Psychopathy is a personality disorder

The argument

There is no cure for psychopathy because it is a personality disorder. A personality disorder is a type of mental disorder where a person can exhibit an unhealthy pattern of thinking or a set of behaviors. People with personality disorders can have trouble relating to other people. The way that psychopathy affects people’s entire thought patterns makes psychopathy very difficult for psychologists to treat. It is not possible to cure how someone else thinks, since it depends on that person’s willingness to change how they think. For instance, one of the distinctive traits of psychopathy is a lack of empathy. The ability to think empathetically is a learned trait. There is no medication a doctor can prescribe to make a person empathetic. A person must choose to think empathetically. Without empathy, a psychopath cannot sympathize with the people they harm, which then leads them to believe they have done nothing wrong. If a psychopath cannot see what they have done is wrong, then they will see no need to change. Scholars also argued that if one attempts to cure psychopathy, the cure would be extremely different from cures for neurological impairments. The brain plays an important role in how people experience the world. Yet, there is a difference between a neurological impairment like Parkinson’s and a personality disorder. Parkinson’s is a physical disease that affects how the brain works. Psychopathy, on the other hand, does not physically affect the brain’s ability to function. Due to how each mental issue interacts with the brain, the approaches to treating Parkinson’s and psychopathy are different. This difference is what makes psychopathy treatable but not curable.

Premises

Counter-arguments

According to other scholars, brain structure is tied to psychopathy. Dr. Kent Kiehl, an expert on psychopathy, discovered that psychopaths have reduced grey matter in the paralimbic system of the brain. The paralimbic system controls our behaviors and emotions. Having reduced grey matter in the paralimbic system makes sense then since that is the area where psychopaths are the most challenged. Unfortunately, it still does not present a cure to psychopathy. The finding only serves to reinforce that psychopathy is the product of a person's development.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The dichotomy between a personality disorder and a physical brain condition is not one the evidence supports. Structural and functional differences have been reported in psychopathy, and personality disorders generally are not understood as free of biological substrate. [Rejecting P2] Empathy is not a single learned skill that must be chosen. Cognitive and affective empathy are distinguishable, the first is trainable, and treatment does not require the patient to want to become empathetic — behavioural programmes aimed at reoffending work through incentives and consequences instead. [Rejecting P3] This renders the conclusion unfalsifiable. If lacking empathy entails being unable to want to change, no evidence of change could ever count against it — yet intensive programmes with young people scoring high on these traits have reported reduced reoffending. [Rejecting C] 'Cannot be cured' depends on a standard the argument never sets. If cure means eliminating the trait, few personality disorders are curable; if it means substantially reduced harm and improved functioning, the claim is contradicted by treatment outcomes.