Aware: the common-sense view of the world is not the only one (Image: John Firth/BIPS/Getty Images)
People with serious mental disorders may understand morality after all, reveals a book by an ethics professor who pioneered research in a high-security hospital
AS A professor of ethics at Kingâs College, London, Jonathan Glover is accustomed to using the Socratic method to help his students refine their moral beliefs by answering tough philosophical questions. The technique, which originated in ancient Athens, is often used in colleges and law schools. One place you donât typically encounter it, though, is in a high-security psychiatric hospital.
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ÂYou donât typically encounter the Socratic method in a high-security psychiatric hospitalÂ
In the 1990s, Glover decided to take it to Broadmoor Hospital in the south of England. There he probed a common stereotype about psychopaths â that they lack a conscience â by discussing ethics with them. Those dialogues form the starting point for Alien Landscapes?, a wide-ranging philosophical investigation of psychology and a psychological examination of philosophy.
Glover was interested in the thinking of people with all sorts of psychiatric disorders. As a result, he says, âthe voices of people with psychiatric diagnoses should be listened to attentively,â in marked contrast to âbland, abstract accounts of antisocial personality disorderâ.
Most of the men at Broadmoor were from broken homes, all had committed serious crimes and been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. The assumption was that they were amoral, and therefore unable to comprehend their crimes. Even so, Glover observes: âOne of the striking features of people on psychiatric wards is how much their conversation is about topics also discussed in philosophy journals.â One thing they have in common is an awareness that âthe common-sense interpretation of the world is not the only oneâ.
Glover decided to ask the men seemingly simple questions, such as what they would teach a child about right and wrong. Many responses were predictably shallow. A patient, CQ, said that children shouldnât swear, and perceived no ethical distinction between cursing and bullying. For ZC, who identified stealing as wrong, the only explanation was self-interest: âYouâll be locked up, locked in prison and well â you suffer. You lose your freedom.â
Glover probed deeper, using a thought experiment formulated by Plato, Socratesâs student, which allows us to commit a crime wearing an invisibility ring. Some patients (including ZC) saw no problem with stealing or killing if you couldnât be seen, but others had more complex views. âIt would be wrong, yeah,â said JF, âbut if you could get away with it, youâd be one step above the law.â
A casual listener might think JF as amoral as ZC, but not Glover. He heard something that made him think it âdid not fit the conceptual core of amoralismâ. Many of the men had a âvocabulary of moral conceptsâ, and by carefully directing his questions, he found ethical qualities mapping onto those concepts, such as fairness and respect. For Glover, it was a bridge between psychopaths and the rest of us, because it showed there are many dimensions to the disorder, and most of them overlap with personality traits of some people deemed normal.
One obvious conclusion is that diagnostic boxes do not suffice in psychiatry. A subtler conclusion is that the thinking of people with disorders of the mind can enrich philosophy. Glover believes that it can, from ethics to epistemology.
His book often loses focus, meandering between the ambiguous and the obvious, but one place he clearly shows the interests of the philosopher in psychosis is when he writes about delusions. People who believe they have been, say, abducted by aliens, will often know if a set of beliefs is internally consistent but can seldom judge about whether the set is plausible.
What delusional people lack, Glover posits, is âthe emotional âfeelâ of an ideaâ much as their âemotional âfeelâ for other people is often weakâ. Delusions, in other words, reveal the powerful role of emotion in acquiring knowledge, challenging the notion that epistemology is purely rational.
If youâre prepared to listen, as Glover has, the Socratic method may seem perfectly natural, even at Broadmoor Hospital.
Harvard University Press
This article appeared in print under the headline âSocrates for psychopathsâ
