Research

Larsen, R. R. (under contract). Zombie Science: When Discredited Ideas Refuse to Die. Reaktion Books.

Larsen, R. R. (2025). Psychopathy Unmasked: The Rise and Fall of a Dangerous Diagnosis. The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/15188.001.0001 (opens in a new tab)

Psychopathy assessments influence sentencing, parole, and other consequential decisions throughout the North American criminal justice system. Drawing on decades of empirical research, this book challenges the longstanding assumption that individuals labelled psychopaths are uniquely dangerous or possess distinctive psychological characteristics. It argues that these claims lack adequate scientific support and that psychopathy assessments should no longer be used to inform legal decision-making.

Larsen, R. R., Ades, E., Shroff, Y., McLaren, S. A., Griffiths, S., Jalava, J., & DeMatteo, D. (2026). The use of psychopathy assessments in Canadian case law: A quantitative and qualitative survey of court records from 1980–2023. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 32(1), 73–94. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000472 (opens in a new tab)

This study investigated the use of psychopathy assessments in Canadian courts between 1980 and 2023. We reviewed 3,315 court cases and found that psychopathy assessments were used in two distinct ways: either as a clinical measure of psychopathy or exclusively for risk assessment purposes. Psychopathy assessments are most commonly introduced in court by prosecutors, with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (PCL-R) being the most frequently used tool. The use of psychopathy assessments increased by 858% from the year 2000 to its peak in 2013, followed by a 10-year gradual (63%) decline. There was evidence of adversarial allegiance where prosecution-retained experts gave defendants higher PCL-R scores (d = 1.08) compared to defense-retained experts. PCL-R assessments showed poor reliability when comparing paired scores between prosecution and defense experts, suggesting a high risk of Type 1 and Type 2 errors. Intraclass correlation coefficient between prosecution- and defense-retained experts was .079 (95% confidence interval [CI] [−0.12, 0.34]), where 40% of experts had a ≥ 5.9 points scoring difference. A qualitative analysis of 183 expert testimonies on the perceived forensic risk and treatment prospects associated with psychopathy showed significant variability in expert testimonies. Most experts linked psychopathy to a high risk of recidivism (72.36%) and described it as a categorically untreatable condition (50.63%), where many experts also stated that treatment makes psychopathic persons worse (15.82%). These findings suggest that some expert testimonies on psychopathy are not aligned with the empirical research. We discuss the potential implications for legal practitioners and comment on the future role of psychopathy assessments in Canadian courts.

Larsen, R. R., McLaren, S. A., Griffiths, S., & Jalava, J. (2025). Do psychopathic persons lack empathy? An exploratory systematic review of empathy assessment and emotion recognition studies in Psychopathy Checklist samples. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 31(2), 115–133. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000435 (opens in a new tab)

Psychopathy assessments are widely used in the legal system to inform decisions about sentencing, rehabilitation, etc. Recently, these assessments have become controversial as long-held beliefs about psychopathy are contested. One common claim that has yet to be scrutinized is the assumption that psychopathic persons lack empathy. This hypothesis has been studied extensively in forensic samples, but there are few relevant systematic reviews to inform forensic practices. We conducted a systematic review of empirical studies testing empathy in persons assessed with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) scales. Included studies (n = 66) measured general, cognitive, and affective empathy across two different paradigms using (a) empathy assessment tools and (b) emotion recognition tests. These studies had great heterogeneity in their reporting of effects, precluding a meaningful meta-analysis. A structured overview of results showed a total of 1,672 effects were reported across 66 included studies (N = 5,711) of which 182 effects (10.89%) were statistically significant and 1,490 effects (89.11%) were nulls. Exploratory analyses revealed that high-powered studies had a significantly larger proportion of nulls (89.29%) compared to low-powered studies (81.45%), suggesting a potential problem with false-positive discoveries in the research literature. In conclusion, we found little evidence to suggest that PCL psychopathic persons have different empathic capacities, thus challenging the common assumption that psychopathy is associated with a lack of empathy. We discuss the implication of these results for the current and future use of PCL assessment in forensic settings.

Deming, P., Griffiths, S., Jalava, J., Koenigs, M., & Larsen, R. R. (2024). Psychopathy and medial frontal cortex: A systematic review reveals predominantly null relationships. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 167, 105904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105904 (opens in a new tab)

Theories have posited that psychopathy is caused by dysfunction in the medial frontal cortex, including ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). Recent reviews have questioned the reproducibility of neuroimaging findings within this field. We conducted a systematic review to describe the consistency of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings according to anatomical subregion (vmPFC, ACC, dmPFC), experimental task, psychopathy assessment, study power, and peak coordinates of significant effects. Searches of PsycInfo and MEDLINE databases produced 77 functional and 24 structural MRI studies that analyzed the medial frontal cortex in relation to psychopathy in adult samples. Findings were predominantly null (85.4 % of 1573 tests across the three medial frontal regions). Studies with higher power observed null effects at marginally lower rates. Finally, peak coordinates of significant effects were widely dispersed. The evidence failed to support theories positing the medial frontal cortex as a consistent neural correlate of psychopathy. Theory and methods in the field should be revised to account for predominantly null neuroimaging findings.

Sackris, D., & Larsen, R. R. (2024). The disunity of moral judgment: Evidence and implications. Philosophical Psychology, 37(2), 351–370. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2022.2056437 (opens in a new tab)

We argue that there is significant evidence for reconsidering the possibility that moral judgment constitutes a distinctive category of judgment. We begin by reviewing evidence and arguments from neuroscience and philosophy that seem to indicate that a diversity of brain processes result in verdicts that we ordinarily consider “moral judgments”. We argue that if these findings are correct, this is plausible reason for doubting that all moral judgments necessarily share common features: if diverse brain processes give rise to what we refer to as “moral judgments”, then we have reason to suspect that these judgments may have different features. After advancing this argument, we show that giving up the unity of moral judgment seems to effectively dissolve the internalism/externalism debate concerning motivation within the field of metaethics.

Jalava, J., Griffiths, S., & Larsen, R. R. (2023). How to keep unreproducible neuroimaging evidence out of court: A case study in fMRI and psychopathy. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 29(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000383 (opens in a new tab)

The amount of neuroimaging evidence introduced in courts continues to increase. Meanwhile, neuroimaging research is in the midst of a reproducibility crisis, as many published findings appear to be false positives. The problem is mostly due to small sample sizes, lack of direct replications, and questionable research practices. There are concerns that a significant proportion of neuroimaging evidence introduced in court may therefore be unreliable. Guidelines governing the admissibility of scientific evidence—Frye and Daubert—are not designed to weed out such data. We propose supplementing Frye and Daubert with minimal reproducibility criteria that allow judges to make informed admissibility decisions about neuroimaging research. To demonstrate how this could work, we subjected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) findings on psychopathy—evidence that has been admitted in court—to a minimal reproducibility test. A systematic PRISMA search found 64 relevant studies but no sufficiently powered, directly replicated evidence of a psychopathy-related neurobiological profile. This illustrates two things: (a) the probability of false positives in this data set is likely to be unacceptably high and (b) the reproducibility of similar neuroimaging evidence can be evaluated in a straightforward way. Our findings suggest an urgent need to modify admissibility guidelines to exclude low-quality neuroimaging data.

Makowski, D., Chen, A., Larsen, R. R., Boyle, G., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2023). Clinical neuropsychology in the era of neuroimaging. In G. J. Boyle, Y. Stern, D. J. Stein, B. J. Sahakian, C. J. Golden, T. M.-C. Lee, S.-H. A. Chen (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of clinical neuropsychology. SAGE Publishing. (Chapter 4) https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529789522.n4 (opens in a new tab)

This chapter provides a critique of current neuroimaging methods used in neuropsychological research and clinical practice, limitations and challenges of integrating neuroimaging findings within clinical neuropsychological practice, as well as potential future directions.

Sackris, D., & Larsen, R. R. (2023). Are there “aesthetic” judgments? Erkenntnis. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-023-00663-w (opens in a new tab)

In philosophy of aesthetics, scholars commonly express a commitment to the premise that there is a distinctive type of judgment that can be meaningfully labeled “aesthetic”, and that these judgments are distinctively different from other types of judgments. We argue that, within an Aristotelian framework, there is no clear avenue for meaningfully differentiating “aesthetic” judgment from other types of judgment, and, as such, we aim to question the assumption that aesthetic judgment does in fact constitute a distinctive kind of judgment that is in need of, or can be subject to, distinctive theorizing. We advance our argument primarily through demonstrating that leading contemporary accounts of aesthetic judgment do not successfully distinguish a type of judgment in that they do not tell us how making an aesthetic judgment differs substantially from judging that 2 + 3 = 5, that football is entertaining, or that today is Tuesday.

Sackris, D., & Larsen, R. R. (2023). The perniciousness of higher-order evidence on aesthetic appreciation. Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217323000070 (opens in a new tab)

We demonstrate that many philosophers accept the following claim: When an aesthetic object is apprehended correctly, taking pleasure in said object is a reliable sign that the object is aesthetically successful. We undermine this position by showing that what grounds our pleasurable experience is opaque: In many cases, the experienced pleasure is attributable to factors that have little to do with the aesthetic object. The evidence appealed to is a form of Higher-Order Evidence (HOE) and we consider attempts to overcome said evidence. We argue they are unsuccessful. We conclude by considering what this means for our practice of making aesthetic judgements.

Sackris, D., & Larsen, R. R. (2023). Are there “moral” judgments? European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 19(2), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.19.2.1 (opens in a new tab)

Recent contributions in moral philosophy have raised questions concerning the prevalent assumption that moral judgments are typologically discrete, and thereby distinct from ordinary and/or other types of judgments. This paper adds to this discourse, surveying how attempts at defining what makes moral judgments distinct have serious shortcomings, and it is argued that any typological definition is likely to fail due to certain questionable assumptions about the nature of judgment itself. The paper concludes by raising questions for future investigations into the nature of moral judgment.

Jalava, J., Griffiths, S., Larsen, R. R., & Alcott, E. (2022). Genetic correlates of PCL-R psychopathy: A systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 66, 101765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2022.101765 (opens in a new tab)

Background & objectives: Though it has been argued that courts should admit biogenetic evidence on psychopathy, no research to date has evaluated whether individuals with clinical psychopathy have consistent genetic correlates. The current study: 1) systematically reviewed all quantitative and molecular genetic studies of PCL-R psychopathy, and 2) assessed the quality and reproducibility of findings. Review methods: Using PRISMA guidelines, we reviewed 1 heritability and 15 molecular genetic studies of PCL-R psychopathy. Sample characteristics, research design, and the main findings of each study were qualitatively synthesized according to candidate neurotransmitter systems. We also assessed broad metrics of study quality such as sample generalizability, accounting for environmental or clinical variability in analyses, and replication of effects. Results: Heritability estimates for the facets of clinical psychopathy were low. Molecular genetic findings were inconsistent and mostly unreplicated. Further, replicated findings were contradictory; elevated dopamine metabolite levels observed in independent samples was qualified by a lack of association between a candidate dopamine polymorphism and PCL-R scores. Inconsistent findings may be related to issues with study quality. Though most studies had clear hypotheses and generalizable samples, few accounted for clinical complexity of those samples, environmental factors, or gene-environment interplay. Implications: The current review suggests that the genetic bases of PCL-R psychopathy are not robust enough for forensic application. Genetic findings in people with antisocial characteristics (violence, addiction, CU traits) may not generalize to those with PCL-R psychopathy.

Larsen, R. R., Maschião, L., Piedade, V., Messas, G., & Hastings, J. (2022). Applied ontology for phenomenological psychopathology? A cautionary tale – Authors’ reply. The Lancet Psychiatry, 9(10), 766. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(22)00309-1 (opens in a new tab)

Larsen, R. R., Griffiths, S., Jalava, J., Burns, J., Khoshabe, R., Raposo, N., & Sng, D. (2022). Psychopathy assessments in forensic psychiatry: A pilot study of Canadian practitioners’ use and perceptions. Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, 9(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRPP-02-2022-0007 (opens in a new tab)

Purpose The purpose of this study was to survey practitioners’ use and perceptions of psychopathy assessments in Canadian forensic psychiatric settings. Psychopathy assessments are widely used in forensic settings to inform decisions about sentencing, placement, rehabilitation and parole. Recent empirical evidence suggests that the utility of psychopathy assessments might be overestimated, leading to a debate about their legal and ethical justification. However, one shortcoming of these discussions is that they rely heavily on anecdotal evidence about how exactly psychopathy assessments influence forensic decisions, due to a general lack of survey data on field uses. Some data are available in European and American contexts, but little is known about Canadian clinical practice. Design/methodology/approach To address this shortcoming in the literature, the authors conducted a pilot study of practitioners in forensic psychiatric units in Ontario (N = 18), evaluating their use of psychopathy assessments, reporting habits and their perceptions of psychopathic offenders. Findings Practitioners reported that they primarily used the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) as a risk assessment tool, often in combination with other tools. Most clinicians reported using psychopathy assessments infrequently, that there was a low base rate of psychopathic offenders and their attitudes and beliefs about psychopathy were generally consistent with the empirical literature. Originality/value This pilot study provides novel insights into the use of psychopathy assessments in Canadian forensic psychiatry with the potential to inform current debates.

Larsen, R. R., Maschião, L., Piedade, V., Messas, G., & Hastings, J. (2022). More phenomenology in psychiatry? Applied ontology as a method towards integration. The Lancet Psychiatry, 9(9), 751–758. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(22)00156-0 (opens in a new tab)

There have been renewed calls to use phenomenology in psychiatry to improve knowledge about causation, diagnostics, and treatment of mental health conditions. A phenomenological approach aims to elucidate the subjective experiences of mental health, which its advocates claim have been largely neglected by current diagnostic frameworks in psychiatry (eg, DSM-5). The consequence of neglecting rich phenomenological information is a comparatively more constrained approach to theory development, empirical research, and care programmes. Although calls for more phenomenology in psychiatry have been met with enthusiasm, there is still relatively little information on how to practically facilitate this integration. In this Personal View, we argue that phenomenological approaches need a shared semantic framework to drive their innovative potential, thus enabling consistent data capture, exchange, and interoperability with current mental health data and informatics approaches (eg, the Research Domain Criteria project). We show how an applied ontology of phenomenological psychopathology offers a suitable method to address these challenges.

Larsen, R. R., Koch, P., Jalava, J., & Griffiths, S. (2022). Are psychopathy assessments ethical? A view from forensic mental health. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 9(4), 260–286. https://doi.org/10.1037/tam0000184 (opens in a new tab)

We survey the forensic use of psychopathy assessments and analyze whether they comply with ethical standards in forensic mental health. We conclude that there are pressing ethical problems with these assessment tools as they are associated with nonbeneficial and harmful consequences and minimal social benefits, thus calling for an immediate and universal cessation of psychopathy assessments in forensic settings.

Hastings, J., & Larsen, R. R. (2021). Integrative paradigms for knowledge discovery in mental health: Overcoming the fragmentation of knowledge inherent in disparate theoretical paradigms. In J. Tenenbaum, P. Ranallo (Eds.), Mental health informatics: Enabling a learning mental healthcare system (pp. 295–316). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70558-9_12 (opens in a new tab)

The domain of mental health is inherently complex, spanning across multiple disciplines, data types, descriptive levels, and approaches. This complexity has brought considerable challenges in terms of how to facilitate efficient knowledge discovery and integration across disciplines in the domain. The vocabulary and semantic frameworks in use across these different descriptive levels are fragmented and contested, and it is difficult to gain an overview of what is known across all the relevant bodies of knowledge and practice. In this chapter, we review progress that has recently been made towards integrative semantic and computational frameworks for structuring and advancing mental health research. This includes the paradigm shift incubated in the NIMH’s RDoC effort, which offers a roadmap for studying the nature of the complex interactions within and between human systems: biological (body, brain), mental (mind), behavioral, social, and environmental. We also review computational approaches to infer and model relationships between entities that explicitly cross levels of explanation and disciplinary boundaries. We describe the quantitative methods that are used to integrate and analyze across heterogeneous datasets, and the epistemological challenges that face the field when attempting to determine mechanistic explanations that move the global understanding of mental health forward.

Jalava, J., Griffiths, S., Larsen, R. R., & Alcott, E. B. (2021). Is the psychopathic brain an artefact of coding bias? A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 654336. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.654336 (opens in a new tab)

Questionable research practices are a well-recognized problem in psychology. Coding bias, or the tendency of review studies to disproportionately cite positive findings from original research, has received comparatively little attention. Coding bias is more likely to occur when original research, such as neuroimaging, includes large numbers of effects, and is most concerning in applied contexts. We evaluated coding bias in reviews of structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) studies of PCL-R psychopathy. We used PRISMA guidelines to locate all relevant original sMRI studies and reviews. The proportion of null-findings cited in reviews was significantly lower than those reported in original research, indicating coding bias. Coding bias was not affected by publication date or review design. Reviews recommending forensic applications-such as treatment amenability or reduced criminal responsibility-were no more accurate than purely theoretical reviews. Coding bias may have contributed to a perception that structural brain abnormalities in psychopaths are more consistent than they actually are, and by extension that sMRI findings are suitable for forensic application. We discuss possible sources for the pervasive coding bias we observed, and we provide recommendations to counteract this bias in review studies. Until coding bias is addressed, we argue that this literature should not inform conclusions about psychopaths' neurobiology, especially in forensic contexts.

Larsen, R. R., & Sackris, D. (2021). Amused by the outrageous: The morally tempering effect of news satire. In B. Robinson (Ed.), The moral psychology of amusement (pp. 131–150). Rowman & Littlefield. https://doi.org/10.5040/9798881816322.ch-8 (opens in a new tab)

In this contribution, we suggest a different approach to measuring and assessing the impact of news satire on the political process. Instead of asking the broad question of “What effect does news satire have on participatory democracy?,” we shall form a (testable) theory that seeks to qualify and guide an initial answer to the question: “What effect should we expect news satire to have on participatory democracy?” Perhaps by first developing a theory that lends itself to prediction, can we then develop better test/research paradigms. At the very least, perhaps such a theory can serve to explain why research into this area has yielded such mixed results.

Larsen, R. R., & Hastings, J. (2020). From affective science to psychiatric disorder: Ontology as semantic bridge. In D. Telles-Correia, E. Cheniaux (Eds.), New perspectives in psychopathology (pp. 108–120). Frontiers Media SA. (Reprint of the 2018 article in Frontiers in Psychiatry) https://doi.org/10.3389/978-2-88963-551-1 (opens in a new tab)

Advances in emotion and affective science have yet to translate routinely into psychiatric research and practice. This is unfortunate since emotion and affect are fundamental components of many psychiatric conditions. Rectifying this lack of interdisciplinary integration could thus be a potential avenue for improving psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. In this contribution, we propose and discuss an ontological framework for explicitly capturing the complex interrelations between affective entities and psychiatric disorders, in order to facilitate mapping and integration between affective science and psychiatric diagnostics. We build on and enhance the categorisation of emotion, affect and mood within the previously developed Emotion Ontology, and that of psychiatric disorders in the Mental Disease Ontology. This effort further draws on developments in formal ontology regarding the distinction between normal and abnormal in order to formalize the interconnections. This operational semantic framework is relevant for applications including clarifying psychiatric diagnostic categories, clinical information systems, and the integration and translation of research results across disciplines.

Larsen, R. R., & Sackris, D. (2020). Feeling the aesthetic: A pluralist sentimentalist theory of aesthetic experience. Estetika, 57(2), 116–134. https://doi.org/10.33134/eeja.212 (opens in a new tab)

Sentimentalist aesthetic theories, broadly construed, posit that emotions play a fundamental role in aesthetic experiences. Jesse Prinz has recently proposed a reductionistic version of sentimentalist aesthetics, suggesting that it is the discrete feeling of wonder that makes an experience aesthetic. In this contribution, we draw on Prinz’s proposal in order to outline a novel version of a sentimentalist theory. Contrasting Prinz’s focus on a single emotion, we argue that an aesthetic experience is rudimentarily composed of a plurality of emotions. We acknowledge and discuss significant problems that follow from such a theory, arguing that a pluralist version of sentimentalism is nonetheless the soundest position within sentimentalist aesthetics.

Larsen, R. R., & Hastings, J. (2020). Mapping the patient’s experience: An applied ontological framework for phenomenological psychopathology. Phenomenology and Mind, 18, 200–219. https://doi.org/10.17454/pam-1815 (opens in a new tab)

Mental health research faces a suite of unresolved challenges that have contributed to a stagnation of research efforts and treatment innovation.One such challenge is how to reliably and validly account for the subjective side of patient symptomatology, that is, the patient's inner experiences or patient phenomenology.Providing a structured, standardised semantics for patient phenomenology would enable future research in novel directions.In this contribution, we aim at initiating a standardized approach to patient phenomenology by sketching a tentative formalisation within the framework of an applied ontology, in the broader context of existing open-source Open Biomedical Ontologies resources such as the Mental Functioning Ontology.We further discuss a number of prevailing challenges and observations bearing on this task.

Larsen, R. R. (2020). Psychopathy as moral blindness: A qualifying exploration of the blindness-analogy in psychopathy theory and research. Philosophical Explorations, 23(3), 214–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/13869795.2020.1799662 (opens in a new tab)

The term psychopathy refers to a personality disorder associated with callous personality traits and antisocial behaviors. Throughout its research history, psychopathy has frequently been described as a peculiar form of moral blindness, engendering a narrative about a patient stereotype incapable of taking a genuine moral perspective, similar to a blind person who is deprived of proper visual perceptions. However, recent empirical research has shown that clinically diagnosed psychopaths are morally more fit than initially thought, and the blindness-analogy now comes across as largely misleading. In this contribution, the moral-blindness analogy is explored in an attempt to qualify anew its relevance in psychopathy theory and research. It is demonstrated that there are indeed theoretically relevant parallels to be drawn between blindness and psychopathy, parallels that are especially illuminating when accounting for the potential symptomatology, dimensionality, and etiological nature of the disorder.

Larsen, R. R. (2020). Are psychopaths moral-psychologically impaired? Reassessing emotion-theoretical explanations. Mind & Language, 37(2), 177–193. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12317 (opens in a new tab)

Psychopathy has been theorized as a disorder of emotion, which impairs moral judgments. However, these theories are increasingly being abandoned as empirical studies show that psychopaths seem to make proper moral judgments. In this contribution, these findings are reassessed, and it is argued that prevalent emotion‐theories of psychopathy appear to operate with the unjustified assumption that psychopaths have no emotions, which leads to the hypothesis that psychopaths are completely unable to make moral judgments. An alternative and novel explanation is proposed, theorizing psychopathy as a degree‐specific emotional deficiency, which causes degree‐specific differences in moral judgments.

Larsen, R. R., Jalava, J., & Griffiths, S. (2020). Are Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) psychopaths dangerous, untreatable, and without conscience? A systematic review of the empirical evidence. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 26(3), 297–311. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000239 (opens in a new tab)

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL; Hare, Neumann, & Mokros 2018) scales are among the most widely used forensic assessment tools. Their perceived utility rests partly on their ability to assess stable personality traits indicative of a lack of conscience, which then facilitates behavioral predictions useful in forensic decisions. In this systematic review, we evaluate the empirical evidence behind 3 fundamental justifications for using the PCL scales in forensics, namely, that they are empirically predictive of (1) criminal behavior, (2) treatment outcomes, and (3) a lack of conscience. We found the PCL scales can predict criminal behavior to a statistically significant degree, though with important limitations. We found no evidence of PCL psychopathy being predictive of treatment and rehabilitation outcomes. We found no evidence of PCL psychopathy being predictive of a lack of conscience. These findings disprove widespread beliefs about PCL psychopathy among forensic practitioners and questions the current and future role of the PCL scales in forensic settings.

Larsen, R. R., De Cruz, H., Kaplan, J., Fuentes, A., Marks, J., Pigliucci, M., Alfano, M., Livingstone Smith, D., & Schroeder, L. (2020). More than provocative, less than scientific: A commentary on the editorial decision to publish Cofnas (2020). Philosophical Psychology, 33(7), 893–898. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2020.1805199 (opens in a new tab)

Larsen, R. R. (2019). Psychopathy treatment and the stigma of yesterday’s research. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 29(3), 243–272. https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2019.0024 (opens in a new tab)

The psychiatric diagnosis of psychopathic personality-or psychopathy-signifies a patient stereotype with a callous lack of empathy and strong antisocial tendencies. Throughout the research record and psychiatric practices, diagnosed psychopaths have been predominantly seen as immune to psychiatric intervention and treatment, making the diagnosis a potentially strong discriminator for treatment amenability. In this contribution, the evidence in support of this proposition is critically analyzed. It is demonstrated that the untreatability perspective rests largely on erroneous, unscientific conclusions. Instead, recent research suggests that practitioners should be more optimistic about the possibility of treating and rehabilitating diagnosed psychopaths. In light of this finding, concrete ethical challenges in the forensic practice surrounding the psychopathy diagnosis are discussed, adding to a growing body of research that expresses skepticism about the forensic utility of the diagnosis.

Larsen, R. R. (2019). Psychopathy treatment and the stigma of yesterday’s research. In F. Allhoff, S. Borden (Eds.), Ethics and error in medicine (pp. 262–287). Routledge. (Reprint of the 2019 article in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal) https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429266119-14 (opens in a new tab)

The psychiatric diagnosis of psychopathic personality-or psychopathy-signifies a patient stereotype with a callous lack of empathy and strong antisocial tendencies. Throughout the research record and psychiatric practices, diagnosed psychopaths have been predominantly seen as immune to psychiatric intervention and treatment, making the diagnosis a potentially strong discriminator for treatment amenability. In this contribution, the evidence in support of this proposition is critically analyzed. It is demonstrated that the untreatability perspective rests largely on erroneous, unscientific conclusions. Instead, recent research suggests that practitioners should be more optimistic about the possibility of treating and rehabilitating diagnosed psychopaths. In light of this finding, concrete ethical challenges in the forensic practice surrounding the psychopathy diagnosis are discussed, adding to a growing body of research that expresses skepticism about the forensic utility of the diagnosis.

Sackris, D., & Larsen, R. R. (2019). A consideration of Carroll’s content theory. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 54, 245–255. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-019-09693-6 (opens in a new tab)

In this paper, we consider Noël Carroll’s Content Theory (CT) (2015) and argue that a key problem with CT is that it can be interpreted in two distinct ways: as a descriptive theory of aesthetic experience and as a normative prescriptive theory. Although CT is presented as a descriptive theory of experience, much of what Carroll says implies that CT can also be understood as a theory about how one ought to look at artworks. We argue that when understood as a descriptive theory, CT fails to qualify as a meaningful theory of aesthetic experience. We then interpret the theory prescriptively. Ultimately, this second interpretation is also found lacking: if the aim of the theory is to instruct one on how to view art, it is no longer an attempt to characterize the experience of art. We conclude by arguing that the main flaw in CT is its approach: we cannot meaningfully characterize an experience by enumerating the objects that supposedly cause said experience, and any theory that takes such an approach is likely to be unsuccessful.

Larsen, R. R., & Hastings, J. (2018). From affective science to psychiatric disorder: Ontology as semantic bridge. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9, 487. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00487 (opens in a new tab)

Advances in emotion and affective science have yet to translate routinely into psychiatric research and practice. This is unfortunate since emotion and affect are fundamental components of many psychiatric conditions. Rectifying this lack of interdisciplinary integration could thus be a potential avenue for improving psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. In this contribution, we propose and discuss an ontological framework for explicitly capturing the complex interrelations between affective entities and psychiatric disorders, in order to facilitate mapping and integration between affective science and psychiatric diagnostics. We build on and enhance the categorisation of emotion, affect and mood within the previously developed Emotion Ontology, and that of psychiatric disorders in the Mental Disease Ontology. This effort further draws on developments in formal ontology regarding the distinction between normal and abnormal in order to formalize the interconnections. This operational semantic framework is relevant for applications including clarifying psychiatric diagnostic categories, clinical information systems, and the integration and translation of research results across disciplines.

Larsen, R. R. (2018). False-positives in psychopathy assessment: Proposing theory-driven exclusion criteria in research sampling. European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 14(1), 33–52. https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.14.1.2 (opens in a new tab)

Recent debates in psychopathy studies have articulated concerns about false-positives in assessment and research sampling. These are pressing concerns for research progress, since scientific quality depends on sample quality, that is, if we wish to study psychopathy we must be certain that the individuals we study are, in fact, psychopaths. Thus, if conventional assessment tools yield substantial false-positives, this would explain why central research is laden with discrepancies and nonreplicable findings. This paper draws on moral psychology in order to develop tentative theory-driven exclusion criteria applicable in research sampling. Implementing standardized procedures to discriminate between research participants has the potential to yield more homogenous and discrete samples, a vital prerequisite for research progress in etiology, epidemiology, and treatment strategies.

Larsen, R. R. (2015). The posited self: The non-theistic foundation in Kierkegaard’s writings. Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 20(1), 31–54. https://doi.org/10.1515/kierke-2015-0104 (opens in a new tab)

We may correctly say that Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most influential Christian-religious thinkers of the modern era, but are we equally justified in categorizing his writings as foundationally religious? This paper challenges a prevailing exclusive-theological interpretation that contends that Kierkegaard principally writes from a Christian dogmatic viewpoint. I argue that Kierkegaard’s religion is better understood as an outcome of his philosophical analysis of human nature. Conclusively, we should appreciate Kierkegaard first as a philosopher, whose aim is the explication of human subjectivity, and not primarily as an orator of Christian orthodoxy

Larsen, R. R. (2013). Schelling and Kierkegaard in perspective: Integrating existence into idealism. Res Philosophica, 90(4), 481–501. https://doi.org/10.11612/resphil.2013.90.4.3 (opens in a new tab)

Søren Kierkegaard is often considered to be one of the most vocal critics of German idealism.The present paper analyzes the philosophical similarity between Friedrich Schelling's early idealistic work and Kierkegaard's existential writings, endeavoring to display Schelling's epic 1809 publication Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom as a possible forerunner to Kierkegaard.This juxtaposition reveals concrete similarity that supports the thesis that Schelling's work could have been of great inspirational value for Kierkegaard, especially Kierkegaard's core concepts such as freedom, morality and God.However, Schelling's early work is primarily appreciated as a philosophy of nature (metaphysics), and therefore fundamentally different from Kierkegaard's theistic-psychological writings.The present paper tentatively opposes this distinction, concluding that if Schelling really is a forerunner to Kierkegaard, then we ought to appreciate Kierkegaard's writings as conveying more than a theological message.The conclusion suggests that Kierkegaard's writings should be interpreted in a broader philosophical context, closer to the metaphysical idealism he is often assumed to resist.Only one who has tasted freedom can feel the longing to make everything analogous to it, to spread it throughout the whole universe.