaths nothing like earthquakes, viruses, chimpanzees, or young children. It also means that they don’t have bad moral principles, but rather, ones that are like yours and mine. What if I further told you that before they develop into fully licensed-to-kill or extort psychopaths, many have an early history of torturing pets and bullying other kids. What if I further told you that when they cooked the cat in the microwave or bloodied little Johnny’s face with their fist, that the consequences of their actions left them cold —no guilt, remorse, or shame. Nothing. And what if I told you that these people are born with a different brain chemistry and structure than you or I, leading to poor self-control and an emotionally callous view of the world? If this medical report 1s correct, and I believe the scientific evidence supports it, then psychopaths lack the ability to see alternative options and act on them. They also lack the resources for self-control. Given this evidence, psychopaths are not evil at all, though the consequences of their actions are often excessively heinous. Given this evidence, not one member of our initial list would count as evildoers, though chimpanzees, children and psychopaths would all count as potential evilrecipients. What this discussion highlights is that our perception of evildoers and evilrecipients is influenced by our sense of what it means to be human. Though evildoers and evilreceivers overlap in their capacities to think and feel, there are differences, captured by Aristotle’s distinction between moral agents — those who have responsibility for others well being —and moral patients — those who deserve moral consideration and care from moral agents. The distinction gains scientific credibility thanks to a set of studies by the American psychologists Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner. In one experiment, a large internet population compared the qualities of different things, including humans at different stages of development — fetus, baby, child, and adult — an adult human in a vegetative state, a dead human, nonhuman animals — frog, pet dog, chimpanzee — God, and a socially savvy robot. Subjects judged different pairings of these things on a wide range of dimensions, including which was more likely to develop a unique personality, feel embarrassed, suffer pain, distinguish right from wrong, experience Hauser Chapter 3. Ravages of denial 89 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012835