Autonomy, enactivism, and psychopathy

ABSTRACT Most philosophical discussions of psychopathy have centered around its significance in relation to empathy, moral cognition, or moral responsibility. However, related questions about the extent to which psychopaths are capable of exercising autonomous agency have remained underexplored. Two central conditions for autonomous agency that are highlighted by many existing accounts include (1) reasons-responsivity, and (2) authenticity. However, available evidence indicates that psychopaths are inadequately responsive to reasons in general and other-regarding reasons in particular, and also seem to lack a set of enduring concerns that might reveal which desires and attitudes are truly theirs. This leads them to behave impulsivity and to disregard the interests and concerns of others. Drawing from the enactivist approach in philosophy of mind and the notions of habit and affordance, I argue that both their prudential deficits and apparent moral failings are rooted, at a deeper level, in a lack of well-developed affective framing patterns and a corresponding disruption to selective attention.