Psychopathology, Neuroscience, and Moral Theory

Dharol Tankersley

Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, Volume 18, Number 4, December

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 Psychopathology,
Neuroscience, and
Moral Theory
Dharol Tankersley

Abstract: Moral theorists often invoke sociopaths cluster of traits, leading to disagreement about
and psychopaths as the quintessential example of a what makes one a psychopath, and what kind of
morally impaired agent. In the current debate, both psychopath. For example, Levenson claims that
moral rationalists, who argue that moral competence
psychopathy is a socially acquired “life philoso-
consists in the ability to apply a set of moral rules, and
moral sentimentalists, who define moral competence phy” (1992, 51), whereas other researchers think
as appropriate emotional responding, refer to evidence psychopathy is mainly genetically determined
regarding these pathologies to support their theory. (Viding et al. 2005). Further, some researchers
Neither experimental data on antisocial pathologies nor distinguish between types of psychopaths, with
neuroscientific data provide definitive support for either primary psychopaths exhibiting low levels of
moral theory, but both of these empirical literatures sug- anxiety and secondary psychopaths exhibiting
gest a deep complexity in the mechanisms supporting
high levels of anxiety [Arnett (1997) offers a clear
moral competence, and perhaps an inadequacy of our
current conceptions of “emotional” versus “rational”
discussion of the literature regarding this distinc-
or “cognitive” systems, and how these contribute to tion]. The primary psychopath is the figure who
psychopathology and influence “moral” capacities. coldly calculates and executes heinous transgres-
sions with no apparent worry or concern. This is
Keywords: acquired sociopath, cognition, emotion,
sentimentalism, rationalism, reinforcement.
the type of psychopath with which most of the
moral literature and this paper are concerned.
For the purposes of this paper, I discuss psy-
chopathy and sociopathy in terms of two basic

I
t is perhaps ironic that moral philosophers types of etiology for antisocial symptomatolo-
look to the disorder of psychopathy to gain gies. Both personality traits and neurological
clarity about morality, because the concepts of abnormalities predict some of the key features of
psychopathy and morality share similarly obscure psychopathy, and there is quite a bit of evidence
and disputed definitional etiologies. Psychopathy suggesting that both the personality trait cluster
is considered a subtype of antisocial personality and certain neurophysiological abnormalities
disorder (APD; Herpertz and Habermeyer 2004), are highly genetic. In contrast with this cluster
and the diagnostic criteria for both APD and of heritable traits that predict psychopathology,
psychopathy are currently debated (Cooke et al. there are a number of environmental conditions
2005; Widiger et al. 1996). This is in part because as well as specific types of brain trauma that can
psychopathy seems to refer to a heterogeneous lead to the development of antisocial symptoms.

© 2012 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

Damasio and colleagues have identified a disorder psychopaths have genetic origins. For one thing,
they call “acquired sociopathy” (Bechara et al. the patterns of behavior exhibited by psychopaths
1994, 2000). These are patients with brain lesions, are highly resistant to environmental influences.
typically in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex The CU and extreme antisocial behavior are
(vmPFC) region, who acquire characteristics simi- unmitigated by environmental factors and show
lar to psychopaths after the lesion. There is also ev- abnormal resistance to intervention methods. For
idence that some characteristics of sociopathy are example, when children score high on CU fac-
influenced by environmental variables. I discuss tors of psychiatric tests, they have a high rate of
psychopathologies owing to these environmental conduct disorder across all socioeconomic levels
factors or brain injuries as “acquired sociopathy.” of parenting; whereas for children without high
Both psychopathy and acquired sociopathy are CU scores, rate of conduct disorder increases as
disorders involving both antisocial behaviors and rate of parental dysfunction increases (Moffitt
emotional deficits. I review evidence in an effort 2003; Viding et al. 2005). This suggests that
to understand what, if anything, distinguishes the behavioral problems associated with the CU fea-
neuroanatomical functioning of psychopaths and ture of psychopathy are unaffected by or causally
sociopaths from that of “moral” individuals, and unrelated to family environment, whereas the
whether increasing knowledge in the sciences of same antisocial behaviors in children without the
the mind and genetics can shed light on the nature CU trait are causally mediated by features of the
of moral competence.1 environment. Age of onset of criminal behavior
in psychopaths also is not predicted by quality of
Etiologies of Antisocial family environment, whereas family environment
Pathologies for nonpsychopaths directly correlates with the
onset age of illegal behavior (Devita et al. 1990).
Psychopathy Additionally, psychopaths have higher rates of
Psychopathy is generally differentiated from recidivism regardless of their postprison environ-
other disorders involving antisocial symptoms ments, in contradistinction with recidivism rates
by extreme affective deficits as well as extreme of other criminals with APD (Hemphill et al.
behavioral transgressions. Psychopaths are abnor- 1998). Although none of these facts proves that
mally callous and unemotional (CU): they do not psychopathy is genetically determined, they do
seem capable of feeling guilt or remorse for their show that environmental variables cannot explain
actions, and seem unable to empathize with their the behavioral patterns of psychopaths in the same
victims (Blair 2001). The violent acts committed way that they do explain antisocial behavioral
by psychopaths also differ from the violence typi- patterns of nonpsychopathic offenders.
cally committed by other offenders. For example, Interesting work on personality also suggests
murders committed by psychopaths are much that the essential socioemotional features of psy-
more likely to be premeditated than murders chopathy are genetic in origin. The core emotional
committed by nonpsychopaths (Woodworth and traits of psychopathy—callousness and narcis-
Porter 2002). Blair defines the violent behavior sism—are more heritable than most personality
characteristic of psychopaths as “instrumental ag- traits (Livesley et al. 1993). The high heritability
gression,” and distinguishes this from the reactive of these traits has also been shown in twin stud-
aggression associated with other APD disorders, ies of children (Viding 2004; Viding et al. 2005).
including acquired sociopathy, by its goal direct- There is incredible longitudinal consistency both
edness and situational independence (Blair 2001, in personality traits such as CU and in behavior.
727). Clinically, psychopathy is diagnosed with the For example, wild 3-year-olds tended to report at
Psychopathy Checklist or the Psychopathy Check- age 18 that they were reckless and enjoyed danger-
list—Revised developed by Hare (Blair 2001). ous activities (Caspi 2000), and Farrington (2000)
An increasing amount of evidence suggests that found significant stability on antisocial personality
these behavioral and emotional traits particular to measures from ages 10 to 32 (Farrington 1991). A
 Tankersley / Psychopathology, Neuroscience, and Moral Theory  ■  351

twin study by Button et al. (2005) found that geno- to brain damaged–induced antisocial symptoms,
types can explain as much as 77% of the variance there are numerous environmental variables that
in antisocial behavior between twins from ages 5 predict the development of antisocial symptoms.
to 18.2 Krueger and Hicks (2001) similarly found Child abuse, neglect, poor parental supervision, a
that antisocial behavior was due more to genetic depressed mother, low family income, large fam-
than environmental factors. The high heritability ily size, and a convicted parent all predict scores
of these socioemotional traits of psychopaths of- on the Psychopathy Checklist or Psychopathy
fers an explanation for the recalcitrance of anti- Checklist—Revised (Lang et al. 2002; Weiler and
social behavior in psychopaths. On Blair’s account, Widon 1996).
the inability of the psychopath to experience Some researchers argue that there is evidence
certain negative emotions (e.g., remorse or guilt), indicating that gender differences in rates and
prevent him from learning associations between severity of psychopathy are due to sociocul-
distress cues of others and the behaviors that cause tural norms, rather than hardwired biological
such aversive states (2001). The inability to form dispositions. They cite evidence suggesting that
associations between negative affective cues and standard descriptions of psychopaths only apply
the actions that cause them disrupts acquisition to White male psychopaths (Vitale et al. 2005).
of normal social behavior. For example, one of the most predominant and
highly studied traits of psychopaths is the deficit
Acquired Sociopathy in aversive conditioning. Hundreds of studies
Antisocial behavior does not always covary using stimuli in almost every sensory modality
with the striking emotional callousness and pre- have revealed that psychopaths do not effectively
meditated violence exhibited by the psychopath. I modify their behavior in response to punishment,
distinguish sociopathy and psychopathy according and that they fail to produce normal autonomic
to broad etiological differences, which seem to responses to aversive stimuli. For example, they
map on to some trait differences, too. In general, show reduced startle responses and decreased
the lesion patients or “acquired sociopaths” de- galvanic skin responses and heart rate to loud
scribed by Damasio and colleagues do not exhibit noises and shocks (see Arnett 1997 for a review
the same degree of emotional callousness, and the of these studies and various associated theories
nature of their antisocial behavior is markedly of aversive conditioning deficits in psychopaths).
different (Blair 2001). “Acquired sociopaths” However, female psychopaths do not exhibit the
show normal sociomoral competence until a same aversive conditioning deficits as males, and
brain injury/deficit appears. They typically incur Vitale and colleagues suggest that this might be
some type of brain trauma resulting in lesioning the result of differential socialization processes
or damage of the medial portion of the frontal for males and females. For example, mothers tend
lobes of the brain; post lesion, these patients to respond more to their daughters’ moral trans-
suffer changes in personality, reduction in social gressions than to sons’, and mothers with difficult
inhibition leading to inability to maintain employ- daughters make more effort to correct the antiso-
ment or social relationships, as well as a general cial behavior than mothers with difficult boys (see
deficit in the ability to make good decisions with Vitale et al. 2005 for discussion and references).
regard to their future welfare. These sociopaths, Sociocultural arguments for environmental influ-
like psychopaths, exhibit an inability to inhibit ences on psychopathic tendencies as well as brain
antisocial behavior, and also show abnormally trauma leading to psychopathic tendencies support
weak emotional responses to disturbing stimuli, the argument that moral deficiency can have a
for example, photographs of humans in distress. nongenetic etiology.3
Both sociopaths and psychopaths have difficulty Yet, there are some important differences be-
producing socially appropriate responses in real- tween psychopaths and the various types of indi-
life situations, and both exhibit poor performances viduals who fall into this category of sociopath.
on social reasoning tasks (Blair 2001). In addition One difference is that acquired sociopaths seem
352  ■  PPP / Vol. 18, No. 4 / December 2011

to retain memories of socioemotional norms. For The main brain regions implicated in these dis-
example, one of Damasio’s lesion patients does orders are the prefrontal cortex (PFC), especially
not experience normal emotional and autonomic the ventromedial and orbitofrontal areas of this
responses to disturbing photographs, but the region, and the limbic system, including parts of
patient admits that he knows how he should the cingulate cortex and particularly the amygdala
feel. In other words, he seems to retain a factual (AMY). Most of the patients that the Damasios
knowledge about socioemotional norms despite and colleagues work with have lesions in the ven-
abnormal autonomic and emotional responding. tromedial portion of the PFC. For the remainder
Interestingly, two case studies by Anderson et al. of this paper, I do not distinguish between the
(2000) suggest that damage to the vmPFC early ventromedial and orbitofrontal regions of the
in development results in deficits of social knowl- PFC, but discuss everything generically in terms
edge, as well. These two patients suffered brain of the vmPFC.
damage within the first year of life, and neither Lesions in the vmPFC typically impair social
possessed knowledge of social norms in the way decision making (Anderson et al. 1999), and neu-
that acquired sociopaths who experienced brain roimaging studies show abnormal patterns lower
trauma in adulthood do. levels of activation in the vmPFC and AMY of
Even when psychopaths offer descriptions of psychopaths relative to controls. For example, in
how they should behave, their reasoning and Birbaumer et al. (2005), controls showed increased
justification for behaviors seems to be different activation in frontolimbic areas during fear acqui-
from nonpsychopaths. A study of prisoners, all sition, whereas psychopaths showed no significant
of whom had committed violent crimes, found brain activation in this circuit. Developmental
that psychopaths were significantly less likely to studies show that children with psychopathic
offer justification that considered the well-being tendencies show impairments in learning to recog-
of the victim, and were also less likely to make nize fearful faces (Blair et al. 2005). The extensive
categorical distinctions between transgressions literature showing the AMY’s involvement in
of moral rules that had harmful consequences for processing negative emotional stimuli, specifically
other people (e.g., physically hurting a person), fear, anger, and sadness, are interpreted as showing
and transgressions of conventional rules that did that these children with psychopathic tendencies
not affect another’s welfare (e.g., talking in class; have early defective AMY processing.
Blair 1995). Another important distinction is the The frontolimbic system is involved in repre-
motives for antisocial behavior in psychopaths senting rewarding stimuli and their predictors
and sociopaths. Whereas the violent behavior of (Rolls et al. 2003), and the structural and func-
sociopaths tends to be reactive and environmen- tional abnormalities observed in the frontolimbic
tally driven, the violence of psychopaths is notori- system of sociopaths and psychopaths result in
ously planned, purposeful, and goal directed. For severe socioemotional deficits, which are perhaps
example, a sociopath might hit a policeman in best described in terms of the acquisition and
reaction to being handcuffed, but this is markedly representation of the reward/punishment proper-
different than tediously planning the murder of the ties of stimuli. Data suggest that this region of
local symphony flautist, with the express purpose the cortex stores representations of the value of
of enhancing the overall quality of the symphony. rewarding stimuli as well as representations of
conditioned stimuli that a subject has learned to
Antisocial Pathologies and associate with the primary reinforcing stimulus
the Brain (Coricelli et al. 2005). The vmPFC is also involved
in representing and predicting the occurrence of
Psychopaths and (acquired) sociopaths both aversive stimuli (punishments) and their predic-
exhibit morally defective behavior, showing that tors, and lesion studies suggest that this region is
both genes and environment can affect antisocial necessary for the experience of both the regret and
behavior and influence moral decision making. the anticipation of aversive consequences of bad
decision making (Cox et al. 2005).
 Tankersley / Psychopathology, Neuroscience, and Moral Theory  ■  353

Patients with either AMY or vmPFC lesions psychological and behavioral differences observed.
show impairments on reward-based decision- Bechara et al. (1999) showed that patients with
making tasks. In the widely used gambling task vmPFC and patients with AMY lesions have
(Bechara et al. 1994), subjects draw cards from impaired performance on the gambling task, and
two decks. Deck A contains cards with moder- both groups failed to develop the anticipatory
ate winnings ($50) and the occasional moderate autonomic responses (sweaty palms) that normal
penalty (average penalty, less than $100); deck B subjects show when learning the properties of
contains cards with a larger reward ($100), but the two decks. Whereas the vmPFC patients did
significantly higher penalties (up to $1,250; Dama- show autonomic responses during presentation of
sio 1994, 213). Subjects typically play about 100 rewards and punishments (wins and losses), AMY
trials, and the total expected earnings for selecting patients failed to show responses even to the pre-
cards from deck A is positive (player will come sentation of these primary stimuli. This suggests
out earning money), whereas the total expected that dysfunction of distinct neural mechanisms can
value of deck B is negative (player will go into cause the same decision-making deficits. Specifi-
“laboratory” debt). Normal subjects acquire at cally, Bechara and colleagues argue that vmPFC
least an unconscious representation that deck A patients have normal responses to primary rein-
is more advantageous in the long run, and within forcers, but are unable to learn to associate con-
the first 20 trials normal subjects begin to choose ditioned stimuli—stimuli that predict the primary
more cards from this “good” deck. Psychopaths reinforcers; in this case, the two card decks—with
and subjects with damage to vmPFC or AMY, the pleasant and aversive experiences of primary
however, including acquired sociopaths, fail to reinforcers (the emotional experience associated
learn the reward properties of the decks and con- with monetary losses and gains). Thus, proper
tinue to choose from the disadvantageous, higher vmPFC functioning is necessary for the ability to
stakes deck. In other words, subjects with vmPFC learn associations between conditioned stimuli and
or AMY lesions fail to adequately process the the rewards and punishments they predict. The
reward and punishment properties of the decks, failure of AMY patients to show normal responses
and their poor decision making in this task is the even to primary reinforcers suggests a deeper prob-
manifestation of this reward processing deficit. lem: these patients are unable to form associations
Individuals with antisocial pathologies con- between stimuli because they do not experience
sistently demonstrate socioemotional deficits, the physiological markers of the primary reward
including the inability to maintain social rela- and punishment stimuli. Blair (2001) argues that
tions, inhibit antisocial behavior, and engage in AMY dysfunction specifically impairs the forma-
emotions such as empathy and regret, as well as tion of associations between negative emotional
reward processing and decision making deficits cues and their associated aversive stimuli. For
like those elicited by the gambling task. Bar-On example, if an individual with AMY damage does
et al. (2003) argue that these decision-making not experience negative affect when witnessing
impairments in subjects who have normal levels the distress of another, it will be more difficult for
of intelligence is evidence for the dissociability of him to link the distress cues of others with other
emotion and cognition. The basic idea here is that negative states that might follow, such as punish-
the emotional system is important for learning the ment from authorities. In other words, stimuli that
value of stimuli (e.g., the reward and punishment serve as predictive cues to normally functioning
properties of the two decks), and that disturbances humans fail to do so for persons with impaired
in the frontolimbic system that supports such emo- AMY functioning. Blair argues that this explains
tional stimulus evaluation impairs performance on the instrumental violence and CU observed in
tasks that require the learning of stimulus values. I psychopaths. Research showing that adolescents
return to this notion of dissociability of emotional with high scores on psychopathy scales perform
and cognition in the next section. poorly on tasks that rely on AMY function support
Neurological differences between psychopaths this AMY-based theory of psychopathy.
and sociopaths may provide some insight into the
354  ■  PPP / Vol. 18, No. 4 / December 2011

Developmental evidence provides further sup- example, the ability to judge killing as wrong is
port for the distinct roles of the AMY and vmPFC just the disposition to feel negatively toward kill-
in decision making. Typical adult vmPFC patients ing. On this view, antisocial pathologies lead to
exhibit social- and reward-based decision-making moral failures because the pathologies preclude the
deficits, but they show a preserved knowledge of ability to feel the right way when presented with
social facts and norms. A vmPFC patient of Dama- disturbing stimuli such as photographs or thoughts
sio’s (1994) failed to produce normal autonomic of killing. As discussed, psychopaths are impaired
and emotional responses to emotionally disturb- in their ability to distinguish between conventional
ing photographs, but reported knowing that he rules, such as not talking in class, and moral rules
should feel upset upon viewing the photograph. In that have harmful consequences for other people,
Anderson’s case study patients, however, vmPFC such as not killing. Prinz argues that the failure
damage occurred prior to the age of 6 months. of psychopaths to learn the difference between
In contradistinction to the preservation of social moral and conventional rules shows that moral
knowledge seen in typical vmPFC patients, the understanding—understanding that goes beyond
early vmPFC patients exhibited severely reduced mere punitive consequences for actions—depends
socioemotional reasoning abilities. This suggests on a capacity for normal emotional experience.
that the vmPFC is required for the acquisition According to Prinz’s version of moral sentimen-
of social knowledge, but is less essential for the talism, psychopaths possess the basic reasoning
expression of this knowledge once it has been capacities required to associate consequences for
acquired and stored at a conceptual or semantic breaking rules (both conventional and moral), but
level. their emotional deficits prevent them from under-
Thus, both the limbic and prefrontal areas seem standing an additional sense (i.e., from experienc-
to be necessary for advantageous decision-making ing an emotional sensation) of “wrongness” that
regarding oneself or another, but they seem to play normal humans experience when moral rules are
distinct roles in the evaluation of stimuli that is broken (2008).
required for effective decision making and social A second camp, the moral rationalists, argues
interaction. Sociopaths and psychopaths do not that moral competence is the ability to understand
experience higher level moral emotions such as em- and apply, through rational principles or pro-
pathy and regret because they are unable to form cesses, a special set of rules. For example, if Mary
the necessary associations between representations fatally shoots a passerby because he’s wearing mis-
of the negative emotions and stimulus situations matched socks, and Tom fatally shoots someone
(e.g., hurting others) that predicts the aversive con- by accident on a hunting trip, the ability to judge
sequence, either because of the inability to form Mary as more wrong than Tom is the capacity to
(AMY) or update (vmPFC) reward–punishment apply the moral rule that intention is important
properties of stimuli. to this specific case of harm. For these theorists,
the moral failure of psychopaths and sociopaths
Psychopathology and Moral consists in their inability to understand and apply
Theory rules about how to treat others in social circum-
stances (Hauser et al., 2008). A rationalist could
The learning deficits underlying sociopathy and explain the failure of psychopaths to distinguish
psychopathy clearly impair moral competence. between moral and conventional rules as the in-
The question of interest for moral theorists, how- ability to apply moral rules: the psychopath is
ever, concerns the nature of this moral competence. perfectly capable of consequentialist reasoning—
Two broadly defined camps argue for different es- understanding the punitive consequences of rule
sential components of moral competence. Accord- breaking—but because of genetic abnormalities
ing to moral sentimentalists, moral competence is or brain damage, does not possess the specific
the ability to respond to social situations in emo- class of moral rules that enable most humans to
tionally appropriate ways, and moral ineptitude is assess moral transgressions as more wrong than
the result of deficits in emotional processing. For conventional transgressions.
 Tankersley / Psychopathology, Neuroscience, and Moral Theory  ■  355

An important oversight in much of the current Haidt (2001) argues for such an intermediate
debate is the failure to offer criteria of “moral.” position in which full moral competence requires
The sentimentalists stipulate one criterion: moral a complex set of both emotional and rational ca-
behavior or moral judgments involve at least pacities. According to Haidt, moral judgment is
emotional responses that conform to some type the result of “complex and dynamic” interactions
of societal (or universal or biological) standard. between a fast, automatic system of “intuition,”
(Prinz’s strong version of sentimentalism goes including affective processes, rational processes,
farther, stipulating the emotional responses and a number of sociocultural influences (p. 829).
constitute moral judgments; i.e., the emotional This position has the virtue of acknowledging
response is what makes the judgment moral per the conceptual difficulties of disentangling “emo-
se. Weaker versions of sentimentalism posit only tional” and “rational” or “cognitive” processes.
that at least some moral abilities require emotional These processes have long been discussed as dis-
proficiency.) Casual reflection on our responses tinct and “largely independent” systems, with the
to psychopathic behaviors suggests at least an affective system concerning motivation, feeling
intuitive appeal to the role of emotions in moral and emotions, and the cognitive system including
competence. We want members of our society both perception, memory, and sophisticated processes
to follow the rules and to experience the same such as problem solving (Pittman and Heller 1987,
emotional responses to serious transgressions of 475). Yet, as Phelps notes, “[T]he mechanisms of
the rules: the fact that Joe refrains from sexual acts emotion and cognition are intertwined from early
with children keeps him out of jail, but it alone perception to reasoning”, so “the classic divi-
does not win him moral approval. If Joe openly sion between the study of emotion and cognition
admits to, or even if he secretly desires, to engage may be unrealistic” (2006, 27). Phelps goes on
in sexual acts with children, we judge Joe as mor- to describe affect as an essential and inseparable
ally dissopprobrious; in addition to his behavioral component of basic stimulus–response learning,
conformity, we require that Joe experience some insofar as affective motivation to approach or
form of negative affect when confronted with withdraw from a stimulus triggers or enhances
instances of pedophilia. This is not to say that all the perceptual and memorial resources required
moral capacities require emotional abilities—we for learning. On the other hand, the perception of
lack conclusive evidence for this strong hypothesis. stimuli also influence affective and motivational
But this example does lend intuitive credence to states, so any purely asymmetric view of the in-
the sentimentalist claim that full moral competence terplay between “emotional” and “cognitive”
requires emotional abilities. processes does not offer an adequate description
A recent study supports this weaker version of of available evidence.
sentimentalism. Koenigs and colleagues (2007) Both the study of psychopathologies and the
presented normal subjects and patients with rationalist–sentimentalist debate in the fields of
vmPFC lesions with moral dilemmas and subjects moral philosophy and psychology continue to
if they would perform the action. For example, explore the degree to which these overly simplistic
subjects were asked if they would transport an concepts of emotion and reason are essential for
injured stranger to the hospital, even if it meant ru- appropriate or moral behavior. However, our best
ining the leather upholstery of their car. Although genetic and neuroscientific data confirm at the level
the vmPFC patients performed the same as normal of the brain what is apparent from clinical and
subjects on most of the dilemmas, they showed behavioral psychology and varied philosophical
specific impairment on dilemmas involving highly intuitions: (1) That psychopathy is a heteroge-
emotional situations, such as smothering your own neous disorder possibly stemming from multiple
baby to save many people. This study provides causes and involving abnormal functioning in
evidence that some types of moral decision making multiple neurobiological systems, and (2) that
do not require normal emotional capacities, but (im)moral behavior can be interpreted accord-
also shows that at least a subset of moral decision ing to either moral rationalist or sentimentalist
making does require intact emotional experience. doctrines. Neuroscientific evidence yields insight
356  ■  PPP / Vol. 18, No. 4 / December 2011

into the mechanisms supporting such behavior, perform similarly to sociopaths and psychopaths on the
and lesion data can even reveal necessary condi- gambling task (see below for discussion of this task).
tions for socioemotional competence. Currently, This is interesting, insofar as it suggests that there might
be an interaction between sociocultural influences and
however, there is no dataset that incontrovertibly
gender-specific hormonal traits in producing antisocial
supports either moral sentimentalists or rational- behavioral patterns and emotional dispositions.
ists, nor is there evidence to arbitrate between
cognition-based and emotion-based theories of References
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1. I am grateful to Owen Flannagan for this phrase. antisocial personality disorders, and psychopathy.
2. In this study, as family dysfunction increased, gen- Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry
otype accounted for increasingly less variance between 71:727–31.
twins’ antisocial behavior; the authors suggest that genes Blair, R. J., S. Budhani, E. Colledge, and S. Scott. 2005.
might play a role in an individual’s “susceptibility” to Deafness to fear in boys with psychopathic tenden-
adverse environments. cies. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry
3. An interesting study by van Honk et al. (2004), 46:327–36.
however, shows that administration of testosterone to Button, T. M., J. Scourfield, N. Martin, S. Purcell, and
healthy women causes performance deficits like those P. McGuffin. 2005. Family dysfunction interacts
seen in sociopaths and psychopaths: the testosterone with genes in the causation of antisocial symptoms.
decreases sensitivity to punishment and increases Behavioral Genetics 35:115–20.
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 Tankersley / Psychopathology, Neuroscience, and Moral Theory  ■  357

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