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Psychopathy, neuroscience and the law: A primer for courts and policymakers
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Date
2026-03
Abstract
Psychopathy sits at a highly charged intersection: between neuroscience labs and sentencing courts, corporate boardrooms and prison cells. It evokes strong intuitions about dangerousness, risk, and moral blameworthiness. It also attracts confident claims that “the science” has finally revealed the psychopath’s brain, personality, and likely future behaviour.
The reality is more complicated. Psychopathy is an important construct, but it is also scientifically contested, methodologically fragile in places, and conceptually out of step with many of law’s binary categories. If courts and policymakers uncritically import psychopathy findings, particularly those cloaked in brain images or definitive test scores, there is a real risk of overreach: unfair labelling, distorted sentencing, and policy built on unstable foundations.
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School of Law, University of Limerick
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Sustainable Development Goals
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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International