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It is often claimed that psychopaths lack a conscience. There was even a book named after the claim. A review of that book states:

As the title suggests, psychopaths are qualitatively different from other people, literally having no conscience.

This website which seems to be an information resource for psychopathy states:

Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

I think it is well established that psychopaths lack empathy, which has been shown with differences in brain structure and/or activity, although I don't think it is necessarily valid to conclude that psychopaths have no conscience from that.

The definition for conscience is not dependent on empathy, bur rather knowing or having a sense of what is right or wrong. Even with a complete lack of empathy or remorse, why could there be no sense of right and wrong?

Is there any validity to the claim that psychopaths lack a conscience? Why would they be unable to have the same values of wrong and right instilled as other people, or to sense how people will morally view their actions?

Sklivvz
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Sonny Ordell
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  • @Chad What? I'm not redefining anything. The definition refers to a sense of right and wrong, not necessarily guilt. The claim that psychopaths lack a conscience seems to have more to do with them lacking a sense of right and wrong then being incapable of remorse or guilt. – Sonny Ordell Feb 21 '12 at 16:40
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    I'm with Chad here. I know of no definition of "conscience" that reflects societal convention. The definition you provided includes whatever the individual feels is "right" or "be[ing] good". If those values are "what is right is whatever I feel like doing, and being 'good' is me doing whatever I feel like doing", then a psychopath could indeed have a "conscience". Just not one that is at odds with society. – Beofett Feb 21 '12 at 20:39
  • @chad , Beofett - I don't think it matters if it is a personal sense of right and wrong or a societal one. I think the issue is whether or not a psychopath can sense that something may be right or wrong, whether personally or in line with societal values. Not feeling remorse or guilt does not mean they may not be able to see something as wrong or right, which is what I think the claim is getting at. – Sonny Ordell Feb 21 '12 at 22:55
  • @Chad, I somehow missed the relevant sentence in my question. Fixed. – Sonny Ordell Feb 22 '12 at 01:44
  • I had thought that I had read somewhere that it was found that psychopaths could decide to turn on their empathy, similar to how normies can decide to turn theirs off.

    Either way, I believe the general consensus is that they do not feel those types of emotions, but are perfectly normal at knowing right from wrong. They are even known for sometimes being very good manipulators, meaning they have a full understanding of how a normal thinks, even emotionally and ethically.

     – Jonathon Aug 12 '15 at 22:37
  • Isn't the possession of a conscience complicated by the relativity of moral systems? Although many argue for the objectivity of morality, there rarely is a ground to believe in it other than the principle that "hurting people is bad". But for someone that does not take your word on the fact that "hurting people is bad", it may seem that low empathy somehow affects the capacity to reach a consensus with the majority of people about what constitutes right and wrong. –  Jan 08 '16 at 21:12

1 Answers1

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Psychopathy is measured through a scale known as "Hare Psychopathy Check List, Revised (PCL-R)". It is not simply a paper but a whole book on psychopathy. It is very, very well tested experimentally, and hugely cited - Google Scholar reports 3000+ citation.

Unfortunately, the book is not freely available, but, since this is a non-controversial subject, I'll simply use Wikipedia. See the voice for PCL-R. There are 2 main factors identified in psychopaths:

Factor 1: Personality "Aggressive narcissism"

  • Glibness/superficial charm
  • Grandiose sense of self-worth
  • Pathological lying
  • Cunning/manipulative
  • Lack of remorse or guilt
  • Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric)
  • Callousness; lack of empathy
  • Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

Factor 2: Case history "Socially deviant lifestyle".

  • Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
  • Parasitic lifestyle
  • Poor behavioral control
  • Lack of realistic long-term goals
  • Impulsivity
  • Irresponsibility
  • Juvenile delinquency
  • Early behavior problems
  • Revocation of conditional release

It is clear from this that lack of conscience (or remorse, guilt) and lack of empathy are part of the same factor and thus they are strongly correlated.

So - to answer your question in full - lack of a conscience is a common trait of psychopaths, but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary, for a psychopathy diagnosis.

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Sklivvz
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    I think you are conflating a lack of conscience with a lack of remorse/guilt when they are not necessarily tied to each other. In fact the definition for conscience mentions neither remorse nor guilt. – Sonny Ordell Feb 21 '12 at 01:32
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    I know this isn't a place for criticism of established references, but the PCL-R seems to be missing the dimension of willful cruelty. Ronson's The Psychopath Test establishes that the PCL-R can rank a corporate CEO as a psychopath (including Factor 2 questions), but, in my opinion, there's something qualitatively different between a thrill-killer and a sentiment-free CEO. Ronson ends the book skeptical of the PCL-R. – Larry OBrien Feb 21 '12 at 04:50
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    From that definition: "the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good". Seems very tightly coupled to remorse and guilt to me. – Oddthinking Feb 21 '12 at 08:23
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    @ Larry OBrien - I believe that willful cruelty is classified as sadism, not psychopathy. For psychopaths, cruelty is more like a means to an end, not a pleasure in itself. But that's just the current classification. I read about this recently in Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature. – Ana Feb 21 '12 at 12:46
  • As a counter-point: From what I know of the neurology of psychopathy (admittedly little), lack of “conscience” (for some definition thereof) is indeed a prerequisite for being a psychopath – simply because of varied brain structures. I’m not sure how to reconcile these data points but I suspect that the medical definitions will be revised in the future to reflect these neurological findings. – Konrad Rudolph Feb 21 '12 at 13:38
  • @KonradRudolph There have been psychopaths that felt the guilt for what they did. Especially those who kill out of a sense of morality or with a hand of god syndrome – Chad Feb 21 '12 at 13:54
  • @Chad - that's what I said :-) – Sklivvz Feb 21 '12 at 13:57
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    @sklivvz And I was agreeing with you. But making it clear that it has actually happened not just theoretically possible. – Chad Feb 21 '12 at 13:59
  • @Chad Interesting. From what I understood from Sam Harris there might indeed be a need to redefine these terms then. At least neurophysiologically these seem to be different diseases. – Konrad Rudolph Feb 21 '12 at 15:54
  • @Oddthinking I see the definition as referring to a sense of right and wrong, which would be distinct, although related, to feelings of remorse or guilt. – Sonny Ordell Feb 21 '12 at 16:42
  • KonradRudolph - There are different psychopathies. It is more a class of behavior than a disease itself. A common diagnosis that fits this is Antisocial personality disorder particularly if combined with bipolar disorder, and/or psychosis. Each of these are their own problems but they can combine to lead to Phychopathic behavior. – Chad Feb 21 '12 at 18:07
  • @Ana : Ah. There seems to me something unintuitive about "non-sadistic psychopath" but if that's the definition, so be it. – Larry OBrien Feb 21 '12 at 21:16
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    @Larry OBrien - I think the current idea is that being a psychopath boils down to a lack of a "cringing on the inside" response when harm is being done to other people. We all strive for reducing frustration in our lives, but we draw the line at acts that would harm others (physically, emotionally, financially...), while psychopaths don't. But as you can see from the list of features, these definitions are always at least partly arbitrary, and tend to change over time. – Ana Feb 21 '12 at 21:35
  • @Ana I think you are wrong with the statement but we draw the line at acts that would harm others - We cause each other harm all of the time. Generally the harm is not lasting but sometimes we are forced to make decisions that will devastate the current life of someone. Last night I had to put our pet rabbit down. It was devastating to both me and my wife not to mention Bella. Sometimes you have to lay off some to save the livelihood of others. Sometimes you have to fire someone for a choice they had to make not that their choice was bad for them but bad for your business. – Chad Feb 22 '12 at 20:25
  • Psychopaths know right from wrong and choose to act wrong. Generally out of some self centered and selfish reason. But there are exceptions. I think that most of them are not cringing on the inside at their actions... maybe the consequences but not their actions. – Chad Feb 22 '12 at 20:28
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    "the consequence of not obeying our conscience is guilt" - Freud. If a psychopath feels guilt, it was a consequence of not obeying his conscience. – Dave Hillier Feb 22 '12 at 20:48
  • @DaveHillier - Freud was a quack and many of his theories and definitions have been rejected. – Chad Feb 23 '12 at 13:55
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    @Sklivvz - I think this answer still fits the question. That psychopaths can have a conscience. – Chad Feb 23 '12 at 14:01
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    @sklivvz, pray tell, how did my slight edit make your question basically obsolete? I edited the text on societal right and wrongs after I realized what Chad was getting at. That does not affect your answer which was always off-topic(IMO), as it deals with remorse/guilt. Seriously, how did my slight edit make your answer obsolete? – Sonny Ordell Feb 23 '12 at 23:29
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    @LarryOBrien: It's actually the opposite. Sadists can be completely non-psychopathic (not lacking in empathy) since that "cringe" one feels when seeing others hurt can lead to adrenaline production and thus trigger a feeling of pleasure. True psychopaths cannot feel pleasure from sadistic acts. Release/calmness yes, amusement/fun yes but not an adrenaline rush (unless the thrill comes from avoiding getting caught, psychopaths are fully capable of getting an adrenaline rush from danger to their own persons) – slebetman Jan 13 '16 at 16:08